Originally Posted by
wpr8e
It's not broken. It's the way it has always worked at CO. What's changed it the demand for First is up, and the availability of Instant up from B fares.
You forget that B fares are much higher than they were a year go, so obviously demand for that is necessarily down (Econ 101). I do agree that they're being stingier than in the past and we don't really know whether it's a business decision or a technical glitch, although CO Insider popped in here a while back suggesting a glitch, but hasn't been back to comment since. If it's a business decision, then I think people are rightly upset, because they do
not seem to be selling these seats, either at F/A fares or as YBM-UPs. But we really just don't know.
Plus why does it matter if you get upgraded 5 days out or at the gate? You're still sitting in First.
It's been discussed upthread - the main issue is lack of a choice of seat selection. It's sort of the whole idea behind the 5/3/1-day windows. Upgrade higher levels first and let them have first choice of remaining seats. When everyone is upgraded at once at T-24 you're stuck with what the computer assigns.