Award/upgrade travel on CO to Europe, is one of the drawbacks of the program.
Have been saving the NW/CO miles for the big skiing trip to Zurich in Feb/Mar. Of course, I'd love to buy the tickets and use my miles for buz/first upgrade on CO.
Can do it on NW, can do it on UA, and likely many others. Instead, a guessing game with CO. 30 day window. maybe, maybe not. This is really inane for those of us who value miles for vacation planning. As the above poster mentioned, he was denied several times. There is nothing automatic/likely here.
For those of you who would like to somehow justify CO's policy here, I'd like to hear it. Yes, you can say it's a profit, sell-the-seats issue. It is. But it is also less beneficial to One Pass or WPerks members. How, in this respect is CO better than the other airlines (most)? They are not. I ask the question to CO, "can I upgrade to bus/first" and the answer is "maybe, but you'll have to buy the ticket first, and wait; if we eventually say "no," then too bad, you're stuck." "And we do say 'no" at times."
Again, one of the banes of the "number one" frequent flyer program. Also, see other threads on CO restrictive policy on domestic upgrades using miles (not elite status). More stringent than other carriers.
I love the airline, just wish the frequent flyer program could improve in a few areas.