Originally Posted by
beachfan
They need the physical card to process the copay at the gate. Verified by a gate supervisor after I escalated it.
I think the point is that, based on the experience of some, while they may absolutely need the credit card to process the Miles + CoPay, they may just be clearing the upgrades and, in order to not waste time, not actually processing the Miles + CoPay.
While that might be difficult on a TATL flight given there is no specific inventory for complimentary upgrades, on a domestic flight, they might just see you're first on the list, open R inventory and clear you at the last minute as a complimentary upgrade rather than spend time collecting your credit card.
Not sure what is possible for them and what isn't, but I would imagine gate agents, once the flight is under their control, can do lots of things that the system wouldn't allow an agent to do at T-24 or farther out.