It all comes down to if U space is open. If the flight was F5/U0, then policy was followed, and apparently they sold 4 F tickets in the last 10 hours.

If the flight was F5/U>0, and they sold upgrades for $150 versus full ticket price or running the upgrade wait list, the policy was not followed.

When U is open, the priority is supposed to be to upgrade elites based on the published rules and upgrade windows, then offer remaining F seats for discount sales to anyone else starting at T-24. If there are still elites on the waitlist at T-24, paid upgrades should not be offered until all those upgrades are cleared.

The upgrade processor is not working correctly. It is strongly advisable that you monitor U on your flights inside of the upgrade windows, and call if your upgrade has not cleared inside your elite window but the U space is >0.

They all eventually processed. I wasn't very particular either way since I just planned to sleep and a half empty flight. A middle seat open in Y+ is as good to me as a seat in F. Blasphemy, I know.

I appreciate that, but that's not what I said. I said AS can hold back as many seats as it likes for full-price sales, and the CSR may have been speculating or misunderstood about paid upgrade sales. U space availability rules all upgrade availability, not F availability.

I have seen A without U before, but this is *very* rare.

Well, glad the process worked as expected. I must admit, I was tempted to move to whY on my Monday redeye to AUS... There was 43 pax in Y. But I relented and had a nice nap up front.

Just off the phone with an Alaska supervisor. Received an Expertflyer notice 4 hours ago that a U seat opened up on Tuesday’s SEA to IAH flight. I’m gold so I called in because I hadn’t been upgraded. Of course there are 12 gold 75ks ahead of me so they can’t upgrade me. Fine. But they will apply a GGU if I want. Wait, what?! Just upgrade the top person on the list. Don’t let people jump the queue with a GGU within the complimentary upgrade window. I was told they would report it to IT “that it wasn’t working like I thought it should.” This isn’t about my opinion of how it should work it is about their stated benefit. I’m super frustrated.

I’ve jumped the queue in the past using Expertflyer notifications but I’m taking a silent stand on this one (save for my rant here). This is ridiculous. If the IT system for upgrades doesn’t work correctly then let the CSA supervisors fix it when the problem is identified. This isn’t some conspiracy on AS part to get us to use GGUs, it is simply a failing IT system.

Please send alaskaair.com a note.

That situation is really not okay, and you should definitely report it directly using the Contact Us form at alaskaair.com. Alaska should not allow its phone agents to process GGUs within the complementary upgrade window and bypass the waitlist!

But its inside the same window and U space is open.

There is a glitch with the upgrade processor, and many of us would like it resolved (again).

Its not like an instrument on other carriers that trumps the complimentary upgrade; there is no waitlisting the GGU's. And there is a good chance the pax wasn't even eligible for a GGUC being applied due to fare class :o

I'd argue it was never really resolved the first time.

This is the perfect storm of a very poorly functioning upgrade processor coupled with heaps of new agents in reservations/ticketing. I'd expect to hear a lot of weird comments from the phone line going forward until folks get up to speed. In my case, now that I don't have status, I personally stand to benefit from the upgrade processor not working since I hope to be able to buy upgrades on the cheap for some upcoming travel. But, honestly I'd also like it fixed after dealing with it this way for my years as an MVPG.

See I disagree here. I think that since GGUs are quantity limited they absolutely should trump comp u/gs, like an instrument on other carriers.

Obviously they should be waitlist-able too and then honored in order of status and time requested -- and *of course* AS should fix the underlying upgrade engine problems -- but absent that waitlist I have no problem with someone using a GGU inside the window.

What I don't think is ok is talking a phone agent into processing your comp upgrade when there's a waitlist, unless that is being done in waitlist order.

I have a flight tomorrow that I have been thinking I might change. I have been looking at various options that have U space so I can move directly into F. The early flight tomorrow has had one F seat available for sale for the past few weeks (not the flight I am considering) but no U. This morning I notice they have opened up U for that one available seat. Now bear in mind that this is a flight out of SEA on a route that is traditionally difficult to get upgrades on. All of the prem seats and row 16/17 have been booked for months so there must be at least a few elites on that plane, likely more, yet here we are less than 24 hours out and they have just opened U for that one remaining seat and obviously have not processed anyone off of the upgrade list. In fact, there are 9 people on the upgrade list as of right now. If that flight worked for me, you can bet I would swoop in and grab it before anyone else does or before someone else buys a cheap last minute upgrade. That sucks for anyone currently on the waitlist but until they fix this, they have kind of made it an every-man-for-himself scenario.

They should follow their own posted policies. If they decide GGUs should trump the waitlist at any point in time, they should make that explicit.