Paid Upgrade - now available for all fares
 

http://www.alaskaair.com/content/tra...tClassUpgrades

Announced in the e-statement today:

Hmm. Not sure if I like this one. It's hard to begrudge AS money by saying they should restrict paid upgrades from people who are willing to pay money, but this seems like a cheap shot.

Because elites should all be upgraded anyway at this point, the biggest impact to elites is limiting the same-day change options. Now all customers have a shot at a U seat starting at T-24, but I can only switch to a new flight starting at midnight.

Edit: AS lists W (coach award tickets) as eligible for paid upgrades:

I guess this explains why all of a sudden AS fixed the OLCI upgrade loopole so quick? Will the TOD upgrade be offered ahead of Elite upgrades ala United? or after all elites are upgraded?

If award tickets can now be upgraded, why cant award tickets be eligible for complimentary MVP upgrade?

I agree. Why not simply make all fare classes eligible at the gate? At T-24 it's going to result in fewer SDC first class seats for elites. I really hate having to make the choice between a first class seat and an earlier flight in coach. At the very least, bring back SDC at T-24 for elites, to allow us to counter-act this change (and they can sell the FC seat we vacate, to lessen the revenue impact). That would also lessen the problem with DL elites upgrading before SDCing Alaska elites.

I'm afraid this is the first step in adopting a United-style upgrade system, which would be a troubling development indeed.

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wondrousdevice3.0: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.583 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

I don't know but I'm a bit scared by this move :(

Will even U space be required?

And upgrades on award tickets for elite shouldn't cost $$$...

New U fare display
 

Worth noting that AS has also simultaneously announced a change to the fare display to show various types of upgrades that will be rolled out this month:

http://www.alaskaair.com/content/abo...::new-features

With this change I would hope they do two things for elites:

-Extend the SDC to 24 hours before the flight.
-Allow complimentary upgrades on award tickets, a lower priority would be fine.

Really hope that "U" space is still required for these buy-ups, or it will cut down on gate upgrades.

wonder if they in the proccess have managed to fix the glitch of 2 MVPs flying together in which if there are 2 U seats open you both should upgrade, not get some error message that only gold can upgrade a companion or whatever it usually says. I sure as heck hope so.

start directing these types of things to the head bean counter @:-) All things degradation of AS seem to point to one person @:-) All was calm in the hen house until someone came along and wanted to ruffle up the feathers, stick out their chest, and make a name for themselves. Theyve succeeded at making their name known to me.....and I dont spell it quite like he does. At this point I wouldnt care if DL tried to do a hostile takeover. Id have no objections. Ive used others this year more than AS for the first time in a long time and if I dont make even MVP again this year then so be it. I havent used AS since March

So what happens when Rev Mgmnt doesn't release U space until T-24 (or after)? Is the upgrade list full of elites carried forward - and applied - prior to making paid upgrades available everyone?

Given my experience and the number of AS elites these days, I can recall few flights where there were even F seats left for paid upgrades.

I received the following on my facebook complaint:

^^^

That's quite definitive. And Rick is the one who should know.

^Indeed. Since U space is required for the above, then hence U space would have to be required for paid upgrades.

So, other than making Award ticket upgrades for elites complimentary and moving up SDC to T-24, what is the big deal on this one? Are those the only two issues folks see with this?:confused:

It really isn't a big deal. Paid upgrades used to be available for any fare at the time of check in... but in an attempt to stem the flow up queue jumping, they put the H and above requirement on it (until the gate) to give the elites a better chance and getting their upgrades.

Now that the loophole has been closed, and the upgrade processor runs til much closer to departure, there is no reason to have the H+ restriction anymore.

If I understand correctly, all that's required for SDC is F inventory.