metallo

I had a family member flying LAX-SEA this week who was on a very early morning flight out of LAX, and I was actually worried about him getting to the airport in time, because he's not that familiar with LAX. I had purchased a coach ticket and upgraded him at the time of booking with one of my many (often useless to me) GGUs. I noticed very little U space was available except on flights much later in the day, but I decided to call and ask. That turned out to be a very good decision, as the agent said that he could switch to any flight with F seats available because he was upgraded with a GGU (I had to pay $50 for the SDC since he doesn't have status, though).

So, obvious question...

Are GGU upgraded coach tickets guaranteed to be treated as paid First tickets with regard to same day changes? Previously, I didn't think so. In other words, if there's an open F seat within the same day change window, you can change to it? I feel sort of silly if this is the actual policy, because I would have used my GGUs for a lot more flights where I was upgraded anyway, but would have done this for the extra flexibility. (And if this is not policy and I just got lucky, wouldn't it be great if this were the policy? It would certainly make GGUs much more valuable.)

And interesting to speculate... If I just got lucky with this agent, I wonder whether the fact that I had to pay a $50 same day change fee made a difference in what she was willing to do. I could see this being denied if it were a complimentary elite same day change. I also seemingly get agents to "do favors" when I mention it's for a family member, so who knows, maybe she was just being generous. It seems to be a bit of a free-for-all at AS Reservations sometimes with regard to what agents can or cannot (or, perhaps more accurately, will or will not) do.