E-upgrade advance seat preference, is it possible?
 

Upon clearing an e-up I am always stuck in an aisle seat, and always get those when I get a gate e-upgrade cleared. By the time I check my app and the agent calls the upgraded pax she already place everyone and I have no time to ask her to switch me to a window seat (even though lots of seats were available prior to the upgrades).

Gate agents just randomly selects who gets what.

I used to be a Delta elite, and in the upgrade preferences there was an option to select "I prefer a window seat when I clear an upgrade". Is there such a thing for A/C or the system is too antiquated ?

fyi I tried to phone the reservations at 4am as I was on my way to the airport for a 6:30am flight and waited 1hr, by the time I got to the metal detectors I hung up...very ridiculous how can that be at 4am

Are you talking about a waitlisted upgrade clearing at the gate prior to boarding?

Otherwise, you can choose your seat after you've been eUpgraded in advance.

waitlisted upgrade.

I always buy united ticket on Air Canada metal, so my upgrades only clear at the gate and I am always given "what is left". As United tickets on Air Canada metal can never clear in advance (but are always very competitive in pricing).

They can clear in advance if they have an AC flight number. The ticket number is irrelevant.

To answer your original question, I am not aware of any way to pre-select a window seat if an upgrade clears at the gate. You have to take whatever is assigned. I am usually just happy that it has cleared.

My Aeroplan profile has a window preference, as does Mr FQ. When I eUp both of us on my credits, we both get window seats, because we both have that preference. I have to manually move (him!) to an aisle beside me.
If both window and aisle seats are unoccupied on the seat map and you are getting aisle and you prefer window, check your Aeroplan profile.
If it clears at the gate, I think you might just get what you get, but if there are bags of upgrades being allocated, wouldn't hurt to have the profile setting.

You cannot request a specific type of seat assignment until your upgrade clears. I've had luck when checking in in-person by asking the check-in agent to leave a note for the gate agent to request an aisle or window seat. Usually this works for me. Other option is to approach the gate agent before the upgrade list clears and mention that if you clear you'd prefer a window, if possible. Usually they're quite accommodating if you're polite and they aren't being bombarded by 100's of other questions. MLL agent could possibly do the same notation.

At least you were able to be put on hold. With the 7M8 debacle the system was telling people they couldn't even go into a hold queue. I assume that at 4am the call volume was lower, but there were likely a bunch of people waiting to call at odd hours this week just to be able to get through with a wait time of *only* a few hours. I'm sure the fire at YYZ yesterday didn't help things.

Although I'm not sure why you went through the frustration of calling them for this; if your upgrade hadn't cleared reservations wouldn't be able to do anything for you anyways.

My profile says I prefer aisle and I'd say I get aisle less than 50% of the time, even when there are aisle seats available.

One time I cleared into 4A on a 320 at the gate, with 4C occupied, and 4DF departed empty.

Who knows? I always get window.
Maybe you should switch preference to window, then you'd get it!