ugh. Yeah upgrades are awesome and probly the best part of elite. But there are lots of other benefits.

And bottom line, CO is a business trying (TRYING!) to be profitable, if they can sell that seat sell it! keep the planes in the air so we can get where we need to go. Giving away seats that had other opportunites to sell is not a good business model. I don't think many of us run our businesses with the thought that are product has 7 days left on the shelf so we better just start giving it away rather than discounting it more and more as its shelf like expires.

A plane seat like a hotel room is one of the most pershable commodities round, so do all you need to to earn money when each opportunity presents itself.

I just dont get all this "why dont they give me free things and tell people who want to pay for them to go away" sentiment. I don't imagine lots of us are out there sending CO random checks for no reason, so we shouldn't expect them to do the same, and we should be happy to get the upgrade if it comes about. Or pay and buy the 1st class seat if its so important. or buy a high fare Y seat to increase your chances.

The whole upgrade game is a gamble, truly the more you bet (buyying YBM fares instead of TNL fares) the better your chances of the great award - but no guarantee!

And I love all the posts about "shenanigans" and "someone must have bought that last seat" you can never know. I was recently inbound from FRA to EWR and missed my connection due to late arrival. New flight the upgrade EWR-CLE showed 1st booked and checked in full. 24 people on upgrade list (i was nowhere on the list as I had not checked in for the flight). I rechecked bags, got new seat on new flight, and ended up getting upgraded 30 minutes before flight left. Case of my PLAT, my fare class being F or C trumped all those on the list and most lilely a checked in person missed connection or rebooked last mintue. I didn't even get priority for check in time T-24 since I was not checked in for that flight. So lots of the assumptions people bought out the seats are probably oftern cases like me. I've done this 2 or 3 times on delayed inbound TATL flights and always wonder how many people are behind staring at me with darts that I took their seat.