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Old Nov 15, 2017, 10:18 pm
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canadiancow
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
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YBYL (You Board You Lose) on AC?

"YBYL" is an acronym often mentioned on the DL or AA forum (I can't recall which - maybe both).

Basically, it means if you're waiting for an upgrade, you need to wait at the gate. If you board the plane, and someone in a higher cabin no-shows, the seat is going to someone who hasn't boarded yet (or it stays empty).

On United, my experience has been that it's very common for the GA to come on board and hand out upgrades to people already seated in Y.

On AC, I suspect the answer to this is going to be "it depends how the GA feels", but I'm hoping we can get some anecdotes.

What does AC do?

Here's my most recent experience:

I was paid J YYZ-SFO, and the flight was overbooked. I VDB'd, but they couldn't pay me until they actually had more people at the gate than seats on the plane. Which meant by the time they offloaded me, there were 3 people at the gate who wanted to fly.

One of them got my J seat, even though there were ~20 people on the onload list, waiting for a seat in J. This person was a Tango GTE. I'd bet a round of beers that number 1 on the list was a Super Elite, and (s)he sat in Y.

The moral of my story is that if you want J, board last. But what has everyone else experienced?
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