Originally Posted by
HalconBCN
I would not worry too much about that. Upgrade decisions can be made on board for various legitimate reasons...e.g. a passenger arriving late from a connection or a family separated and another passenger that refuses to move seats... or someone in Premium who wants to sit with their friend down the back.
The point is, if someone is going to be upgraded, I prefer it is me. And that is where a little friendliness can lead to good karma...
As
Goldorak mentions, none of the examples that you mention would lead to a legitimate onboard upgrade, but beyond that, upgrades decided on the ground and onboard upgrades are entirely different matters and treated entirely differently by the airline.
- On the ground = should be approved by station manager and justified their hierarchicy;
- Onboard = should be approved by captain and justified to their (different) hierarchy.
Finally, you can "not worry about that" if you want, but my comment was not hypothetical or theoretical, it corresponds to real situations of people who have indeed been in trouble for taking it upon themselves to upgrade someone against (then) Gaetan's lists.
For better or worse, the period of the 1970s when you could smile/dress your way to an upgrade without anyone having anything to say about it or could sweet talk the check in agent into waiving the penalty for your 20kg excess luggage is well and truly over. Large airlines like AF, BA, and LH are large bureaucratic monsters with procedures and control, and anyone trying to supersede one such procedure will have to justify it to their hierarchy full stop and had better have a good reason to provide.
My travel experience is old enough that I have experienced that change very directly myself. I partly regret it because I think that it makes travel a less personalised experience but I understand the "argument" of fairness and cost control (upgrades or excess luggage tend to be monetised as ancillary more than ever before).
Bottom line is = if you have "asked for upgrades" (be it at the gate or at check in) and received them, either 1) the system had decided that you would be upgraded anyway and your interlocutor simply took credit for something he/she had nothing to do with, or 2) you are a super duper VIP like one of BNP's or Total's top 5 and have not told us or 3) your interlocutor likes to live dangerously and took some very serious risks for you, including (especially if at an outstation where ground handling is sub-contracted) the very distinct risk to lose their job.