That provision only works at the airport on the day of departure. As a result, the upgrade generally isn't cleared until the gate, which may be too late to cancel the nominator's ticket.

100% agree with you that it clears at the gate. However, I have heard of some stories where someone cancels the ticket at the gate, hence the question

Gotcha. Yes, it would likely still work even if the nominator cancelled at the gate. Once an upgrade is applied, the system isn't very good at checking if it the ticket is still valid for an upgrade.

As an example of it working, I've seen someone (in the span of 5 months) buy 2x B fares on a PNR, upgrade them, split the PNR and then modify their own ticket, leaving the nominee's ticket and upgrades intact. In that case it wasn't actually planned as a workaround, they had been intending to fly together but a last minute work emergency meant the nominator had to delay their flight. But either way, it still worked.

It's never too late

I've never cancelled a flight after departure, but I know others who have.

And I've certainly cancelled flights within T-45. You can't do it online, but you can do it over the phone.

On a 763 with wide open J tomorrow, thinking I'd like to make someone's day tomorrow by eupgrading them so I don't waste too many in 2016. (Christmas and all)

Can I eupgrade more than one person?

I don't believe so.

2 Questions as my screaming kids are preventing me from the time I need to look this up....

1. the enhanced e-upgrade email that went out, did that cover international destinations?

2. My first flights in 2016 are long haul AC, but sadly just booked...while I got an aisle, no preferred seats left (only in Y). Is there an APP, or some other notification tool, aside from checking regularly, to see if a certain seat(S) has come available (if a S.E. got their upgrade, etc. - I'm only 50K)...

Thanks!

For #2, I use ExpertFlyer.

1. did not cover international. they are still the inflated 2015 requirements.

2. per cow. expertflyer.

Thanks for the replies and feedback.

Much appreciated!

Finally missed an upgrade today after ~2.5 years of success. Completely forgot that Thursday PM is peak transcon time... so SE on flex was a no-go.

At least there is rye and internet at the back of the plane too.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BB10; Touch) AppleWebKit/537.35+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.3.1.2576 Mobile Safari/537.35+)

Do you find the internet to be worth it, though, or do you just expense it?

Yes to both. $7.99 is an easy expense to justify for being in touch with my staff for 4 hours. I tend to knock out document revisions and clean up my inbox for a few hours, and then read the news and play around on ft for the rest.

Hi All - bit of a noob here. Hope you can help me.

I have to fly from Toronto to Vancouver from work. My work will cover the price of an economy ticket. I'd like to travel in business, but it's quite expensive. I plan to buy an economy ticket, to be reimbursed from work, and then hope that the flight isn't full, and upgrade 24 hours before takeoff, as I hear that's significantly cheaper.

I am wondering though - does anyone know: is it the same price to upgrade to business, regardless or what type of economy ticket one holds? (Tango, Flex, Latitude). Is there any point in me buying a Latitude ticket, for example, as opposed to a Flex? (I know there are certain other benefits, just wondering about upgrades).

Thanks everyone!

There can be a small difference due to the type of ticket you hold, but the bigger factor is how full the flight is. If business is empty, upgrades will be ~$500 each way, regardless of fare. If business is full, upgrades will probably be above $1000.

That is a fairly expensive route to upgrade on, and prices are routinely in the 600-700 range each way.