avermat

Today got op up HEL-ZRH on full flight with Swiss. Both me and my companion (with different tickets!) got in the front. Probably helped as we agreed the family in queue behind us to try find seats next to eachother and she'll check our seats afterwards. Nice lady had new boarding passes waiting at the gate. Very pleased!

exLHgold

As A3*G I was upgraded from econ+ to business from IAD - CPH on SK about a week ago. When I got to the gate area (around advertised boarding time) they were calling out names from the podium, went up and was given a new boarding pass. No explanation was given (they called a lot of people though) my guess would be that econ/econ+ was oversold.

Had actually forgotten, but about 8 months ago when flying CPH - IAD on SK both the wife and I were upgraded from econ to econ+, that flight was definitely oversold. Both the wife and I were A3*G then too.

DrHalxx

Flew LHR-FRA-ATH today on LH
Y was (most likely) oversold on FRA-ATH leg so got the magic ticket printed on the gate with a smile

I've been A3*G since 2011 and I've only been upgraded twice, once on LHR-ATH in 2012 and once ATH-SKG (or it was new OA? can't remember)

A26 business lounge in FRA was lovely, much nicer than the SEN lounge in A gates

eurotexan

Was flying with family (4 of us in total, including 2 children) on Lufthansa from MUC-BHX last night and when I got to the gate, the little ticket printed out. All 4 of us were upgraded to C, me having A3*G and the other three just A3*P (Blue). The gate agent, when she noticed the children, told us they wouldn't have done it if "they knew it was kids" but let us go anyway as I had waited until the end to board as I didn't hear them call for *G.

Am really shocked to have been upgraded on LH in the first place, but astounded it was all 4 of us. The plane looked full, but I didn't hear any announcements about oversold. I did hear some chatter about the Manchester flight on the adjacent gate in MUC, so perhaps it may have been full and they needed to move people over.

During dinner service, I caught a cheeky glance at the manifest for Business--2 Senators (LH*G), 2 Frequent Traveller (LH*S), 1 NH*G, 2 without any status next to them, and my 3 family that have no status. I guess there were no other LH*G available to move up. Or maybe since they needed 4 seats and we were a party of 4 we were just very lucky?

Anyhow, loving my A3*G

cannylad

NCE-MUC on LH to seat 1A on 23rd July. I held up the queue to get on as the gate agent could not print a new boarding pass. She gave up and said 'can you remember 1A?' lol.
Just before the door closed she came on board with my new pass and presumably another one for the person who got my original seat right down the back

sokolov

United upgraded me from Economy minus (V) to Economy on a EWR-SFO transcontinental. Middle seat. It was automatically assigned during Online Check-in.

The flight was overbooked. The upgrade list for biz displayed at the gate listed 40 pax. Oh, there was also a number of unlucky standby pax.

pewpew

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BB10; Touch) AppleWebKit/537.35+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.3.1.2576 Mobile Safari/537.35+)

Can we please stop thinking of UA economy -> economy plus as an upgrade?

KLouis

If a middle seat in coach counts as an upgrade, how do non-upgraded Economy minus passengers travel when not upgraded? Standing?

krasnoludek

I've been enjoying my A3 Gold for the last 2 years and so has my husband (once he saw that it was legit, he jumped ship from UA in a heartbeat). Our upgrades have been great on LH and LX, where nearly every flight within Europe has been an upgrade to econ+. On transatlantics, we've often gotten econ+ and once or twice gotten business class, which never happened while I was UA gold. Maybe UA was sore at me for jumping ship, but I NEVER got any sort of an upgrade, even to econ+ in the last 2 years on UA, even on nearly empty domestics. But just last week I got treated very nicely by the UA agent at the airport checkin for GLA->EWR and both my husband and I got upgraded to econ+, with her apologizing profusely that she couldn't seat us together. Econ wasn't full, so this was a "voluntary" upgrade on UA's part. I'm hoping it's a sign of UA treating *A Gold a bit better (i.e., not like kettles) and this not just being a fluke.

(Incidentally, I was also surprised by UA offering complimentary beer and wine on the flight. When did that change?)

pewpew

Funny you should ask...

...LH/LX don't offer E+. It's Y, PY and J. PY is only in select markets.
If you were a UA*G and not getting E+, you were doing something wrong. If you were a UA*S not getting E+, that's not exactly comparable to being an A3*G. It's like comparing a mushy orange to an apple. You can decide which is which
June 1/15.

I'm on FT on my vacation. I think I'm doing this vacation thing wrong.

KLouis

Actually, the last time I flew UA (the real one, not the "local" brands such as Mesa) was 4 years ago (by the way, I've never been upgraded by them as *G), so I like being surprised by an Economy minus (what is this, actually?) to Economy upgrade.

During my short vacation of two weeks ago, the WiFi was not accessible from my room. This helped a lot, until I realized that I could go to the terrace and get into the Internet. I guess I'll have to visit a specialist to see how to get rid of this FT habit!

NWIFlyer

It could be genetic. Now, if only we knew of a specialist vaguely working in that area of science who could do some research for us ... .

sokolov

Similar experience on the return trip SFO-EWR where I had an S-class booking. The flight was slightly overbooked. At first, I was automatically (!) checked in at T-24 and given a middle seat in Economy minus. I was able to change that to a window seat.

Just before boarding I asked the lounge staff if a better seat had opened up - and, low and behold, they moved me from Economy minus to an aisle seat in Economy. :-)

The aircraft turned out to be an almost brand new B737-900. The most uncomfortable plane I can remember. I don't know how passengers of size use the restrooms. I hurt myself in there every time, and I'm not fat nor large. And the seats made me sweat immediately. Ugly. Economy minus must make for a horror trip.

KLouis

Someone working with flies and mosquitoes for example? I doubt it!

DrHalxx

ATH-MUC-LHR on LH today both legs overbooked, not upgraded on ATH-MUC
MUC-LHR, boarding computer was down, did not get the magic ticket when I boarded, settled in my exit row seat and there was someone looking for a seat
FA came to me, asked for my boarding pass and then disappeared

I strategically moved myself to the front and she then looked at the other passenger saying "now 10F is free you can go and sit there" while looking at me with a strange/funny look and then sat me down on 1C

I'm sure that if I didn't move myself to the front they would have seated the other chap in C. I'm also pretty sure that this happened because I switched off listening to my noise cancelling headphones and not listening to the crew announcements (they were actually calling my name!)