Originally Posted by
rbakker
In late 2021 I was able to use some PlusPoints on a trans-Atlantic flight without needing to be waitlisted. Now all I see is waitlists, for every date that I look at and every destination. Is that just the way it is now, you just go on the waitlist and hope for the best? Or has anyone seen non-waitlisted PP upgrades to Business?
Nothing between March 2020 and April 2022 should be used for any comparisons.
Advance PZ space — which is the inventory needed for non-GS upgrades, including 1K PlusPoints — has been increasingly difficult to find. This is one of the reasons I suggested caution before spending thousands of dollars reacquiring 1K status. I was able to find PZ for a TATL trip in July, but it took about a week of daily searches across all plausible routes before I found flights that worked in both directions at the same time. If you don’t care to invest that level of effort, and you’re not willing to add connections / fly through alternate gateways / fly at inconvenient times / non-preferred days of the week / etc., then you’re likely to be waitlisting, and there’s a very real chance that the waitlist is as far as you’ll get.