<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Austman:
No business class boarding pass is supposed to be given at check-in. But that's not 100% enforced. I believe that sometimes they might give you a boarding pass and take your coupons at check-in.
Without the boarding pass, if you are NOT Star Gold, you will not have access to SAS's lounges. That's a big negative with gate upgrades. And it makes upgrading virtually useless for Star Gold members on European flights. Why would they do it? You already have business class check-in and access to the lounges. On MD80s, the seat is the same size. Only the meal service is slightly better... Well there are a couple of reasons to do upgrade and one is that you might try using some expired certificates. Another is to be able to sit with someone who has a business class ticket.
It would be a lot nicer to get confirmed upgrades before the flight, the way the US airlines do. I think SAS leave it to the gate because that's where they can decide if there is space and meals available in business class.
I used some recently expired coupons to upgrade my flight Stockholm-Paris the other day. It was a 737 and at least I'd get a 'wider' seat and 'better' meal. At check-in I said that I'd like to use 2 x 5000 point certificates. They had expired just a few days ago and I was hoping they would not notice. The check-in agent noted my request to the gate. But her colleague asked me 'are you going to use certificates or have it directly deducted from your account?'. I didn't know the latter was even possible, but it might be the way of the future, at least in some airports where they have access to your EuroBonus account.
At boarding time, I went to the gate agent and said I had requested an upgrade. She knew this, asked for my certificates and then with her pen, wrote the new seat on my existing boarding pass.
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Austman, nice to hear from you again.
I am going to use it for a CPH-SIN flight 15 hours flight-time so it is definately worth it. You are right it is not a good system, if you are not a goldcard holder (i am) you can't use lounges, and if you are there's not many reasons to get upgraded i europe-flights. I think SAS is avoiding to give the option to prebook upgrade in order to sell more business-class seats, but I hope they have to do it soon. Other European airlines like Lufthansa are doing it.