Originally Posted by NewYorkMoscowFlyer64

I was on the same flight as the original poster (May 7 (arr May 8) JFK to SVO).........I do not want to make the OP feel worse, but I also witnessed something I had never seen before on this flight. After everybody was seated but before the door was closed, the gate agent came onto the plane with a new boarding pass that he gave to the passenger in seat 17F and told this lucky fellow he was being upgraded. Shortly thereafter, a new passenger came on the plane to take seat 17F. I am guessing this is another one of the operational upgrades, but I cannot say for sure. The thing that I had never seen before was the gate agent come onto the plane so late/deep into the boarding process to upgrade an already boarded/fully situated passenger in coach on a tatl flight.

Also, this flight was clearly oversold in coach....when I checked in, I was asked to bid to be bumped to a different flight (and I posted about this somewhere else on this forum because I too checked Expert Flyer and was surprised to be asked to VDB on a flight for which tickets remained on sale)....my bid was not accepted. I asked the gate agent about the potential to accept a VDB and he noted my name and status (same as original poster but on a HKQ fare) and told me to wait to the side....but that was to no avail.

Sometimes on this forum, there are people who can look inside the system and see what happened on a particular flight. I am sure there were at least 2 Diamonds not upgraded...it would be interesting to see if possible the status and fare basis of the flyers that were upgraded versus some of the less fortunates that might have been considered but were not.