Disillusioned with eupgrade program
 

We are nearing the end of the first month of the new eUpgrade program and I am really getting frustrated with it to the point where I have booked Z for two of my next three overseas trips. Here are some of the reasons for my frustration:

1. The windows. It used to be that you can request an upgrade after midnight of the 7/4/2 days window. That was a fixed time that everyone understood and it worked very well. With the strict enforcement of the 168/96/24 hour rule, you have to remember your flight time to the micro-second. Since the micro-second can kick in at any time you may need a Blackberry in the car as well as an understanding police officer.

2. I just cannot understand why they ask you to indicate if you might request an upgrade when you are booking and not carry the information forward through to the upgrade window. You request an upgrade when you book. You are granted one/waitlisted, depending on availability, when your window opens.

3. The connecting flight stuff is just incredible. You may have in excess of three windows to juggle especially when on-line on a temperamental website. Ever tried contacting the website agent when you have a problem?

4. The eUpgrade arithmetic is annoying. I am forever calculating how many certs I have and how many I need for the next flight. There are pieces of upgrades lying around, none enough to do anything with regardless of fare class. And before you start lecturing me on eUpgrade economics, since January, I have purchased M, S, Z, C and J fares. They refuse to be clear on how many of your certs they will keep if you are not upgraded for a portion of your iternary or how many they will demand if because of arithmetic uncertainty you do not request an upgrade for the local and international portions of an overseas trip at the same time.

5. Part 2 of the annoying arithmetic is the award of certs in units of fives and tens and the charge back in random units in which 5 and 10 hardly appear.

6. Then came the widely advertised "sharing". I thought that sharing as advertised included fractional parts e.g. a spouse could transfer some points to his/her partner to top up. No, sharing means sponsorship. A spouse can only sponsor an upgrade as a whole not a fraction. Fractional shares could have eased some parts of frustration #5.

Yeah, you may think you know the answers to my frustration. Stop. What you think is the answer may not be. Talk to two agents and you get three different answers.

From AC's perspective, then, the new program is working great.

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You did not ask if the Z are booked with AC.

:D

One brilliant idea you alluded to is the concept of "automatic UG". I wish we could request this ahead of the UG window and have the system automatically do this for us. Why do we have to call?

Not to be a troll, but other airlines are able to do this.

Base units of 12 would help
 

Taking the math a bit further....

If the eupgrades were given out in units of 12 instead of 10 or 15, and then the pricing for eupgrades could be 1,2,3,4,6,12 with 'likely' more useful bits left over at the end of the year

17 for a long haul upgrade is a prime number. 14 dosen't divide too well either!

I would hate this - What I want is a system which I can use to my advantage over everyone else!

If 20 E's on a T+ fare are all eligible for immediate upgrade at the same instant how will the system decide?

At least the present sytem rewards those who make the effort to log on at the right microsecond.

This is a good suggestion.

But then what would be the point of the upgrade windows then? AC let's you upgrade at time of booking on a Y/B fare. If at time of booking there is no R space, then you get waitlisted and are upgraded when/if R becomes available. There are your 'automatic upgrades'

The whole point of the windows on T+ fares is to ensure a level playing field:

All SE's can request up to 7 days prior, E's up to 4 days prior, and P's up to 2 days prior, all regardless of when they booked their ticket. You forget to request your upgrade when your window opens? Too bad, how sad.

I do however agree with OP regarding the change to # of hours before instead of days...I think it should go back to 00:01 local time from city of departure as it was much easier to manage that way.

I would really agree with the last part. I have a red eye coming home from LAS next Saturday on an M fare. So if i want to book on the microsecond, I need to be up at 2:20am to get on the list.

Aside from that, I don't mind it too much. After a long two weeks of travel, I decided to upgrade my T+ YUL-YOW at the last second. Wouldn't have used a SSWU, but to burn a few credits (about to cross 40k soon any ways) was well worth it (plus the new food in J is excellent and was a decent replacement for not eating dinner).

I just gave the system a bit of a stress test - bought a Lat TATL ticket, moved it five times and then had to cancel it outright (all thanks to a disorganized client). In the process, I learned that if you check into a flight and then cancel the ticket it won't release your credits automatically, or at least it won't if a travel agent made the request. The system also managed to "lose" three credits in the process. There was no record of any transaction, but my available count was low.

On the positive side, AC was able to fix the canceled ticket while I watched and then re-applied the missing three credits a day later.

The way it would work would be that Lat tickets would be upgraded or waitlisted at time of purchase. T+ tickets would be added to a separate list (let's just call it the T+ list).

At the 7-day window, all SEs on the T+ list would be processed (upgraded or waitlisted) in the order that their tickets were purchased.
At the 4-day window, all Es on the T+ list would be processed (upgraded or waitlisted) in the order that their tickets were purchased.
etc.

That way it's as if everyone requested an upgrade when their window opened, but it wouldn't be a race; order would be determined by ticket purchase date, which seems a little more fair.

No offence, but purchase date is a terrible way to do it. The system they have now does offer the perks depending on fare paid.

Latitude, R and your good or you are put on the list, then the SEs join that list at the 7 day rule for T+, etc. etc....and coming down to the wire, all gets resorted by status, fare class, etc. It does make sense and is fare..I think

The exact our of upgrade kind of sucks when you have a west coast red eye and are still in the east when you have to call in an upgrade.

but....there are worst things in life that getting up for 2 minutes to upgrade and rolling over to go back to sleep

But again, what would be the point of the windows? Sure, your upgrade would not clear until the 'window time' but given how tightly AC controls R space on many routes, there might not be any R inventory prior to the T+ windows anyways.

You're suggesting yet another list, with yet another set of priority rules. If it would be based on the time the ticket is purchased, then if that list would fill up to the # of J seats physically on the plane at like 6-8 months out with let's say all SE, then there would be absolutely no chance for a SE who bought a ticket closer to the date from getting an upgrade, let alone an E or a P, and that's hardly fair.

Plus this would erode the 'instant upgrade request' benefit from those that purchase Latitude fares

+1!

I would rather wake up at odd hours of the night to request the upgrade to influence my order in the waitlist vs. letting the computer do it for me.

Huh? What I proposed would work just like the current system, except that (a) you wouldn't have to jump online at a certain time to submit your upgrade request, and (b) when the window opens, upgrades would go to whoever bought their ticket first, rather than whoever has Internet access handy at that moment.

I did not suggest any change to the instant Lat upgrade; Lat/T+ is currently the only difference in when you can upgrade. I did not suggest any change to the number of eUpgrade credits that would be required.

Your question about the purpose of the windows applies equally to the current system. If R is full when a window opens, people get added to the waitlist. Same thing would happen in the system I proposed, except they would be automatically added to the waitlist.

How would the list fill up 6–8 months out? Upgrades would still cost credits; not everyone would request an upgrade. The same number of people would request upgrades as do now, except they could request it at time of purchase, and it would be processed automatically when their window opens.

The overall effect would be the same as if, under the current system, all the T+ pax who wanted to upgrade tried to do it as soon as their window opened, and the tiebreaker for who would get the upgrades (since they'd all be requested at the same time) is ticket purchase date. I think ticket purchase date is much fairer than "whoever has Internet handy and a few minutes free at a certain moment" (which is the current system).

This means I'd probably never get upgraded on a lot of routes, as most of my travel is last minute, so I whole-heartedly disagree with using purchase date as a deciding mechanism. The 7 day window levels the playing field between everyone who could potentially upgrade.

I'm not sure that's true. I have upgraded TATL lat tickets twice this year with available R space and I have also tracked the R space on a few TATL flights - they do open up more often than not well before the T+ windows.

Additionally, just because you see R0 all the time doesn't necessarily mean someone with lat ticket didn't get their upgrade cleared - it's quite possible that AC silently releases an R seat to clear a lat ticket on the waitlist without you ever seeing R goes above 0.

This could be a fun exercise - find a TATL or TPAC with R0 that is at least a month or two out, buy a lat ticket and get on the waitlist, wait until a day or so before the T+ window and see if AC releases an R seat to clear your upgrade before the T+ window. Cancel your ticket and get a refund once your curiosity is satisfied.

I have to agree. I commented a few weeks ago that the system is designed to leave unused credits at the end of the year. The arithmetic clearly leads to this conclusion, however another poster suggested I was being obtuse, inferring that AC would never dream of engaging in such contrived and calculated subterfuge. It seems clear to me that the way the arithmetic works out is no accident.

When it first came out, it was 20 credits to upgrade a long haul flight from lower booking class T+ flight.

The situation now isn't that much different from having a handful of NAU or SWU left at the end of last year (why couldn't they give you a few more SSWU in exchange of zero SWU/NAU, you could have argued).

I would personally like the upgrade window to be n days + 4 hours. This is because I am on the same flights every week. For me to register in time means requiring wi-fi access on the plane.

Just a thought.

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The field will still be level. When you book and request an upgrade it is in the system. When your window opens, the system processes your request automatically. Who gets in first can be a random pick. Right now priority is perhaps random when everyone gets out his/her Blackberry at microsecond t to request an upgrade.

exactly, Z fares via ORD to HKG on UA are mighty attractive from time to time and UA's product is actually nice to HKG....most certainly competative with AC's.

I totally agree!

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You could ask someone to do it for you at the appointed hour.

The list could absolutely fill up 6-8 months before. Think of routes like YYZ-HKG or YVR-SYD where you have a lot of people wanting to upgrade, and not a lot of upgrade opportunities. Also, say just prior to the SE window, there was R3. That would mean that 3 SE who bought a cheap K or L ticket 6 months ago and requested an upgrade then will get upgraded over the one who bought their M ticket yesterday. Why would AC even want to do that from a financial perspective? Now yes, under the current system, the first 3 SE to request and get their upgrade could be the ones who bought their cheap tickets a while ago, but at least the SE who bought their (expensive) M ticket yesterday has an equal opportunity for the upgrade.

+1. Exactly my point.

I need to train one of the progeny (a way to earn some extra allowance).

since i sit in front of a computer for 16 hours a day, i should provide an assistance service eh?

Just name, Aeroplan #, Booking Reference, Flight/Time of departure and I will work my magic

My wife is elite...started at 35 eups. She used 17 for a hkg yyz flight. I sponsored her return trip. She collects another 10 eups, for a remaining total of 28. She will use those by sponsoring my upgrade on a round trip yyz fra later.

Easy, eh....not

What a stupid thing for ac to put their customers through. Great post, op.

I note with amusement that the " bright ideas " and comments about how simple it is to handle these little annoyances come from elites.

Dear ac elite members. One day, when you spend as much time flying as working for a living you might come to understand that an annoying activity repeated many times will have an impact on one's life, not to mention consumer behaviour.

Ac. do us a favor. Make eups happen automatically, at least for now by managing cnx flights.

Prime numbers can't be divided by anything except one and itself. That is not the reason why the eup credit don't fit.

ummm, all due respect Allvest.... i think those whom has known me personally and comfortable placing trust on me would probably... think of this as a friendly offer of assistance and not just a wonderful idea coming from an elite.........


long story short, i dont understand why couldnt AC just accept the eupgrade inputs and when 7, 4, 2 days come have the computer automatically assign the upgrades based on booking class within each top tier.

I know you are a good guy. But of course this should not require assistance.

well like you said, sometimes busy fliers such as yourself dont have enough time in the world to keep on pounding the eupgrade website.... but anyways we'll let AC deal with this

Eh,

There are annoyances in this system exactly the same way there were annoyances in the last system. The reality is that no system is perfect, and most systems advantage some people and disadvantage others.

I'm surprisingly fine with the system as it is (CNX thing is a bit annoying though).

Quick way to tie up all your e-credits
 

If AC was to use the book in advance system based on purchased date being proposed, you would sure put all of your e-credits in limbo really fast. You would put your request in months in advance and hope for an upgrade...in the meantime, you wouldn't be able to apply for any others as all your credits would be awaiting possible upgrade.

I'm sure that would peeve more people off than the current system...:p

[QUOTE=newsguy911;16148751]If AC was to use the book in advance system based on purchased date being proposed, you would sure put all of your e-credits in limbo really fast. You would put your request in months in advance and hope for an upgrade...in the meantime, you wouldn't be able to apply for any others as all your credits would be awaiting possible upgrade.

I'm sure that would peeve more people off than the current system...:p[/QUOTE
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One can drag up any scenario under which an "automatic" system will not work for one. I have been top tier continuously for 12 years and have heard it all. If you buy a latitude fare you can upgrade automatically if there are R spaces; if there is none, you are waitlisted. The R space is allocated on a first come (book), first served basis. Two excellent suggestions have been made about prioritizing upgrade allocation when a window opens - date of booking or fare class. I have suggested a randomized process. Any of these suggestions will be far better than the current clock watching for a pax traveling from Bora Bora.

I really believe that in the end that upgrade success will not differ significantly from what it is now if window-based automatic. What will be different is the reduction of anxiety created by the present system.

I lose a little bit of me each time I make that call for an upgrade. Some agents remind me that if I really want to travel Executive, I should buy an Executive ticket. They are right and I do so when my budget allows me. But I wish that I were not occasionally reminded that an upgrade is something of a favor. It is not but that is how the process makes me feel. In my next incarnation, I will be rich enough never to ask for an upgrade. Maybe, I will be a proud owner of a private jet.

not really, because you would program the computer system in a way to only review the credits, eligible booking class and booking class hierarchy at 7, 4, 2 days before departure.....adding on in advance is just to express an interest.

they can make it more sophisticated, by filtering the status miles within each tier (ie. a person that has flown 61,000 would have priority over someone that has flown 60,999 miles).