Originally Posted by
ACflyerDE
Regarding AC, I do like their Executive First seat (business class) and the nonstop to YYZ where you can do US pre-clearance is convenient. You can infact use miles to upgrade, AC participates in the *A upgrade scheme. However these seats come out of the award bucket and are generally limited to 2 on each flight, so they are gone very quickly. The better way to upgrade though is through their eUpgrade credits you already mentioned, these can only be used by AC Top Tier members. Once you reach at least 25K status miles, including a minimum of 5 flights or 10K on AC aircraft, you get Prestige status the following year (instant recognition starts at 35K) and can start using the credits. If you buy a flexible fare, AC calls these "Latitude", you can get a confirmed upgrade at time of booking if R class is available. Not sure how much a Latitude CPH-YYZ-MCO return is but CPH is one if the cheapest points to start from within Europe.
Just wanted to come back and say thanks for this detailed information. AC has Latitude fares for ca. DK 15,000 / US $2,500 in B class, which is upgradeable with a *A upgrade. Using ExpertFlyer, I've checked lots of dates and while many dates have only 1 seat available for *A upgrade, I have found dates with 3 seats. So once we can set dates, I know what to look for. As you said, R upgrade availability is quite good - R9 on most dates I checked, but it's unlikely we can fly enough to get AC status.
SK's upgradeable fare is also similar but I'm not able to check availability of upgrades. LH, who have the best itinerary, are around $2900 for an upgradeable fare.
I also checked some dates on Icelandair as suggested, and found some business fares for around $2,000, so that is an option, although not quite the same as Business class on other carriers.
This has been very helpful!