I understand that one can look at a web site and determine how many potential upgradeable seats (C class?) are still available?

Can one briefly summarize the method? Which part of which web site should I look into? What should I do to determine the number of purchased J class seats, the number of seats already taken by upgrades, or frequent flyer awards, what seats are still available or designated for purchase as J class seats, and what seats are still available for upgrades as C class seats.

If no further purhases or upgrades are made (in business class) during a certain time interval, could the inventory of potential C class seats available for upgrade increase?

Are there proportionately more upgradeable C class seats, all other things being equal, with some flights - domestic versus transborder versus internation; day versus evening versus red eye, planes with a larger number of business class seats in the business class cabin etc?

Go to www.itn.net, log in, set your preferences to expert user than check the flights you want to travel on. It will list the number of seats available in all classes. ie J9, C5, Y9 etc. 9 means there is at least that number of seats, not that there are only 9 seats available.

Upgrade availability is based on a number of factors, but primarily it comes down to a percentage of unsold J-seats that there are at the various upgrade confirmation time limits. For SEs and EPs who can upgrade from most fares at the time of booking, they get first crack at C-seats. But if all J-seats are sold at full fare, then the airline will reduce the C inventory to accommodate paying customers. If the C-seats are all taken by SEs and EPs, then we're out of luck until unsold J-seats are reallocated at check-in.

To increase your chance at upgrading many things must be considered. Don't book your economy seat for a peak travel time of the day or week or season. If you are travelling at peak times, and are an elite, it is quite likely you will benefit from overbooking situations and have priority to be upgraded operationally even when you could not confirm an upgrade in advance. (But you will miss out of the bonus mileage if travelling domestically on such an upgrade.)

Aircraft size is also a factor. DC9s and 737s have 16 and 12 front cabin seats respectively, while larger aircraft have at least 24, thus increasing the C-class inventory available.

I find transcon mid-morning, mid-afternoon or late evening are flights least likely to be booked by J-class flyers because they don't fit the cycle of the business day. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday are less likely to have business travelers who tend to go on Sunday and Monday for early week meetings, and return Friday afternoon and evenings. But each route will have its own characteristics. Leisure spots like MIA, TPA, etc. are not likely to have filled front cabin most days, but those that have a heavy convention trade may be quite difficult to get seats on.

After a few years of travel, you'll figure these things out. In the meantime, check the ITN site as indicated above. And cross you fingers...

Help!

I went on to the web site (is it internet travel network - which is the site of the American Express (USA) web site?).

I did not see an option for expert user.

I only saw the options for advanced search, or speed search. I tried the advanced search option, entered the information of the city pair, dates, airline etc. It only gave me the cost of the fare available for that fare class, for the available flights for the date in question.

I could not figure out how one obtains information about number of seats available at each fare class, for a given flight?

What did I do wrong?

Scroll down the page a bit (on the page after you enter your logon id and password) and in the lower left of the page you will see a section "Personal Tools". Select Travel Preferences and in the popup window that comes up "Display Preferences". Near the top is "Availability Format". Change this to EXPERT! You should be all set. You can also change other things in here like your favorite airlines, number of items to list etc. -- very useful.

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BlondeBomber's Star Alliance Gold Comparison Chart 2000: http://members.home.net/deercroft/starall00.html

Dorian's Star Alliance RTW Price Chart: http://www.informationlab.com/rtw.htm

You also need to have created a user account, and be logged in under that account to be able to access these features.

I finally got through! The trick is to say you are an expert user, or no posting of the seating availability by fare codes.

Some questions:

I plan to go to Vancouver from Ottawa 2 weeks from today; I looked at today's flights (last night) for availibility of upgrade, as a representative model of what I might expect in 2 weeks. Most of the AC flights had J9 C9 - does that mean there are at least 9 seats (at the time I looked last night) available for upgrade (I am a Canadian Plus Gold member)? Does that mean that if there was only 1 C fare code seat available, I as a Gold member could upgrade (being less that 72 hours from flight departure).

The posting does not give the exact number of seats available for each fare code?

I also checked the availability of upgrades for the return flights from Vancouver to Ottawa (either direct, or via Toronto), on the weekend (Sunday of this coming week, as a model of the Sunday flights 2 weeks later). I checked both AC and CP designated flights (although the latter will be history after this weekend).

For the AC designated flight numbers (on either AC or CP planes), most flights said J9/C0 and for the CP designated flight numbers of the same plane (usually B767 or Airbus 320), it said J7. My interpretation is that there are no upgradeable seats? I find that hard to believe, as in the past, I have usually not had a problem upgrading on most of these CP or AC planes (whether the flight was designated as CP or AC). There is on this website, no posting for R class upgradeable seats for CP designated flights. Having 16 J fare code seats available between the 2 airlines (ie 9 + 7) does not make sense, with only 0-2 upgradeable seats (ie it is not compatible with my prior experience of several years flying back to Ottawa - either direct from Vancouver, or via Toronto - where upgrades within 72 hours were easy to obtain).

Is my previous reply being posted?

Some airlines report in batches of 9, others in batchers of 7 as to availability. CP flights always show the C0 because they don't measure the inventory in the same way. (This will all change over the weekend when all flights will show with AC flight numbers, and I suspect AC J and C inventories.)

To see what actual seat availability is, you can book the flights you want in J class, then when "confirmed", look at the actual seat charts. They will show you which seats have been assigned and which ones are open. Then go out of that screen to your booking screen and scroll down and cancel your booking, then exit or rebook on other flights if the empty seat inventory looks poor for upgrading.

I encountered this problem myself - a CP operated daily YYZ-MIA flight that showed J9/C0. It showed C0 for every day I checked.

I called AC reservations and tried to book a seat in C class. They told me there was no availability. I had them check the next day, and then the next day after that, and so on. Still, no availability.

Then I tried calling CP reservations. Guess what - C class (actually, D class) was wide open in all these flights.

Hopefully this problem will go away after the res. system conversion.