Difficulty Upgrading in 2012
 

Has anyone else noticed a lack of space in J for upgrades this year? Flights that I've been upgrading successfully for the last 5 years are completely sold out in J weeks before the flight even leaves. So far I've not been able to upgrade a single flight this year. One had 5 SE in front of me (of which only 2 got upgrades) and on all of the others J is sold out. So far this year I'm starting to wonder what the perks are for having status.

Sad state of affairs. Read all the other threads about this topic. No need for another....

Could you point me to those threads. I've searched the last 10 pages and ran a few searches and could not turn anything up.

Thanks!

I think Dorian is referring to the 'R games' while the OP is actually saying the flights are either sold out in J or SEs are getting the seats up front. Business travel has been picking up since last year so this is likely a reflection of that.

AC is not doing a summer promo this year (for reduced e-credits), likely because they feel they can keep their front cabins filled with more revenue seats.

It really depends on what routes you're flying and what days. A peak business route on a Monday morning or Thursday evening can be tough even for an SE to upgrade.

So far this year, all of my upgrades have been processed at time of booking.

Obviously, YMMV with this, as evidenced by the above posters. But I have found less and less R space and (especially out of YYC) fuller J cabins. It is very difficult to upgrade the TATL flights as SE (!!) now, while it used to pose no problems for AC*Es (when I was one).
I am not sure how things are from AC's other hubs, but I know in YYC there are frequently SEs who aren't upgraded.

The biggest issue is that nobody has any clue how the upgrade list works now. Even the concierges have no clue, and some things are completely off in the list, without any explanation. That's my biggest issue. If I was consistently the last one on the last (for example) I could decide to move my business elsewhere. But this method just makes me uncertain and basically I have to rely on the mercy of the "upgrade gods" to get my upgrade(s).

I don't know what bulkheads you guys are sitting in but I am flying mostly YYC-YYZ

- have been upgraded on every flight and segment I have flown since the middle of March
- 12x YYC-YYZ
- 2x YYC-YVR
- 2x YVR-HNL
- 2x YWG-YYZ

I was prestige until June 3rd, and hit instant Elite that day.

I have used a mix of Latitude and Tango Plus East/West Connector passes, and have been able to book in latitude, grab my seat up front in advance, on all flights, and in at least half the cases have been either able to switch 2 or 4 days out to using one of m T+ FP's (4 e-up for the upgrades) instead of the lat, or if the flights were more tricky to book R space in advance, I've claimed the comp upgrades. The YYC-HNL trip was completely T+ and one ticket (wife) cleared at T-96, and I cleared T-72 and T-48.

Perhaps some of you are trying to book on ultra busy routes, or routes full of SE's or something crazy. Or maybe you are all cheaping out on your tickets and are in the cheapest fare class.

I've burnt all my prestige credits, and am into my E credits.

THe only time this year I had a tough time upgrading was Jan/Feb when everyone was burning their creds from last year and I hadn't yet had my lat pass.

YOu get what you pay for.

@jazzsax - indeed "you get what you pay for". I love my T+ M flight passes - high fare class, not too many credits needed to upgrade, high upgrade priority. But I have noticed that the flights are very full on the upgrade list. Sometimes I ask the concierge and they just say "wow, that's a crazy list", but often I'm near the top due to the M class fare. You have to game the system - I would never consider purchasing a M class fare to Europe (on purpose, I had to buy one this year because a flight was sold out) but on the Flight Pass East-West connector it's a great deal. You should also be prepared to spend some extra cash if you want to sit up front ("in the big seats"). Of course, I think the prices on YYC-YYZ are a rip-off (no doubt about it), but on the other hand some routes (YYC-ORD comes to mind) have quite reasonable Z fares which I am prepared to pay for.

Another point is that LMUs are now offered before the upgrade list clears. I believe this happened at some point in 2011. I don't want to open up this issue as it's been discussed in other threads, but this does make it 'more difficult to upgrade'.

On Delta?

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.448 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

On Delta.

(And my experience as Silver on DL (equivalent to Prestige) has been every bit as good as my SE experience on AC.

Champagne -- real Champagne --for pre-flight beverage on MSP-YVR last Saturday, with 2 rounds to boot and more in flight. Too bad I don't drink.)

I am also having a brutal year for upgrades with only 40% clearing. Every upgrade attempt was applied for within a minute of departure time - 7 days.

Let me guess Krug? No, DOM 1996 correct? one would not expect anything less. After all this Delta we are talking about.
Yes, too bad you do not drink. 1996 was a great year for DOM one of the best!

That is almost exactly my experience too. I fly YYC-YYZ about double your rate and I have yet to miss an upgrade, and that is purely with T+ FP M fares (no latitude). We shall see if today is my first miss. I booked last night for travel today, and flights seem to be extremely busy today with the long weekend approaching and school ending.