Originally Posted by
acoburn73
Just booked a vacation for wife and I in April 2019 for the following segments. Want to use SWUs on the flights marked with asterisks below:
DEN-PHL
PHL-FCO*
FCO-ORD*
ORD-DEN
Nothing showing available at booking for SWUs on those legs, and EF has 0 C available (although seat map shows 16 biz seats unoccupied/unblocked on both long haul segments).
Anyone had any luck with getting SWUs cleared on either of those legs (for two people)? If so, how soon? And I have yet to call EXP desk to request the upgrades on those flight segments as I just bought the tix and they've yet to be "ticketed". As soon as they are, I plan to contact and request to be put on waitlist.
SWU upgrades on either of those flights will be a challenge, especially the ORD route, which regularly sells out in business. Seeing many empty J seats over 100 days out is of no use in predicting upgrade success.
On the positive side, DFW-FCO will be running by then, which may relieve some of the overall demand pressure to FCO and improve your chances. That's a complete guess, however.
When I first made EXP about 9 years ago we not only got more SWUs (8) but they were frequently confirmable in advance. That is all a distant memory. Now we get 4 and often find them hard to use even on domestic flights.