Hi all!
I'm a relatively frequent flyer on AC. My dad has 50K and we are heading to LHR next month from YYC. I'm booked in Premium Economy (lowest) and my dad has a flex fare. He would like to use his upgrade credits to upgrade us on the flight. ExpertFlyer is showing ten J seats still available. Does he go ahead and just request the upgrade on the eUpgrade site, or do we have to wait until a certain time since he isn't E or SE? And we are traveling on different bookings. I believe I read that even though I am on a different booking he can still request an upgrade for me which his credits, is this the case? Sorry neither of us have upgraded before so any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Okay, few questions there

First off, it's going to cost you $1000 and a ton of eUps at best.
Only SE get free upgrades for TATL flights, for everyone else it's a $500 "co-pay", each.

Secondly, see the chart (I find they keep making it harder to find) here: https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...ade-offer.html

As E50k your Dad can request an upgrade from Flex 5 days out. If it's low flex its 21 credits, if it's high flex it's 16. Low/High is based on fare class and should be on your booking. If you want to change from low to high the change is free but you pay the fare increase (normally $$$), but you don't pay a $75 or whatever ticket change.

For you, it it's another booking he can make the request at the time of checkin or at the airport, I believe it's at the airport. Another 21 credits (plus $500) From PY you have a good chance as you're ahead of everyone else in economy regardless of status but if the seats are all gone then obviously you are out of luck.

The only way to upgrade your tickets right now, is to upfare them to latitude which is likely going to be $$$$. Latitude tickets can be upgraded at any time as long as there is upgrade space - 10 J seats doesn't mean there are 10 seats you can go into, it means there are 10 seats total. They may allocate all 10 or none as a class that one can eUp into.

Hope this helps.

If your father has E50K status (and assuming he's booked into "Premium Economy - lowest", he can request the upgrade exactly at T-5days. The upgrade will be confirmed if there is availability in booking class "R".

The upgrade will cost 21 upgrade credits + a $500 cp-pay.

Same for you, only that your upgrade can only be requested at the airport.

I believe Op's father is Flex, while he is PY lowest. Regardless it's t-5 days, but it is only 16 eUps if high flex. Given the ticket is in March though I doubt it's high flex.

Latitude also has no co-pay incidentally.

The other option is of course LMU; prices from YYZ->LHR, which is shorter I've personally seen $680 - $4300. From the LMU thread I don't foresee YYC->LHR as likely to fall outside this rather broad range.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Feeling like I have a much clearer picture of how this all works. Yes jc94 is correct. My father has flex and I'm in PY lowest. So I'm a bit confused, can he request my upgrade at the same time as his (T-5)? Or do we have to wait until airport to request my upgrade?
Given the copay price I've been thinking about just waiting for an LMU. I'll probably bite. But I'm supposed to fly Y back from LHR so it might be better to wait until the return and just stick it out in PY for the outbound flight.

I would gladly pay the $500 upgrade fee for J. Worth every penny.

Unfortunately, no. Only at the airport.

Unfortunately because you and your father are on different PNRs his upgrade can be done at T-5, while yours is done at checkin at the airport. Be aware that this one upgrade would use up almost all of your fathers eupgrade credits for the year. I personally would just stick with PY. As for Y on the return that might be a better time to attempt to upgrade, but IMO I would use them within NA as at least the # of upgrades you get throughout the year will be higher.

Thanks YHZ_Flyer. If it's going to use up most of his credits then I will definitely stick with PEY. My dad pretty much files only TATL or TPAC, but if he does fly domestic or to the US he will just grab an exit row seat.
If he can stomach the copay then he can upgrade, but if not he could always just upgrade to PEY for 11 credits I believe and no co pay. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

I was going to suggest your father try an upgrade to PY then you can sit together, and it is way more comfortable than Y, but not as many eUps as J and no $500 fee.

I save my eUps for TPAC flights, and now find a YYZ-LHR flight as "easy"

That's what he is planning. I'm hoping some of pax booked into PEY will be upgrading to J so that he has a reasonable chance for an upgrade. IF worst comes to worse he booked an exit row seat (he is 6'4) so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Hopefully I will be able to snag an LMU back up to PEY on the flight home because I feel AC's long haul Y on the Boeing's is just far too tight for me.