New low for marketing in my inbox from Altitude/Distinction:

One of my 2014 SuperElite benefits is "expanded eupgrade eligibility"

Unless I missed something don't they mean:

"less restricted eupgrade eligibility than other Altitude members who now have to copay, can't nominate etc."

You clearly failed your Marketing & Spin 101 course.

I guess if I put on the "Air Canada" hat , it is expanded as you can now upgrade someone that is on the same flight as you without being on the same PNR.

Which is, IMO, incredibly useful. For me, it's much more useful than two nominee slots. I'm not going to waste a slot on a one-time companion, but I'm more than happy to use a few eUps.

One problem I have with this is the upgrade for the person who is not on the same PNR as me can only be requested at the airport on the day of departure.
This means my travel companion cannot take advantage of the 7-day SE upgrade window, which is going to make his/her upgrade difficult to clear, as most, if not all, open R space would have been claimed by then.
I personally would rather have 4 nominees instead of 2 nominees + travel companion upgrades.
I don't travel with a lot of different people each year, yet I don't have enough credits to upgrade a lot of different people.

But you consistently travel with the same few people on separate PNRs?

I'm just really having a hard time seeing how this hurts the common SE.

When you fly with your family, you're on one PNR.

You can nominate spouse and someone else.

And then you can upgrade whomever happens to be on your flight.

I think this will be offset by substantially fewer people with status overall, especially FFs, and especially on certain routes TPAC/TATL and transborder.

When I travel with my family (I'm not married yet, and I travel with my parents and/or siblings), we are usually not on the same PNR, because we live in different cities.
When I travel with friends, sometimes we are on the same PNR and sometimes we are not, depending on everyone's travel schedule and time of booking.
When I travel with coworkers or work-related folks, I don't need to worry about their upgrades as they have their own upgrade credits.
From past experience, the number of people I fly together with who don't have their own upgrade instruments is 3-4.
I guess my flight patterns are just a little different from the majority, hence I prefer the old 4 nominees.

Lets not forget that R-Games are played very aggressively by AC. As an SE, I have noticed that a most of the R-Space vanishes at T-8 on a lot of popular domestic routes like YEG/YYC-YYZ and back. So if someone is flying those routes routinely and the nomination went to the gate a no status person would be hooped anyways and your nom slot is dead. Even my flight I took two weeks ago YYZ-LHR. T-9 It was J9R9 then T-8 it was J9R0...

I prefer the new method so I can upgrade someone I am travelling with day of without burning a slot.

The decrease in nomination slots is going to hurt FTers the most because there will be less sharing in January and February. (Which may be the reason for the change...)

I still can't get my head around these upgrades.
I am taking family ( total 5 people) to Florida.
I was debating between Flex and Tango - only reason for Flex would be upgrades.
On same PNR, I can only upgrade myself and ONE other.
I can use 2 nominee slots to upgrade 2 others, if I want to use the slots.
I can upgrade the last at airport only as a companion.
But Can I upgrade 4 different people in total? No-obe knows.
I called the SE line, they said they thought yes, as it would be through 3 separate
processes. I asked for that in writing, they could not provide it.
So I booked 3 Tango fares, and 2 Flex fares outbound, we'll see what happens.
Inbound we're all on Flex ( no Tango left), I'll see if I can upgrade 5 people.

I am in the same boat, minus one passenger, at the end of this month.

It's pretty clear that you can nominate upto 4 people but you need to get the PNRs split. You and your partner, two nominees and then one travel companion on different PNR.

However. Good luck getting all 5 to clear.

But then we are locked into the nominees for the balance of the year, even if the
UG's don't clear. So I would not want to nominate 2 of them unless R space is
positive.

I would not count on people travelling on the same PNR all the time. It (traveling on different PNRs) is definitely common because:

1) like Agjil's situation, departing cities/arrival cities may be different, even though some segment(s) may be common;
2) people may have the same departure or arrival dates, but not both;
3) people may have individual flight passes, and it is not possible to combine PNRs even though the flights are the same.

I am definitely against this "enhancement" but can see how it works better for some people (e.g., Cdncow) - but this definitely has to boil down to making it more difficult to upgrade for reasons mentioned. If anything, why could AC not have given us a choice as to whether we want the nominee slots vs same day different PNR upgrade? To me, I would definitely not burn a nominee slot in a waitlist situation where I know the waitlisted nominee is unlikely to travel on AC in the same benefit year.

I personally do not share any remaining eupgrade credits, but that is probably a function of the fact that I had less than 5 remaining anyway.

I agree. I would be far more accepting of the never ending enhancements if they were just presented clearly and without the ridiculous spin.