Ever been one of the last bodies to board before the door closes and then see the slew of empty F/C and E/C seats as you trek back to Y? I frequently ask myself, “If I just take a seat up here, and play it cool, could I get away with it?” I realize that there are many ethical and moral reasons against doing this, and for some FTers, even entertaining this idea by responding to my thread is out of the question. I do not want to start a (read: another) long thread about right and wrong. No lecturing is needed here.

I have been the last to board either an RJ or flight <1500 miles, asked the GA for a complimentary Medellin upgrade (and was not previously on the list), got it and a new BP, and assumed my cushy F/C seat. The FA had zero reaction either way. At this point, the manifest either was not in hand or had not been revised to indicate my upgrade. I was never subsequently asked to present a BP. So, setting aside the BIG fact that it is wrong to do, I still ask the question. If a pax was last to board, effectively eliminating the chance of assuming a seat assigned to another pax, could he get away with a self-upgrade to F/C or E/C? Forget trying this on long haul flights or vessels with two rows that are stocked with CC requesting your BP as if there is some secret code they need to detect to tell you which aisle you should use to access your seat).

I would like to particularly like to hear from CC. Do you ALWAYS do a headcount for F/C or E/C and compare to the manifest? What do you do if there is an extra body? Would it matter if it doesn’t appear to create a problem (i.e. all passengers in that cabin are business-savvy… no drunks or loud and obnoxious behavior)? Other than humiliating the pax, rightfully so, are there any other direct consequences the passenger for trying (i.e. reporting, FF account sanctions, etc.)?

Would also like to hear from any pax that have witnessed a FA make someone do the walk of shame.

I log ~15,000 miles and 15 segments/month, most in Asia. I am never going to see most of the pax again, so if it is just my pride, and if there was a decent shot at getting away with it, I would be tempted to try this regularly. I just spent two weeks exclusively on CZ and GA, where so many “locals” are too cheap to spring $50 for E/C. F/C (“Executive” on GA) was nearly empty, which I suppose was because so few had the necessary status for upgrades. On CZ I had E/C to myself, which was fine. But GA is not yet synced up with Sky Team, so no upgrades available. Also note that I typically get the company the best deal on my ticket, and frequently do not collect miles making the Medellin status a long trek to reach.

I trolled the forums for more than three hours reading about seat switching and squatters. In all except one case (the drunk on a PHL-IND flight willing to pay $1000 to upgrade his partner, IIRC), the threads were about people in the same class switching seats and pax trying to “share” a J or F ticket.