SeaLuggageLover

Since sometimes the seats are released one at a time and sometimes it's two at a time allowing status holders to upgrade with a companion, I wonder if this is a product of the seating chart (ie: they only release two at a time if there are two seats together). Has anyone noticed if this is the case? I didn't travel much with companions last year so I didn't have a chance to observe this personally. Either way, they should fix it - published benefits shouldn't be wonky and unpredictable.

notquiteaff

So my wife and I have a two-segment single-PNR trip coming up on Monday. The first segment has already been upgraded for both of us. How would I even know if the F seats on the second segment are given away to lower priority single travelers while my wife and I wait for the elusive 2 seats to get released? As far as I know, there is no waitlist to look at, and once the waitlist appears in the app after checkin, it doesn’t seem to show people who have already been upgraded.

My wife (MVP) has zero interest in going on extra flights just for the sake of increasing our chances of upgrades. So I am not doing MRs either, and frankly their upgrade algorithm reduces my motivation to earn higher status even through regular purposeful flying. So it’s award travel and free agency where it makes sense…

vanillabean

It helps to get her accustomed to F.

notquiteaff

She is quite familiar with F and certainly enjoying premium cabins across large bodies of water, but also pretty realistic that domestic F isn’t much to brag about.

As long as I am able to find decent premium awards or revenue fares for trips where it really matters, she is going to be more than happy. Her next solo flight is on Avelo (non-stop at a reasonable price beat flight at 3X the price on AS with a slight chance of upgrade).

flymonthly

You can look at the "complete" upgrade list (those who are eligible even if they aren't checked in) around T-48 (or sometimes earlier, I think) if you go to https://www.alaskaair.com/status/ffff/yyyy-mm-dd using a browser - replace the ffff with the flight # and yyyy-mm-dd with the date. I believe pax still fall off the upgrade list when they are upgraded, but if you take a screenshot at the t-48 mark, you would see who was there at that point.

notquiteaff

Thanks, that seems to work. We have fallen off the list for the first flight, but appear on the list for the second one (and it doesn’t look like we will clear, but obviously things can change).

SeaLuggageLover

This is amazing. I never knew a tool like this existed.

flymonthly

Probably an easier method is to check the flight status using your browser and then change the day in the URL.

ezak

To provide a DP on this topic:

I only learned of the "split" trick this year, so all past trips when my SO flew with me, we had two people on the same reservation. In 2021, we were actually 7/7 on upgrades, so it's definitely possible for more than one U spaces to be released at a time. But I do have an observation - not sure if it's valid though - that we have never been upgraded at the airport. Every upgrade that we received were at least a few hours prior, most likely even more than a day. Perhaps the one by one release only happens to gate upgrades? This would be my guess.

Also, it seemed to have nothing to do with seating charts. We've had multiple experiences when we got the upgrade but found no seats next to each other in F.