Air Canada Throwback Thursday
 

I was going through various drives gathering stuff for my next round of digital shredding and came across this, brings back memories of carrying a manilla envelope stuffed with certs all the time. Glad those days are past. ^

http://nas.janex.com/ft/ac-ap/2009UpgradeCerts.jpg

I remember that one time in March I threw away two red certs.

and I recall one January trip when the CUN agent who processed our upgrades (who really had no idea what to do, as a contract check-in agent) returned the certs for me to reuse the following month!

Balanced I guess by repeated delays in obtaining earned certs by mail. Once they were couriered to me and another time Andrew Yu kindly forewarned the local concierge that I was to be upgraded without the delayed certs. But you could book the upgrade hoping the paper cert would be delivered in time. (Don't mention kind colleagues donating them, or worse selling through a TA)

On balance I prefer the ecerts - there you go AC - an IT SUCCESS!!

Ah the memories. Thanks for sharing!

Psst, got any SSWUs? :D

http://nas.janex.com/ft/ac-ap/AC_SSWU.jpg

:D

Oh, those memories. I recall standing at the gate in LAX and being asked for them. Full flight, generally chaotic and noisy. Fumbling thru carry-on and having trouble locating them. GA snapping "you have one min, otherwise the people behind get the upgrade because they have theirs". Fortunately, they turned up. Who needs that stress?

New system is better. Except that in the old days sometimes they didn't actually ask for them. Unfortunately, that only seemed to happen nearer to the end of the benefit year when it was less likely there was another opportunity to use them. :D

I only got to experience the paper certs for 1.5 years - and I too prefer the e-upgrade system.

Anyone remember setting an alarm clock for 2a.m./3a.m./etc. (23:59 based on the time in the departure city) so one could call AC and secure the upgrade? I certainly don't miss that.

I used to have other FTers call in for me. :p

I also remember being told J was full and to take my Y seat. At the last minute there would be no shows and they would come through the cabin to perform upgrades from the wait list. You needed to produce the cert before they would hand you the BP and let you collect your stuff and move.

The gate agents used to cancel these - ie write 'Used' across them in a pen or Sharpie.

I have a friend that would carefully remove the staple, hide the SSWU and claim it was already collected when they sometimes neglected to write 'Used' on them.

Or this friend would claim that they were removed at the last station...ie when connecting from YOW-YYZ-XXX- would say "my SSWU was lifted in YOW."

It was the best of times, but it was the worst of times! :p

We remember this all too well. The constant issues with agents demanding a cert when it was lifted on a previous segment. :rolleyes:

They never knew which way was up, and would usually give in as they have a crowed waiting to board ... BUT once in a while, they would be very insistent...LOL

The contract staffers were the worst. They had no idea of protocol and I know many that exploited their ignorance to the very end.

Like my friend :)

Ah...by looking at the SSWU cert, I miss the good old days when A and L fare class buckets (along with bunch of others) were Tango Plus (aka Flex).