Advice re eupgrades needed
 

Can someone advise if this is correct, or if I should chase it up.
Flew LHR-YYZ-SYD and applied for upgrade on whole route.
Was upgraded LHR-YYZ at the gate and told to approach gate at YYZ re upgrade on YYZ-SYD flight (Direct flight AC33 via Vancouver).
On arrival at gate asked what were my upgrade chances (as E on an incoming connecting flight) and was advised to wait.
After watching 15 people being upgraded at the gate I queried once again, as I was a connecting passenger, and the GA snapped back at me, would you prefer to be upgraded on this leg, or the YVR-SYD leg?
After watching over 20 people beng upgraded it felt like they had deliberately left me out(especially in light of the GAs comment and the fact that I was upgraded on the YVR-SYD leg)
Should I have been upgraded on AC034 the whole way, or can they piecemeal upgrade the flight?
OK, so I know being upgraded is a privilege, and I didnt create a fuss, just asked in a friendly manner.Even helped them out by moving seats to accommodate a baby.
My gripe is not so much not being upgraded, but...now I have been charged a total of 31 eupgrades, 14 of which are debited against my ticket, and 17 showing as cancelled on my eupgrade account(I am assuming they had to cancel 17 as both could not be showing as debited on that ticket number!)
I have emailed them but they tell me it is correct, 2 separate flights LHR-YYZ and YVR-SYD.
This is really annoying as this ploy appears to have gotten an extra 14 eupgrades, from me and 14 from the other person upgraded on YYZ-YVR route.
Should I chase this up any further and if so with whom? An email quoting the rules which would appear to support that the upgrade debits are based on ticket, not flights, has gone unanswered.
Thanks

My understanding is that unless the ticket is issued for a flight that is continuous but has stopovers (like AC8 out of HKG), then each segment needs to be upgraded separately. In fact, I would say you did it right. LHR YYZ is worth an upgrade, as is YVR SYD, YYZ YVR I would be just as happy to sit in the back.

This is not correct you should only be charged 17 credits for the entire journey if its indeed under one ticket, LHR-SYD requires only 17 credits even if you were not upgraded on the YYZ-YVR portion

My guess is that the GA in YYZ messed up something and re added you to the upgr. list and than placed a memo on your booking to deduct the credits manually for the YVR GA if you'r upgraded on that leg

Yes, it is my understanding too that i should only be charged 17 credits as it is one ticket. Who do I contact, my emails are going unanswered?

Use the "Contact Us" function at www.aircanada.ca:

http://help-aircanada.com/aircanada-...ue.do?lang=ENU

You should receive an instant acknowledgement of receipt. Then wait for the process to take its course. The acknowledgement e-mail will give you an indication of how long you may expect to get a reply.

Thank you, I will email them at this address.

Please report back on AC's response!

How to report eUpgrade discrepancies
 

I wouldn't use the general "contact us" information provided above. AC has a separate page with a form called "How to report eUpgrade discrepancies"

The link is here...

http://www.aircanada.com/en/aeroplan...ades/form.html

I've had good success using this route in the past.

OP appears to be unhappy about how upgrade was handled at the gate at YYZ. That is a customer service issue.

Good to know the direct link re. e-upgrades. I recently had 23 credits taken for GRU-YYZ-YUL.

GAs in YYZ and YUL have no idea how e-upgrades function, and it seems from OP's case that nor do CR. This is a huge let down by AC, staff need to understand the system better than customers, not less.

In YUL, I had FIVE groundstaff swear that my outbound YUL-YYZ-GRU was not upgradeable because it was a TAM ticket despite the fare mapping to W, I had to read the rules out first in English, the in French from the website before they would even accept to call helpdesk and learn how to process the upgrade request.

On the return GRU-YYZ was not confirmed so I did not want to be left using up 6 credits expiring in Feb 2014 for YYZ-YUL unless GRU-YYZ went through. Eventually GRU did go through so on arrival in YYZ I asked at connections and at the lounge to upgrade my YYZ-YUL sector as I had already used the max 17 credits for my itinerary. FOUR agents all said this was impossible as e-upgrades work on a per sector basis. Completely wrong. I eventually asked the ticketing agent to call helpdesk who confirmed that I was right and no additional credits would be deducted, yet apparently the GA decided to to take the six anyway, presumably a fifth agent at the main hub not understanding how it works.

I asked for the credits to be returned 10 days ago, and am awaiting a reply, expected it to be done very rapidly since it seemed a very simply case and the acknowledgement e-mail said normal processing time was 5-7 business days and status members usually are quicker than average.

I can't imagine there are many non-status members emailing them about eUp discrepancies.

In this case the agent is correct as 17 eupgr' is required per direction not per ticket hence your YYZ-YUL segment is 6 credits in addition to the 17 eupgr' for the YUL-YYZ-GRU

And pure coincidence, I did get a reply within an hour of this posting confirming the return of my credits.

@ canadiancow - I used the general CR submission not the e-upgrade specific one, so if general enquiries for public were 5-7 days, I thought a pretty simple request from status would be quicker but at least it was resolved properly unlike OP's request.

@ yul7075 - Two completely separate cases. YUL-YYZ-GRU was 31 December, zero space available issues, just tried to be blocked from upgrading by GAs not knowing that TAM ticket could be upgraded provided it mapped to T+. GRU-YYZ-YUL, GRU-YYZ not upgraded until gate hence I had not made advance request for YYZ-YUL as I did not wish to be stuck using 6 credits for that going through if GRU-YYZ did not.

Absolutely no issue with 34 credits being taken for the roundtrip, but it had been 40 until reversed.

I would have thought that both of these requests were common enough at least at the lounges used to dealing with E/SEs that they would not cause such great pains as they did.

On a positive note, another excellent year for using e-ups for me and family for which I am very grateful:

July 2 pax YVR-LHR
November 1x HNL-YVR and YYZ-LHR (YVR-YYZ on AC 34 failed on the through ticket HNL-LHR)
December 1x LHR-YYZ-YUL
December 1x YUL-YYZ-GRU
January 1x GRU-YYZ-YUL
January 2 pax LHR-YYZ

12/13 and 8/8 on intercontinentals. Both 2x pax were my parents who have no status. Those exasperated with leftover credits should look at days of the week and aircraft types when making their bookings to increase chances.

Starting March 1st, these types of routes will require ~double the credits, even when on a single PNR.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2w6tfg8.png

I believe LHR-SYD is not captured by the new rule owing to origin destination being under 11k miles despite the routing being over.

This was discussed at length when these changes were communicated back in late 2012. Many of us were confused as to why a new category for 11000+ miles was created since there are no city pairs in AC's network that are over 11000 miles apart. City pairs like SYD-LHR are well below 11000 miles as it is based on great circle mileage between the O&D, not the sum of miles required for the specific routing flown. The new chart led to much speculation of new destinations such as JNB which could create new city pairs being more than 11000 miles apart using the great circle.

I thought the main issue was that 31 credits were debited from brownbombers account instead of 17.

IMHO the agent in YYZ likely did something very helpful to the OP. I have always been under the impression (and was my experience on a domestic YYC-YHZ-YYT flight) that for direct flights you needed to have your upgrade cleared at the first city in order to be able to upgrade on the 2nd part of the flight (agent in 2nd city will see the pax as a YYZ-SYD pax, not a YYZ-YVR-SYD). If somehow the YYZ agent was able to help get an upgrade cleared in YVR, it is the first I've heard of something like this, and something I'd hope will become more common.

Actually most South America - Asia routes are >11000 miles, but apart from that not many routes would qualify unless AC changed the way the number of required upgrade credits is calculated.

Yeah. We don't know. One possibility was that those were revenue J standby from another IROP flight. It's not like the old days when one can observe the traveller handing over a cert. I am sure that Customer Relations will pass it on to the right dept.

I stand corrected. Now that I think about it, the conversation I was recalling was about SYD-South America, I forgot about Asia-South America.

FWIW, if anyone is interested here is the GC Map of which city pairs will be over 11k miles. I've left GRU-PEK on the map even though it is 10.9k miles as I'm too lazy to look on the AC website to see what mileage AC actually applies to determine the number of eUpgrades required.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=eze-hkg...g&MS=wls&DU=mi

How much above 11k can you really get? At some point, you just need to fly the other direction.

@markandrew Did not realize that your GRU-YYZ cleared

on your return in YYZ you should of simply request the upgrade from the agent the system would than automatically calculate the required e's knowing that you only needed 17 credits

Feedback for those interested, refunded 14 Eupgrades and got an apology!