Ran into a funny/absurd/annoying situation regarding upgrades and waitlist. I have a booking for 2pax on a flight which has 1 instant upgrade availability. We would like to travel together (in the same cabin and in nearby seats) so that we can spend the flight having a conversation. As a platinum, I was able to get us exit row seats and the flight is short enough that we would manage with only the plat salads in Y.

If I want to upgrade both of us, it obviously goes to the waitlist as there is not immediate availability for 2pax. For our upgrades to go through, 2 U obviously need to become available. AY will (most likely) at some stage release more U seats but this currently available 1 U seat will not be "reserved" for my booking. In effect, someone on the same flight looking to upgrade just 1pax will see this 1U instant availability and can book this upgrade for themselves. Then we would need 2 more U seats to be released. As AY seems to drip feed the new U seats (rarely releasing more than one more at a time), then this vicious circle repeats.

The only way to go around this was to take the instantly available 1 U seat and split the booking, waitlisting the other passenger. There is of course no guarantee that the other upgrade will clear (that seats will be released). The agent told me, however, that if the other upgrade does not clear, I could always cancel the first one and go back to the Y exit row seats.

Cheers,

Tseta