Thanks, in large part, to the vagaries of dealing indirectly with a travel agent in IST (her meeting's organizer insisted on doing it this way), Ms SeattleFred's SEA-IST ticket was just issued this morning for her departure on Monday.

Both UA and LH CSR's tell her that her M ticket is changeable, but changes must be made thru LH as the ticket is on LH stock.

Ms SeattleFred is 1P. She is currently booked on #916 which is C9 D8 I0 Z7 on SeatCounter but which the UA CSR claimed is booked full in C IAD-FRA. Currently, there are no upgrades available to C on other routes (via SFO or ORD), although there are varying numbers of C-seats still unclaimed.

Although I have never done this, I am urging her to consider SEA-PDX-FRA-IST with the PDX-FRA on LH. (I have a paper SWU for her to use on LH.) SeatCounter shows C9 on PDX-FRA. Is there any other way to check availability on this LH flight (#469)? Does anyone know if this a reasonably safe bet for an upgrade?

Thanks…