At MSP recently the GA did not release the ELEVEN unsold FC seats to upgrades until AFTER they called for the families, those needing time, military and then those seated in FC. Several of us on the upgrade list that "knew" we would be upgraded due to our position separately asked when she was going to release them, and she said each time she could not release until the scheduled boarding time. Evidently they are not releasing upgrade seats until the 40 minutes prior to departure cut off time for checking in? Cannot say when they did the UG list on my latest flight as I was an instant upgrade at time of purchase.

AS decides when to open up U inventory, not you. If inventory management indicates most seats get sold within a couple days of the flight they are well within their rights to hold back U to sell the seats. They are in the business to make money. Free upgrades are a benefit, not a right. And should they give it to you because you call? What if you are #6 on the list, is it right you get to bypass #1-5 just because you call?

I see this as more of a training issue, i.e., AS needs to establish a set of operating procedures and stick with them across the board. I'm not going to judge a customer's motivations for calling to request an upgrade. We all have different perspectives, as evidenced by the various posts. The answer a caller gets in seeking an upgrade should be (1) correct for the upgrade window status and (2) uniform across the board. Disparities among agents' handling of these demands are what help feed the "gaming" of the system. The caller is not repsonsible for there being different answers from different agents. My two cents.

I actually don't consider calling and insisting on being upgraded out of order as cheating or gaming just as being obnoxious. It could easily be shut down by instructing the agents to just keep saying no when U is not open. Some people are going to think the rules don't apply to them in any situation and so they will need to be told the same answer several times to get the message. If it sometimes works they will keep it up.

Awesome. This looks like what I have to look forward to. I am on flight 7 on Sat 1/21 from JFK to SEA. 13 first class seats have been open (but not auto upgradeable to) since before 120 hours out and are still all available.

I get that they want to hold some seats in the hope of selling them. But 13 in 36 hours? At this point they just start frustrating their loyal customers.

Do you know for a fact there were 13 unsold seats? Or just 13 unassigned seats on the seat map? Lots of people don't pick their seats when they buy their tickets. Seat map is not always a good indicator of how many unsold seats there are.

That is a good point. I have confirmed that at least 7 are available. It lets me purchase that many in first class. The other six I can't be sure about.

7 is still a huge number this close to the flight though.

All, please keep in mind that personal attacks are not allowed on flyertalk. I would like to point everyone to the flyertalk rules regarding personal attacks and inflammatory posting.
ryandc99, Moderator Alaska Airlines

I have found that to be the case this year as well that upgrades aren't being processed until right before boarding. The exception being if an instant upgrade fare is purchased with U inventory available. No big deal to me, really.

​​​​​​​I did have an unusual experience yesterday, though. Traveling with my husband to Puerto Vallarta, and I was added to the upgrade waitlist, but he was not, despite our being on the same PNR. Luckily, the nice gate agent in LAX fixed it for us and we both cleared. No one was sure how that happened.

There is something *seriouisly* wrong with companion upgrades at the gate. It's happened to me 3 times since the Dec change to the processor (all booked prior to the change). The companions clear in advance but it seems the waitlist is not carried over to the gate. I've had to talk to GA several times to have companions clear with me.

The problem is that the fact that they aren't clearing until the gate means that there are no U available during the auto upgrade window. And from what I've seen lately they aren't available for a long time before that window too. So now those gold guest upgrades are really hard to use. You have to basically agree to pay the higher price in the hope that when the flight takes off the first class seats haven't all been taken.

In the past you could watch out for U inventory and only pay the difference in fare then (but still way in advance of the flight). This is another thing pushing me to look at AA this year. I will have several Qatar airways business class flights where each R/T will give me a new status level. Combine that with Jetblue having Mint JFK->Sea in the near future and I may be ditching Alaska soon.

I just talked to someone at the gold desk. He indicated that because of all the weather issues lately they have been holding more seats. That way if a flight is cancelled and they need to move purchased F people over they have availability for them. He said that he would expect it to change once there are less weather incidents. Not an official response but seems like a reasonable explanation.

I have a flight booked SEA LAX coming up on Tuesday, last night/early this am I got a notice I was upgraded - that is the 105 hour mark so maybe things ARE going back to normal!

In case anyone is curious they ended up upgrading 15 people at the gate for my flight.

15 people at the gate and then one more onboard when one of the 15 no-showed. (And ENycSea got a better seat than I did even though I was higher on the WL, leaving me stuck with the quiche instead of the omelette! Truly a grave injustice.)