tom911

Not on an upgraded ticket.
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/ai...cies-and-rules

vanillabean

MVPs purchase standard Economy, are put in Refundable/Elite and may get moved into Premium Class. May later get upgraded to First.

R/E and PC are thinning out in the process, soon taken by more people. Then the R/E label drops and is standard Economy.

And before you know it, somehow Economy gets filled up. Where are they coming from?

VegasGambler

Check out the "awaiting seats" list. Those are (mostly) people who have a ticket did not select a seat at purchase time. Some may be on standby.

Many of them were probably not able to select a seat, either because (1) they are not elite and there were only elite seats left, or (2) they bought saver and there were no saver-eligible seats left.

It's not uncommon to see 20-30 people on the "awaiting seats" list. The gate agent will assign seats to them before starting boarding. This is why gate agents are so busy in the last few minutes before boarding.

pcoll

Here is a new wrinkle, at least for us.
We are booked on a F award flight on BA in June. The SEA/DEN segment was booked into Y on AS, with a W fare. At that time, it was a 900 and we selected row 17. Since that time, it has now been changed to A320 and we are still in Row 17. Yeah, many of you already know where I am going with this. It now shows we are in PC seats and it shows $110 due at bottom of seat map of our PNR. I am not going to touch it, was considering changing it to row 6 but that would trigger more problems.
If we are not upgraded before flight, will we be allowed to keep our exit row seats? (without additional charge)

eddiehuang97

Yes. I would just move to Row 6 and guarantee an upgrade.

flymonthly

You should be able to keep the exit row seats unless there is an aircraft change or something else that would cause seat assignments to change. AS would likely charge you if you wanted to move to row 6.

caramelisyummu

Hi! I am a newly minted MVP Gold and I have never flown with a companion until today!

I had a quick question about upgrades with companions. I was wondering if upgrades are only processed if there are seats next to each other? If yes, are we allowed to sit separately if we talk to an agent? Couldn't really find the answer online so I wanted to check in with people here.

Thanks a lot!

PDXPremier

No, the auto-upgrade system will upgrade you regardless of there being seats together vs. apart. If you are traveling with a non-elite, then you need them on your reservation for the upgrade, but keep in mind that VERY often the system only upgrades one seat at a time (as U space opens up) so you're chances of getting passed up by single travelers below you on the list are significantly high. I typically have my kids on the same reservation as myself or my wife, but since they are both MVPs, I've had our reservations split or I just book them separately in the first place to increase upgrade chances (and yes, it does make a big difference since they will many time be able to snag the upgrade away from an MVP Gold with a companion if there is only one seat available at a time).

caramelisyummu

Thank you for the reply! I appreciate it. That's unfortunate for both me and my non-elite friend. Sounds like we won't get an upgrade Wish it was something they could fix

VegasGambler

Nothing is broken.... if you are on the same PNR you have to sit in the same class of service. If there is 1 upgrade available you can't get upgraded unless you split the PNRs. This is true on every airline.

Some airlines will auto-split PNRs in this case. That tends to lead to other complaints.

caramelisyummu

I'm not refuting that one should be separated in different classes in services. If there is 1 available total, well, yeah, it makes sense to go to the subsequent person. Although if there are a total of 3 within the window but they decide to release it one at a time, thus off loading 3 others off the upgrade list while you're stuck in the back, it feels defeating.

Helpful for the lone travelers, which I'm sure I have been on the opposite side of. Unhelpful for those traveling with companions and making others do workarounds (such as splitting up PNRs later) especially if its a perk that's advertised.

NoLaGent

There's no offloading from the upgrade list, you and your party remain on it. As mentioned above, it's this way on every airline, with the exception of auto-split on very few OALs.

VegasGambler

Sure, but I'm not sure what to "fix" here. They do not "know" that the other seats will ever be available for upgrade. They release them slowly to give people a chance to buy first class tickets.

I guess they could fix it by never releasing any U space before it got to gate control. They seemed to be doing that (or something close to it) it for a while last year and people complained about it (although, I've never really minded it, but some people really care that their upgrades are confirmed as early as possible)

My point here is just that there is no real solution to this problem. Different airlines do it differently, and people complain about it no matter how they do it.

Ford Fairlane

Much earlier in this thread (that is, several years ago), there was talk of needing to call CS to have your mileage number removed from future reservations after getting the next status level, and then re-adding it yourself soon after. This was apparently the workaround to get your existing future reservation put into the right upgrade queue. (That's as far as I've gotten through the 61 pages of this thread.)

Is this still necessary, calling CS to remove the mileage number then re-adding it, or does the system recognize a newly attained status automatically now and factor it into future already-booked reservations?

In my case, I'll be hitting MVP the first week of March, not MVPG (no status currently), but I have some flights scheduled a few days afterward on routes and at times that may have plenty of upgrades available. I of course don't want to miss out on them if I qualify. Hope springs eternal and all that.

Flying for Fun

Once your new status is showing in your account, existing reservations should be updated with your new status within a few days after that. If the existing reservation is very close to your status flight, call AS and ask them to remove & re-add your MP number which should "refresh" your PNR and apply your new status.

James