Originally Posted by
Henry82
My original question is referring to "cash upgrade at the counter" not the unlikely "free upgrade". It's wishful thinking, but I imagined that if there were unsold F/C class seats 30 mins before takeoff, airlines could offer these seats at a discount to make additional revenue.
They generally don't have discounted upgrades, but they have had such promotions every now and then (or, at least, they've done it at least once; it came up when we were checking in about.... five years ago?).
Originally Posted by
Ben777
The only exception to this is when you are an elite member (Paragon, Emerald, and sometimes Gold), and your ticketed cabin is completely full, you may get an upgrade to the next cabin class up, in order to get more people on the plane without bumping anyone.
I don't think it's limited to elite members, but more like it's extremely unlikely to get bumped up unless you're an elite member; I've gotten bumped to business before and I'm far from ever getting Gold.