Originally Posted by kimbb

I flew from Amsterdam to Johannesburg yesterday in business class. When I checked in there were plenty of free seats. Les than one hour before departure, during my transfer from Amsterdam (I came from Stavanger) I checked the seating status again as I wanted to make sure I had a free seat next to me, which I did. In fact, more than half the seats in business class were still free.

After boarding we were offered the usual drink and there were still plenty of free seats. I was looking forward to a quiet flight with lots of attention from the FA's.

But then suddenly lots of people entered the forward cabin. Holiday travellers with children and noise . I don't know for sure, but it seemed to me they were all upgraded. All seats in business class were taken, not a single free seat! Some of them had platinum luggage tags on their bags.

Never experienced this before. I thought KLM was quite restrictive with free upgrades? I am of course happy for those who were upgraded, but it was not the quiet flight I had hoped for. Especially annoying with two 5-6 year olds on the row in front of me who adjusted their seats up and down every 30 minutes (annoying because the KLM cabin is not particularly private), and the 16 year old next to me who was first extremely thrilled about the business experience and sent texts to all her friends before departure and later proved to be very demanding towards the FA's...

Interesting experience

So: Has KLM adopted a new upgrade policy? Perhaps I should fly economy and bet on upgrades instead of buying the expensive business tickets? Probably not a good bet though...