Originally Posted by
asnovici
My spouse and I have been waitlisted for month DME ATH for a flight that's in about 50 hours from now. There are two seats shown taken on the seatmap out of 12, C9 but I0 is showing in EF, and Upgrade Challenge email was received yesterday to bid 140 Euros per person. We decided not to bid, a day after the email the number of seats available remained the same so it doesn't look like anyone took the offer. However, our waitlist still hasn't been processed.
First, it clearly shows upgrade bids take precedence over coupons. Second, is there anything we can do to influence the WL clearing, like calling Gold line? Is there a possibility they just wont clear the waitlist and Business will go with empty seats and we would remain in coach in that scenario or do they always clear waitlist if there are open seats in business? Flying from DME im not sure there will be anybody at the airport who knows how to clear these coupons if it comes down to clearing before departure time.
From my experience and understanding there is nothing you can actively do to push the upgrade. If there is sufficient availability you will be upgraded either at T-49 (or T-48.1), at the baggage drop or even at the gate. It is also likely that if Y is quite full, they will re-assign some of the available C seats to the Y cabin. Unlike America and Asia, European short-haul C is practically Y with the middle seat free, so no change of aircraft is required for this reassignment, and it can be done literally like 5 mins before departure.
You can try calling A3's gold line but most likely they will simply tell you to wait. If however there are seats available in C it is very likely that you will get upgraded. As a rule of thumb I check on expertflyer whether the C seats sold are not equal to an exact multiple of 4. If say, 2, 5 or 6 C seats are shown as blocked, and you placed your two-person upgrade request early enough, it is very likely that you are getting two of the remaining C seats. (A colleague was once denied a voucher upgrade on a 70% full plane because the first 3 C rows were already complete, and apparently they preferred not to move the curtain yet one row behind just to accommodate a single non-paying passenger, so he stayed in row 4 as Y.) Of course this is not a rule, and you may get (or been denied the upgrade) irrespectively of this.
Good luck with this, and have safe a trip in either case!