new2japan

I just booked a fare that has the yellow/gold U next to it. I'm gold. The fare when you hover over the U says that MVPG can get upgraded immediately after purchase.

I tried doing this on their website and it said that there was a problem. I called and they said I can't upgrade from this fare unless I want to use one of my 4 electronic certs or 15000 miles.

Should I get upgraded automatically? It seems rather unclear.

Also, what does the black U mean? It says companion upgrade, but is it only for companions and not the main flyer?

BOB W

If there is a GOLD U next to the fare you paid and you have GOLD status, you should be able to upgrade immediately.

If there is a half-GOLD, half-GREEN U next to the fare you paid and you have GOLD or MVP status, you should be able to upgrade immediately.

If the U is black, it means you can upgrade using one of your electronic certs.

ANC

correct me If Im wrong here but if the U is black ie the guest upgrade....it should still fall into a value fare class equal to or higher than the gold fare class and should be upgradable immediately as a gold?

edit: nevermind...was thinking mileage upgrades are the same...black U sometimes shows up lower than value fare albeit not that often

BOB W

Tickets purchased in G or T fares are not eligible for Guest Upgrades.

ANC RED-EYE

This doesn't make sense. If there was a gold U next to the fare you booked, then that part of the itin should have been upgraded. One exception is if upgrade space is only available on one segment of a multi-stop flight. In that case, the segment with upgrade space should be upgraded immediately, and the other segment(s) would be waitlisted. If, on the other hand, there was a gold U in the "value" column, but you booked the bargain column, then it would make sense that you'd have to use a certificate to upgrade the flight.

The instant upgrade eligibility has become more confusing as more permutations of what is and is not upgradeable has evolved. However, the website does a relatively good job displaying what's what -especially with the multiple radio-buttons on the left.

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wondrousdevice3.0: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.261 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

There is a delay sometimes between the AS website showing U class and what is actually there...which can cause havoic sometimes. Perhaps this is what happened...

ANC

no but I believe K is which shows up in the best deals column and isnt instant upgradeable for gold