sports1

How frequently are LMUs cheaper than "bid to upgrade" from AC?
Are they always more expensive than the minimum bid in "bid to upgrade"?
I'm on PY (O) ICN > YYZ flight early October, I know it's too early to tell now but wondering if it's worth gambling an upgrade 24 hours before at checkin to J.

mahoogalah

YYZ-BGI
Booked in K class
788
Seat map showed 2 seats supposedly empty
Offered $1,700+ each to J for 2 tix around T-24
Declined

BGI-YYZ
Booked in G class
Offered an instant upgrade of $700+ each a few weeks before flight. Declined.
Seat map showed 9 seats available more that 2 days out then dropped to 1.
Originally 788 and at OLCI changed to 789
Offered about $250 each to J around T-20 (about half that for PY).
Accepted J.

Bid range both ways was $300-$800 for J.

Something odd happened with these tix is after I had booked, I saw that the price had dropped by $100, so I wanted to make a change to get the fare difference. I go to make the change online and it shows $400 lower. I do not understand why, but I happily made the change and got the refund for each ticket.

canadiancow

Bid upgrades are procssed 72-48 hours before departure. That leaves them 70-46 hours to sell tickets.

LMUs are processed 24-1 hour before departure. That leaves them at most 22 hours to sell tickets.

J20 at 72 hours is likely going to take cheap bids. If it then drops to J2 for whatever reason, LMUs will be expensive.

J4 at 72 hours is likely going to require an expensive bid. J4 at 4 hours is likely going to be a much cheaper LMU.

Or in other words, it depends on how the loads change between when bids are processed and the specific time you look at the LMU.

billdokes

Please repeat after me...the seat map means nothing, the seat map means nothing, the seat map means nothing, please do not look at the seat map and think it in any way reflects the load in the cabin, it does not.

flyingcrooked

I was browsing a Facebook group last night for Aeroplan elite members and saw a post where multiple people claimed that, based on their experience, they received SQD for last minute upgrades, even though they don't for bid upgrades. This was news to me and I found it hard to believe, but then again this was people supposedly reporting their first hand experience. I searched this thread for 'sqd' and found nothing. Does anyone have definitive first hand experience on whether lmu (not bid upgrades) earn SQD? I assume they don't but am trying to square that with these first hand reports saying they do.

ChrisA330

LMUs are explicitly noted by AC as not eligible to earn SQD. Whether some people have inadvertently earned it, is a different story.

flyingcrooked

I was unable to find anything on AC's website explicitly saying lmu don't earn sqd. All references were only to sqm or Aeroplan points. There is of course the implicit, rather than explicit, exclusion because they are not listed in the list of what does earn sqd. However something else on the AC site says that lmu only earn *miles* at the rate of the booked class, but everything else is the same as with a J ticket, which would implicitly go in the opposite direction. But perhaps I missed something (I searched before asking).

In any event, I guess what I was looking for is first hand experience, not policy, as those can diverge, eg if the coding is wrong.

ChrisA330

My experience with some of these FB groups is most people don't know what they're talking about. They may be using the term LMU, but it's not actually an LMU.

My rule of thumb is plan for what AC's policy is, if you get something better, then it's a bonus. If you want firsthand experience: I don't do LMUs very often, but when I have, I've never received SQD (or cos SQM)

SQD rules are here: https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...ication.html#/

Specifically the FAQ 'I recently flew with Air Canada. Why did I not get any SQD following my flight?'

flyingcrooked

thanks. Yeah, what was weird is that they were specifically claiming there was some weird thing where they receive them for LMU but not bid upgrades, which made me wonder as they sounded informed.

I had looked at the page you linked to, but missed the FAQ. I'd long thought (based on that page among other things) both LMU and bid upgrades didn't earn SQD, I was just thrown by this weird discussion on fb by people who claimed to be high status FF with first hand experience. I've never done either a bid upgrade or LMU myself, in part because if I'm spending money, it better be for SQD!

One of the issues here is that AC is often unreliable when telling customers things, e.g. when I search for overseas fares, the results often say that flex includes "one free change", but if you actually go to book the flex fare and read the fine print, that's not true. Somehow the wrong info about flex is being imported into searches on international itineraries (at least sometimes). I'm sure we could all think of similar examples where AC says something that is either false or at least misleading (intentionally or not).

mahoogalah

Understood and the reason I said supposedly.

ilovepaying98offonflightsandhotels

YHZ-YVR

Booked in Economy (T class) and upgraded to Business

787-9

2 seats remaining on seat map

$319.20

Changeup2000

This is a wonderful deal!

dlmeyers

I recently discovered that when flying AC some fare types are not eligible for last minute upgrades. Can someone tell me what fare class in economy do i have to have to be eligible for last minute upgrade? IE I know that Basic is not eligible, so can I purchase a standard class or do I have to go up to flex? Also is the lowest reward class in premium economy eligible for upgrade, or do i have to purchase a flexible class ticket?

Thank you for your help.

RatherBeInYOW

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...urchase.html#/

dlmeyers

Thank you for this link but it does not address which fare classes are eligible for the upgrade