Seems logical... unless you are an E and you don't get an upgrade because an SE upgraded a non-status companion ahead of you. Only thing that's clear to me is that in the upgrade priority game, the degree to which something "seems logical" is generally proportional to how much closer it gets the observer to getting his or her butt in the front cabin.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but most systems have flaws in them. As a post above correctly identified these flaws are more or less severe depending on the degree to which one is personally affected. Right now, I'm fairly happy with the system overall, but tend to fly only on M-class flight passes and paid long-haul J (e.g., based on my experiences to date I suspect the current system was designed for people with my purchasing behaviour).

Are there frustrations? Yes, for instance, I was waitlisted on a flight to BOS last night for 4 days despite the fact that there J > 5 on a 9 seat plane. Even last night when I flew I was waitlisted until about 4 minutes before I got on the plane, only to find that there were still 3/9 empty J seats. Big problem? No. Annoying? Yes.

Anyway, in my opinion, the current system is better than the previous system for the following reasons:

1.) Increased ease of upgrade and upgrade management
2.) Better transparency over upgrades (maybe its just because I can control the system online)
3.) Increased number of upgrades for me personally
4.) Decreased number of people in J class as a whole
5.) Increased flexibility in use of upgrades -- at my current pace of flying and purchasing I will be hard-pressed to burn all my credits, as will many on this board I suspect. Being able to upgrade family members and not waste credits is actually a huge benefit now for me personally.

Is the system perfect? No. Does it work essentially as we were promised it would work? Yes.

"Seems logical... unless you are an E"

True but what is the pecking order. Should a SE guest have priority over a Prestige member. Should a SE guest that is a Prestige member have priority over a Prestige member?

Lots of combos to think about. Keep it simple seems to work best. I can live with SE, E, P, SE guest, E guest, P guest but inquiring minds need to know.:confused:

Under the old system, I know that I trumped the significant other of another SE. Flying FRA->YYC a last december, I got the last upgrade on the flight. The guy just before me was trying to get his wife/companion upgraded, but since she didn't have status it was no go.

I know that I would have been rather dissapointed had she been upgraded, leaving me in the back.

In the end, she spent most of the time up front, while he was in back.

"Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug"

- Dire Straits

Wouldn't this be a great situation for the AC team on the board to look into the flight, look at what went wrong with the system, and report back to give everyone some assurance that "we're going to work the bugs out" is really sincere?

Seriously. It would be a good move. I'm sure the OP would be pleased to share the flight details with Andrew or someone.

I am not just a little annoyed with Andrew for failing to make it clear in the first place, nor clarifying it now.

Andrew. We want to know the rules so we can play by them. I also want my six upgrade credits back i wasted on a yow yyz leg this week.

I guess I'm down on the system precisely because it makes more difficult the use of credits by two people on the same PNR who each have their own bank of credits. The old system with the certs made that easy. It seems to me that there has to be a solution to this that doesn't involve complex machinations.

On our YUL-YYZ-YQR flights last weekend we had all sorts of uncertainty due to the complexity of this problem where the old system would have made it easy. We decided after dropping our bags off that we would try to upgrade both flights as my wife was feeling ill (we especially wanted the latter segment). YYZ-YQR was J3/R2, so we should have been able to clear, and YUL-YYZ was J9/R1, so chances were good. At the ticketing desk we were told that it was not possible to be upgraded or added to the list AFTER check in has been completed. To her credit, the agent did some asking about this after we left the desk as by the time we got to the MLL the agent there had a message for us that it could be done and was being done after lots of consultation had happened. We needed to get the process completed at the gate in YUL.

At the gate, the agent clears us and gives us J BPs, but we do not know if we are in J on the second leg (why waste credits for a short hop only?), and no way of knowing whether the credits were taken from each of our separate accounts as we had requested. We clear in YYZ too, and all is well. At home the next day, I check my credits and see that new PNR had been created for me and that 6 credits were used from my account, and presumably 6 from my wife's. It all worked, but a mini army of AC employees appeared to have worked on that to make it function. Kudos to them, but this is not simplified airport management of upgrades and if you don't amenable agents you are likely to be screwed. And no, booking separately is not a reasonable answer in my view as there are advantages to being on one PNR.

This can be done better, I think, and it needs to be. I hated the uncertainty and actually wished that I had simply bought the upgrade at OLCI as offered.

I am coming up to a long haul flight with my wife and I have enough ecredits to upgrade us both. From the preceding discussion, however, it looks like this is going to be problematic. At T-4, what happens if, say, R=2 and I am first in line - do both clear? If the request is waitlisted, and there are a mix of Es and SEs, how does AC handle it if (when) they clear the list ahead of of time and I am still "first" on the list? I assume the SEs clear first, but what happens when they come to my request and there are more requests than seats - if my own clears , I cannot refuse it without "paying" to get my Y seat back, and it won't be the seat I had, ie, next to my wife.

As has been pointed out in this thread, a little clarity on how to handle this pretty common situation would be very helpful!

Can we please move away from bashing Andrew?:( Frankly I'm surprised that he agreed to stay with the board after the fiasco in December.

He is not the creator of the e-upgrade program. He is a social media ambassador for the airline and he could just as easy tell FT members to pound sand if we continue to engage in personal attacks.

Clearly haven't tried to use eUpgrades yet.
 

Really, really basic question that I don't want to start a new thread for:

I request an upgrade for a flight at the 4 day mark, upgrade doesn't clear. Do I keep my original seat in the back?

Bonus question:

Does the answer to the first question change if I try to upgrade at the 24 hour mark for online check-in?



We actually have decent seats in the back for our flight, I don't want to lose them and/or have to pay a fee just because my upgrade doesn't clear.

You will keep your seat assignment unless your upgrade goes through.

However, if you change your mind and refuse the upgrade at the airport (?!), your seats could be picked up by any other traveller and you'd be on your own.

Excellent. A 15 hour flight is a 15 hour flight, I can't imagine us changing our minds!

Where this becomes a problem is if you get upgraded on a short connector flight followed by a longer flight.

For example, flying YVR->YYC->FRA. In the old days, I would decline the upgrade on the YVR->YYC portion if my YYC->FRA upgrade hadn't cleared. No way was I going to waste an SSWU on a 1 hour flight. In the new system, this becomes more difficult, though in my case I don't even bother putting in for an upgrade YVR-YYC

In reality this should be a moot point on many routes. If you decline your upgrade, there will often be someone else waiting for an upgrade. In effect, you're just trading seats.

But it's not a moot point. As has been pointed out in several other threads, if you actually get the upgrade and then try to downgrade again, you will have to pay a fare difference if there is nothing left in the fare bucket you originally bought from. That difference can be pretty harsh if you are forced to go from W to Y or B.

I think that one also has to pay the "fare difference" if the original booking fare is no longer available. For example, one is booked in H but only Y is available when one changes the mind, one must pay the fare difference between H and Y. Changing mind can be expensive. It's more than just losing your originally assigned seat.

I guess I wasn't clear. I was trying to imply that it *should* be a moot point, even though it is not. I understand the economics behind various fare buckets and the like in the lead up to a flight's departure (even though I think most of it is barnyard droppings) but the fact remains that you have purchased an economy class seat on that aircraft for that flight.

This is especially true if someone else gets upgraded because you decline your upgrade. In effect you're trading your business class seat for their economy seat. The net cost to the airline is nil, the net benifit to the airline is increased because they now have two happy passengers rather than one happy one and one angry one.

The only situation where I can see this being a problem is where economy class is full, and there is no one on the waitlist for upgrades. How often does this happen? I don't know, but in that case I think the option should be to either take the next flight or just keep the upgrade.

I could see refusing the upgrade if travelling with my spouse and only one of two upgrade requests comes through. I would try to pass it to my spouse, but there is achance we would want to travel together, and thus the possibility of turning down one upgrade when two had been requested.

I can't believe AC would do this! In the cert days, I had seen people who had booked upgrades and had them come through, only to show up at the gate without a cert, or more often, with the wrong colour cert. There was never any doubt - they would be bumped to the back (economy) but they were not asked to pay an additional fare.

Is refusing a cleared upgrade request covered in the eUpgrade T&Cs?

Just to clarify (hopefully last time ;)) - this has ALWAYS been the policy. If you choose to downgrade prior to departure, you would have to be rebooked in your original booking class; if such booking class is no longer available, you will be booked in the next available one hence the fare difference. If you choose to downgrade at the gate, it would be a simple seat change back to Y since all the transactions at the gate are not based on booking class (just like even if it's R0, all available J seats are made available at the gate for upgrades). Obviously your original seat won't be guaranteed and it'll most likely be gone. This topic has just never came up on FT as I don't recall more than maybe 1 or 2 posts here in the past 10 years where one of you have chosen to downgrade prior to departure date after the upgrade is confirmed; now that the policy is put in writing, some of you think it's new when in fact it's not.

And what happens if you choose to downgrade but Y is oversold at that point (at the gate) ?

Being a troll is a good suggestion? :p

I have not been successful on many occasions on M fares doing the E upgrade window. The only thing I hope is that AC (with the exception of the concierge override for an SE) is following proper protocol for the pecking order of upgrades. Sometimes I have a sneaking suspicion that things aren't done properly, but I hope I'm wrong in this regard.

But having said that, I have been pleasantly surprised once NRT YYZ when I got my ug at the gate after going on the waitlist at the 96 hour window.

What harm would there be in changing the policy such that if there was someone who would be upgraded if you were to decline the upgrade, you simply trade seats? this way AC winds up with two happy customers, and it costs the airline nothing. The person who declined the upgrade is getting an economy class seat, just like what they paid for, and the person who winds up with the upgrade gets a business class seat like they were hoping for.

Andrew. Please clarify the waitlist priority as to SE,E guest if same
Nominee of SE and E, both in the initial process and at the gate

As per what I posted earlier:

Customers on the airport WL are upgraded according to their individual status. Before we start a debate on this - we can't win either way on this one, for example - if there's 1 seat left and we let the non status customer clear along with the status pax, the status pax next on the list will feel unfairly treated that the 1 seat remaining went to someone who personally has no status; so the 'fairer' way to do this is to sort the list according to everyone's own individual status for any leftover J seats.

(And not sure why you're 'annoyed' with me above... I didn't really read all of this thread yet as many are just discussions among you guys on the program. You can't expect me to be reading every single posts and get 'annoyed' at me when I don't reply right away)

Would it be accurate to rephrase it this way?

When requesting an upgrade for a nominee, the nominee gets the benefit of your status only if there is R space available and you are inside your upgrade window. However, once you are at the gate, the remaining upgrades are not R-space upgrades but J leftovers, and the status of the nominating pax becomes irrelevant, except as a "tie-breaker" between non-status companions.

thanks for spending your Saturday nights to clarify things for us

can you let us know in the following scenarios who gets the upgrade?
1)if there are 2 J seats leftover, and the WL consists of the following:
SE+non status guest on same PNR
Elite

2)
SE+non status nominee on different PNRs
Elite

based on my interpretation of individual status, it would seem like the SE and E will get upgraded and the friend no status will be in the back?

My 2 cents...yes, your assumption is correct. Elite trumps a non status passenger. The status who used their credits to nominate you for an upgrade is irrelevant on the WL. It's the status of the individual vying for the spot in J, thus the non status passenger is only cleared once all Elites (and Prestige) are accounted for.

What I would like to know is the following...

SE (not travelling) has requested (via nominee) an E passenger upgrade in the 7 day window, I'll call that individual E1. At the 4 day window, an E passenger (E2) requests an upgrade using their credits. Assuming there is one seat left left in J prior to boarding, does E1 or E2 get the upgrade? I would think E1 but a previous post indicated it would be E2 so thus the reason I would like the clarification.

Don't forget some AC employees have super priority on J seats even over SE.

I have found the change from 4 days to 96 hours (for Elite) very inconvenient. I wish AC can be more flexible to make it 50 hours, 100 hours and 180 hours for P, E and SE respectively.

Since the upgrade priority is not publicized, it is potentially subject to abuse.

I had one personal experience where I held confirmed upgrade seat and was bumped in favour of an AC employee.

as others have reported earlier this year, nominee eligibility is determined based on individual status and not the donor's

This discussion (and a few others on FT) are zeroing in on several areas where questions remain as to how it works. My main interests are:

Is the pecking order different before and after the airport WL?

Does this waitlist kick in at the OLCI 24 hours or at some other time?

Most particularly, if me and and my non status "travel companion" (ie, spouse - that's an important part of the puzzle) are first on the list at 4 days and R= or >2, will we get it?

If not, at airport WL time, it seems very possible that I could get upgraded but not my spouse. From what has been posted here, I can't refuse the upgrade without paying any Y fare difference and losing my seat next to my spouse. Right? AC - not good for relationships! Can an escape clause be built in? Will you let me put my spouse in the J seat instead of me?

Deadheading captain only.

I once saw someone already seated in J on a YYC-FRA who was asked to move back to J to let the captain in front. (BTW he was not in uniform.)

Gate agent tried her best to handle the matter gracefully. Most have offered some compensation.

Ok fair enough about the annoyance part which, if expressed would not be directed at you but the lack if clarity of the rules we need to and wish to play by.


About airport WL. This is not what I was told happened. I was told at yyz lounge that the priority is SE, E, guest of SE, guest of E. Regardless of status of guest.

That means if i use my elite spouse's eupgrades I would rank below a non status SE guest even though I am SE. You are stating that this is not correct?

The fact as it was explained to me at the airport is that my spouse was trumped by other elites because she was a guest of an SE and therefore did not rank equal to other elites. However reservations twice told me she would have the status if SE using my SE eupgrades. My question remains Which of the three stories is the correct one?

HKG staff told me before eupgrades that upgrades are done by the status of the passenger........ based on that, others experience and AY's response if your E spouse sponsored you as SE, you'd be entitled to upgrade at SE times 7 days in advance and at SE waitlist levels at the airport...... vice versa, if you are an SE sponsoring your E wife, then your wife will only be able to request upgrade 4 days in advance and at E waitlist levels at the airport... if the sponsored pax have no status, I guess you'd be looking at the very last minute on call.

I've re-read Andrew's explanation above several times and I see him talking about the priority on the "airport WL ... for any leftover J seats". This is what prompted my question about R versus leftover J, because it sounded to me like leftover J might be prioritized differently than R.

edit: [From my reading of ac.com, what you were told in HKG appears to be incorrect: "The eligibility criteria that apply to your Top Tier status will be the same for your eUpgrade nominee. For instance, if you are a Super Elite member, your eUpgrade Nominee can be upgraded from the same eligible fares and within the same applicable booking window as permitted by your Super Elite status." (Source: http://www.aircanada.com/en/aeroplan...des/share.html)

Based on this, together with what Andrew tells us, it seems that available R space and leftover J at the airport are indeed treated differently. So an E who is nominated for an ug by an SE will get the T-7 window, but if not cleared before hitting the airport WL will revert to E priority on the WL. Or at least that's how it reads to me.]

If you are correct, then there is no difference at all in priority between the original upgrade request/pre-OLCI waitlist and the airport WL. In this case, the easiest way to avoid future confusion is to stop talking about the "airport WL" as if it is a different animal -- the waitlist is the waitlist, period.

That's not what I read in Andrew's message.

Two different pecking orders.

Of course, Souvlaki raises yet another question: what if the companion of the SE/E has status on his own? Is he/she dealt with as companion (with lower priority) or based upon his/her own status?

Actually, I didn't ask this, and it seems that Andrew has already answered it in response to Allvest.

Again, the ac.com excerpt I quoted above seems clear to me: when requesting the upgrade, it is the status of the sponsor that governs and the status of the nominee is irrelevant. Andrew then added the information that the airport WL operates strictly by individual pax status. Taken together, I interpret it all as follows: in the pre-T-24h phase, the Sponsor's status governs and the Nominee's is irrelevant. At some point inside 24h, the waitlist is transferred to the gate and the reverse is true.

If my reconstruction is right, what is unclear to me is when exactly the priorities reverse. Is it at 24h? Or is it when the flight is handed over to the GA's? The reason this is important is if R=0 at, say, T-12h, and a confirmed upgraded pax cancels. What is the priority for reassigning the free R seat? Is the nominee placed based on Sponsor status or Nominee status?

It's all very confusing. And so rather than trying to piece it all together like this, I would join Allvest in asking for a more comprehensive answer as to what the rules are. What we have at the moment remains piecemeal.

Seems simple and clear to me...
 

Translating all the above seems to confirm:

To be confirmed for eUpgrade prior to check-in:
-Top Tier customer and Companion/Nominees eligible for R class will be confirmed, or upgraded from WL, as per the status (and booking window) of the Sponsor.
-A travel Companion must be booked on the Sponsor's PNR.
-All travellers on a PNR must be booked in the same booking class, whatever the cabin. Hence, if unable to confirm and there are 2 people on a PNR on WL for the upgrade, if only 1 R seat later becomes available, it will not clear anyone on that PNR.

Once the waitlist passes to gate control (standby for upgrade after check-in):
-Upgrade pecking order will be in accordance with each individual's status.

wasnt that part of the selling point from AC, that one does not need to re-request to be on the waitlist? (ie. it transfers over from the original upgrade request over to the OLCI wailist)

anyways, so lost now as people are reporting stories, experiences, mind meddlers and staff responses all over the map...............