Originally Posted by dlen111
i believe you are incorrect re OLCI.
say your flight leaves friday at 6pm. you checkin thursday at 6pm. no upgrade. then at midnight, the EUA runs. no upgrades awarded because there is no R availability. then, the rev managemtn people get to the office and run their daily reports on available fare buckets and whatever else they do. they make their changes on your flight and release 3 R seats. let's say they do this around lunch time on friday (the day of your flight). upon arriving back from lunch, i check in for the your same flight using OLCI. i get the upgrade. let's say two more elites check in. they get the upgrades. then whatever seats are left get EUA'd at the 3 hour mark.
once you go on the waitlist, the only way you get up'd is through the nightly EUA, the 3 hour EUA or at the gate.
I think we are sort of talking about the same thing. The day before OLCI was for morning flights the next day. Some R inventory released in the afternoon for the next morning flight - thus those checking in (not at the 24 hour point) but later in the day got the upgrades. Then I suspect that any left seats were not released for the EUA run that night, but standby the next morning.
You are referring to waiting until the day of the flight and doing OLCI for a late afternoon flight - maybe 4-5 hours before the flight. I think CO is (was) doing this (releasing R for OLCI) to encourage OLCI. But what I am seeing now is no OLCI and no EUA release the night before the flight. If you do not get EUA'ed in the 3 to 5 day before window, it will be at the gate.