Being waitlisted for an eUpgrade
 

Hey All,

I went to perform an eUpgrade a few minutes ago for one of my flights tomorrow. The business class cabin is practically empty according to the AC site, but I was still waitlisted for the upgrade!

Any ideas as to why this is occurring? Perhaps they are saving a few seats for potential last minute pax who are actually paying full fare.

What method did you use to figure out business class is practically empty ? How many empty seats ?

I went on the AC website and looked under preview seats!

Can you tell us the flight?

Most likely R=0 so you will be waitlisted and then upgrades will clear at the gate just before departure.

Using the app you can see where you are on the waitlist.

The seat map does not represent the number of seats available for sale, nor does it represent the number of seats available for upgrade. It simply shows you which seats on the plane have and have not been pre-selected by passengers with tickets. There needs to be positive space for upgrades which you can check on other sites such as Expertflyer.com. As has been pointed out above, you are looking for R space.

@Will_YYT

The above posters are correct.

Which flight is this? You should check EF or BCD to understand why your eUpgrade attempt put you on the waitlist. The seatmap is not the best way to determine how "full" or "empty" a cabin is.

Another more practical way to check may be to try a dummy booking for 9 seats in business to see if it could be done.
If yes, there are at least 9 vacant seats available for sale. If not, try, 8, then 7...... etc.
If the flight is outside of 48~72 hours, there are bid upgrades that AC would want to consider. Once check-in opens, there're also LMU for purchase. AC may have incentives to leave all free eUpgrade for lower tier members until the gate. My sense is that those willing to pay to upgrade would always be preferred over "free" upgrade particularly lower tier members.

Thanks for the idea! I just tried making the booking with 9 people and it only showed business class and premium economy as having availability. Looks like I will likely get upgraded at the airport in this case.

As an aside, if one is waitlisted for a Y to J upgrade on an aircraft with O class and the upgrade doesn't clear, will he/she end up in O or Y?

@Will_YYT

Which flight is this tomorrow?

Are you sure about this? Last year I waitlisted a Y to J upgrade on a 3-cabin flight from YYZ-YVR. O also had its own massive waitlist. My upgrade into J did not clear but I was automatically transferred to the O upgrade list and cleared. There is no way my O upgrade would have cleared if I had been put after everyone already on that list.

I was wondering the same as I've had several occasions of not clearing J but clearing PY when I know the PY list was at least 10 deep.

The PY list could be full of non-revs which may be processed differently.

Ah that could be quite right. Thanks for bursting my "oh, I guess I'm just special" bubble. :p