Originally Posted by
Syzygies
The general question is this:
Within 24 hours before departure, are Mileage Upgrade Rewards, SWUs, and CR1s sorted first by fare class, or first by elite status, on the upgrade standby list?
Reread CO Insider's recent post carefully, it contains new information:
As of a few months ago, flyers who have waitlisted miles for an upgrade appear on the upgrade standby list ahead of elites waiting for a complimentary upgrade. If these "Reward" flyers clear, they do not get their miles returned.
What no one has specified online, is how this particular cluster of flyers is sorted, within the upgrade standby list, as of a few months ago.
It is of interest to me because on Thursday afternoons EWR to SFO I always waitlist miles for an upgrade. Several times I have been the last person to upgrade, and several times I have been left #1 on the list (e.g. out of 62), not upgraded. If it is worth thousands of dollars to anyone to ever sit in front, then this question is worth thousands of dollars to me. Given that there's a slim chance of a complimentary upgrade on these flights, some might view this as a dilution of elite benefits.
When other upgrade certs (SWUs, CR1s) enter the mix, one can ask the same question. If on many routes, the complimentary upgrade becomes a rare event, then many of us should wonder how much elite status matters.
Something is definitely broken if waitlists within waitlists been to be prioritized for the off chance of an upgrade. Someone needs to get real here: eliminate "complimentary upgrades" for non-Platinums as a published benefit and/or limit the number of upgrades going out and/or increase the number of F seats available for upgrade. There are so many upgrade mechanisms out there now (not even including all the revenue ways to get yourself up front) that it's got to be close to illegal for publishing an upgrade benefit to lower tier elites (definitely silver, maybe gold) that they can't possibly fulfill.