They do. I've had it happen twice this year on domestic flights.

Yesterday this was my experience at FRA:

10 min. before official boarding time 0905, I asked the GA if my u/g had cleared. She said the UG list would be determined at 0920 when they'd call by name and that I had should come back and wait by the side.

At 0920 there were 4 of us waiting. Boarding had started. Nothing happened until almost everyone had boarded. Meanwhile, one passenger had rushed in from out of the blue and after some lengthy inquiries with a GA did what I think was a LMU (saw him later in J). One of us who later approached the GA counter was told J was very tight and that he should board and if anything came up they'd find him. Finally, only when no regular passengers were waiting to board did the GAs start determining the UG list and printing BPs. Mine was the second of two names to be called and we were handed our BPs - after 0940. It certainly wasn't good for the third passenger who was practically the last to board Y (full overhead bins, etc). Though I doubt it, I hope, if he didn't have one, that they reassigned him my original 'preferred' exit row Y seat instead of letting it be grabbed by someone at random.

There surely ought to be a better way. The concerns about missing out on priority boarding are valid - worse if one's going to be among the last to board. AC need to review their practice. If they have the BPs printed well ahead, fine, and if there are many seats up for grabs I don't know how practical it would be, but at least on flights where they know only a few seats are going to be involved, I think they ought to let people board and then move them up from inside (and if someone chooses to wait outside for the u/g because it's too much hassle boarding and changing seats then the trade off with priority boarding is their choice).

In contrast to ACA321's experience, at least the GAs in FRA were reasonably polite!

In terms of the process of clearing upgrades, nothing has changed. Upgrades are only cleared once a flight is closed (within 30 mins for domestic and 60 mins for the others); very often if there are only a few seats left in J, the agent will wait to see if any misconnects which will result in additional J seats being freed up (and this is especially true at a station with lots of connections such as FRA and LHR) hence there is often a delay in announcing that J is full and please board with your original boarding pass. Most of you will probably agree that it's rare these days that the J cabin remains wide open and your R doesn't clear prior to departure day?

Thanks for the update. The issue I and others seem to be encountering more frequently is that the upgrade list isn�t processed at all in a timely manner after the flight has closed. On int�l flights it used to be common to see upgrades being processed at T-55min, and a few more pax may have received an upgrade at T-30min or T-20min (incl. GA coming onboard to reseat pax) due to misconnects. Now, however, it seems upgrades are only processed much closer to scheduled departure while boarding is underway which is a major nuisance.

Could you please confirm that boarding with Y does not affect our chances of being upgraded / affect the upgrade list?

On a related note, it would be great to get some kind of update whether LMUs are offered when SE/E/Ps who requested an upgrade earlier than T-24h haven�t cleared the upgrade list?

Thanks!

I was on FRA-YUL 2 weeks ago and the GA told me that upgrades are processed about 25 minutes before departure I found that very weird since J was wide open and I was the first on the list and even at least 5 J seats went empty,

There is certainly an issue with the FRA station that needs to be looked at, I thing they made there own rules when to start the upgrades

Maybe it's due to misconnects, late inbounds, no shows, go shows, late check ins, etc?

What flights are we talking about? I'm sure a sat AM YYZ-CUN would be handled differently than a mon am YYC-YYZ or fri pm YYZ-YVR.

I had a similar experience in Montreal last month. Had been upgraded from GVA to YUL but at the YUL gate,, the gate agent was surly and noncommunicative. Finally I went up to the desk to ask. After he growled at me, I saw the boarding pass for J with my name on it. Fortunately I can read upside down. Why he couldn't look is beyond me.

Are you in sales?

I have also noticed a change in the clearing of the waitlist. I fly once a month YYZ-FRA and with the exception of 1 time earlier this year, I have been confirmed upgraded at around the T-4 window. And except this past roundtrip (YYZ-FRA last week, FRA-YYZ today) - both cases, I was only cleared after boarding had started.

On a side note: it looks like people still have a lot of eUpgrade credits to burn - according to the agent, there were 28 people on the upgrade wait list for the FRA-YYZ flight today. The agent ended up announcing that Elites should just board the plane as there were too many SEs in front of them on the list.

I don't know if this has been covered recently, but I had an odd experience yesterday that makes me think my knowledge may be a bit dated. I�ve been under the assumption that the time of request for upgrade (essentially when tickets are purchased) is the determining factor for your place in line, subject to elite status. I purchased a ticket seven months ago for an RIC-SAN itinerary through DFW.

I believe I purchased my ticket before my wife's (separate locator), but I'm not sure. My upgrade for RIC-DFW came in pretty close to the 72 hour period. There were plenty of open F seats, and my wife got her RIC-DFW upgrade the next day or so. I didn't pay much attention about checking in at 24 hours before our flights, but I did do it about 15 hours before, because I wanted to be sure to check the box to be on the "gate list" for the DFW-SAN segment. (The seating chart showed four F seats not reserved.) I had assumed my position would be governed by the same principles that applied before going on the gate list.

Long story short, I may have checked in my wife first (I'm not sure), but when we got to DFW she was #3 and I was #4 on the gate upgrade list which surprised me because I had been upgraded for the first segment before her, and now she was ahead of me in the queue. (She wound up getting the last seat, and I settled for the exit row.) So my question is simply: does the priority from buying 7 months in advance disappear when you're placed on the gate list? I recall that we used to scramble to be the first on the gate list, but I thought that all changed a couple of years ago. From what happened yesterday, I can see that I don't understand the rules.

Anyone up on this? Thanks.

Not sure you're in the right forum, normcpa.

Doesn't sound like AC does it?

Thanks for the observation! I had searched for "upgrade at gate" issues, and I just assumed that the thread was AA without checking. Sorry for the confusion. I'll take this over to the AA forum.

After reading all this, I still don't know if I should board AC34 when priority boarding is called in about 45 minutes. Flightstats shows six seat in J (AC seating chart shows 5 seats unassigned). Couldn't get any info on checkin as to where I am in the queue (no surprise). Don't mind waiting, but I sure don't want to have to put my bag under the seat in front of me in Y for a 14 hour flight.