Aeroplan miles to upgrade star alliance flight?
 

Sorry if this question is basic but I'm booking a flight on Swiss and was wondering if I would be able to use aeroplan miles to upgrade or would that only work on an Air Canada flight? Thanks!

You can use Aeroplan miles to upgrade a Star Alliance flight so long as your existing ticket meets the required booking code:

https://www4.aeroplan.com/saua/Chart.do

https://www4.aeroplan.com/saua/Guidelines.do

In your case: "SWISS (LX) Economy class: U, M booking classes and Business class: J booking class"

Having said all this, there are numerous reports of it not working and calls to Aeroplan resulting in a shrug from the agents of "well, yeah, we know it's not working but we don't when it will work." I was lucky and managed to do an upgrade without any issues on EVA Air but others have not been so lucky. Can't find the link for that at the moment...

Generally it's only the most expensive flexible booking classes it works for. So U and M for Swiss are probably full fare economy. Equivalent of Y and B for Air Canada.
Likely cheaper to buy a restricted business class ticket than the full fare economy.
The scenario when it works tends to be when work is buying your ticket and they buy flexible ones.

I tried twice, YUL-ZRH & ZRH-LAX and both failed. I had U fares on both and it failed so I quit trying and simply bought cheaper fares and picked good seats.

No, the U and M are in addition to Y and B.

I had a friend who booked SFO-ZRH-SFO on LX without a Saturday night stay, and I think U was the lowest fare that allowed that.

He had a very nice flight home from ZRH for just 20k miles :)

I have done it twice on SQ's A330

both 7hr flights, both times points well spent.

Did upgrade space come out of J award award inventory?

Thanks everyone for the replies. Looks like it would cost almost as much to buy the premium economy seat as it would the most basic business seat. 😢

Yes, I believe the flight was I2 when I did it.

Don't hold your breath on the upgrades. I am the one who has been having problems with "General Technical Failure" since Nov 2013. The site is willing to give me the upgrade and once I agree to their terms and conditions the dreaded message comes up. I know the upgrade can be done using UA miles. I have done this. I can get the award using Aeroplan points as the seat is available but cannot get the upgrade. Agents cannot do anything about it. I am really extremely impressed by Aeroplan's inability to fix their technical problem. ( Yes I tried again today for my wife's flight)

Back in 2014 when the LX-operated legs of the YYZ --> JNB business class deal still booked into D, I was able to upgrade JNB-->ZRH from Business (D) into First (A). Was able to do it using the online tool -- no hassle. It was a great experience, even though I am quite confident Swiss was probably very unhappy that the upgrade was made available.

I have done it successfully on UA (Y to J) and LH (J to F) in the past two years.

Hmmm....And from today's Air Canada Altitude Report

http://s9.postimg.cc/9i40hjuun/image.png


https://www4.aeroplan.com/saua/Upgrade.do

stupid question, but does it matter where you buy the star alliance flight to be able to use Aeroplan points for an upgrade? ie direct from carrier or does it have to be marketed and sold by Air Canada?

It has to be marketed by the operating airline.

No codeshares.

Ticket stock does not matter, in my experience.