Upgrading a ticket using someone else's miles?
 

My in-laws are letting us use their Aeroplan miles our honeymoon but I'm not finding any decent flights when I try to book directly through the Aeroplan portal.

I'm wondering if it's possible to book a trip through, say, Lufthansa (their Star Alliance partner) and then upgrade to better seats at the airport with our in-laws' miles? The seats I'm looking at are upgradeable and we have access to their Aeroplan account, but not sure if Aeroplan actually lets do you do that.

Do we have any other options for an upgrade here? I tried searching on the aeroplan website but all I'm finding is the info for eUpgrades, which isn't an option.

Thanks in advance!

As long as you're purchasing a fare that's elligible for Star Alliance upgrades, on a Star Alliance carrier that participates in Star Alliance Upgrades, AND there's available reward inventory for the flight you're on, then yes, I believe your in-laws can upgrade you using their miles.

However, that last caveat may be the big problem for you. Star Alliance uses the same "fare bucket" for reward seats and for Star Alliance upgrades. So if you can't see a reward on the flight you're on, an upgrade will likely not be available.

The exception is the possibility that more seats will become available shortly before departure -- Lufthansa, for example, often makes business and first rewards available 14 days before departure. In that case, if you catch it quickly, you should be able to upgrade.

(Or, if you're on a fully-refundable ticket, as it largely required to get a *A upgrade, you can at that point book yourself the reward fare in the class you want, and cancel your revenue ticket for a refund.)

You can only upgrade using miles if you are in Y or B class ( highest economy class
fares). Then you can upgrade if and only if upgrade space is available.

You will usually be able to buy a restricted business class ticket for less than a Y/B fare.

Welcome to Flyertalk!

I was under the impression that you could not upgrade someone else in a Star-Alliance upgrade, but I'll leave that to those with better knowledge than I.

What I do know, is the fare classes required for Star Alliance upgrades are usually fully flexible fares, which are very expensive. In other words, if you do not require the flexibility of a full fare ticket, you can probably purchase a discounted business class ticket for the same, or even less money and not have to worry about not being able to upgrade.

The Aeroplan website is not exactly the best search tool. If you tell us where it is you are wanting to go, when, how flexible your dates are, and from what starting point, we might be able to help in your flight search. Or, if what you're looking for is going to be nearly impossible to find, we may be able to suggest some alternative routes/options.

Thanks for your help, guys - this place is awesome :)

We're trying to do a multi-city itinerary:
Seattle -> Athens (sept 6)
Istanbul -> Seattle (sept 27).

Our dates aren't super flexible since we've already booked that time off work. We're trying to avoid flights that are 25+ hours long, which is what I'm seeing on the portal right now. The best I found was through Lufthansa directly: 13 hours there, 15 hours back and still somewhat reasonably priced, so I might just book that instead of draining our inlaws' account for a flight that'll take 3 days to get there. Sounds like an upgrade isn't looking so good :)

That's going to be rather difficult at this late date. Booking a pair of seats, for travel starting in less than a month, and on specific dates with little flexibility, likely means you should forget about using Aeroplan miles for this trip.

I can see a couple of options out of Vancouver, but are going to involve a couple of stops, and not all in business class. It's just not worth using the miles if you still have to pay the fuel surcharges, travel in Y, and take multiple connections.

If you've found some tickets with a price that you're reasonably happy with, I would go ahead and just book that.