drspear

yeh I found that our later, it was my first WT+ LH flight so was wet behind ears, I will never know but such ignorance may have prompted the lad on the desk to upgrade me, so win win

layz

But now you know I'm sure you won't be innocently asking that question again!

drspear

I should imagine the contrary shall apply

Littlegirl

They are using a new system apparently that does not just use status, it uses a variety of different measure but I have no idea what measures it uses. I was told this by a TRM last week when I asked why a card holder was not one of the customers upgraded.

muscat

Age? colour?? Size??? Sex ????
I can imagine a few complaints coming

Littlegirl

To be honest we have never always upgraded by status, it has always been done using varrious measures, it's just that a new system is being used to help the staff do this.
If only status was used, it might, on some regularly busy routes, encourage high status passengers to always buy a lower cabin, knowing that they would be upgraded.

I don't know how it is all worked out, it is a bit of a dark art!!

leedstraveller

Mr LT, both teen LTs and I were upgraded from WT+ to CW on our Man/LHR/PHX trip last month. To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the decade maybe even the century
I had checked loads on Flightstats in the weeks leading up to the 'big' flight -WT and WT+ were showing zero availability.
The only thing I can think of that may have helped us was that we paid to select our seats as we had no tier points, no status, no nothing.
We were very happy and managed to UUA to CW for our flight home from LAX.
Whilst I'm here as I'm more of a lurker than a poster - many, many thanks to the regular posters on FT for all of the advice and information you have given out. I'm now Avios rich with plans to spend Mr LT's 241 BAPP voucher travelling in First to somewhere far away and exciting (with Mr LT of course).

mclachlan4321

As a totally un scientific reading over the last few months, it seems those passengers with no status are the ones being upgraded.

corporate-wage-slave

What we see there are, perhaps, individuals who don't expect upgrades - especially when a lot of FT says "you need status" - indicating their surprise at the magic bleep. On the other hand regular status flyers (or at least this one) get a high upgrade percentage and it hasn't changed much. I would hardly rush on to FT to tell you all about it! It's not certain, nor should it be, and I am aware of other people getting upgrades ahead of me - and that's fine by me.

Gold77

Cannot seem to download using the link provided. Is it just my computer or is the link broken?

Tafflyer

Something has definitely changed.

- Mrs Taffflyer (SCH) and I (GCH) were upgraded CW -> F on LHR-LAX a few weeks ago.
- Master Tafflyer (SCH) got WT+ -> CW LHR-JFK 6 weeks ago.
- Miss Tafflyer (SCH of 2 weeks) just got CW -> F MIA-LHR yesterday.

Apart from the rules, I think the number of upgrades being given have increased. I know that there were empty seats on board 2 of these flights in the originating cabin, so these were not "pure" op-up's. All tickets were sale fares of one type or another.

markzz2

I don't think anything has changed except perhaps the oversales upgrades are sometimes done earlier in the process these days.

If a flight is oversold the Load Control people look at the flight and pick suitable (SFU) passengers from the list. They upgrade them either at check in (if the situation is severe) or at the gate when boarding.

Once the upgrades have been done it is rare to then downgrade someone again to their booked cabin although at the last minute people may not make the flight or no show. This especially happens at London where people book unrealistic minimum connecting times. These customers are often through checked so it is not known they are not coming until the last minute. So often you will end up with a few empty seats in Club for example, even though there are upgrades in First.

This time of year (and this happens every year) the loads in Club and First do drop due to less business travel and therefore there is more overbooking in the WT and WT+ cabins. This in turn leads to more upgrades in Club and First but this is predicted and bookings accepted with this in mind. So Golds may see themselves with a higher rate of Upgrades June-Sept than for the rest of the year.

paulwuk

My op-up to club world percentage on long haul over the last year is 45%. Far better than the year before.

I'd be willing to spend miles, or even look at POUGs if they were offered, but they aren't.

Still, does a very good job at keeping all my flights on BA. I think I could be VS Gold, *A gold and possibly even EK gold, without losing BA Gold (or certainly BA Silver), but instead I point all my flights at BA as I know there's a good chance of being bumped up.

LDNConsultant

My op-up to CW or CE on any flights in the past 3 years as Silver has been 0%....... am I doing something wrong

paulwuk

Do you book W tickets, or E and T ones?
Do you fly on routes that are routinely oversold? Over the last 6 months, 30% of my flights have involved being on a waitlist. In one case I had a silver colleague on the same waitlist who didn't clear (I did).

All my upgrades are "INVOL DUE TO O/SALE". I had one pre-emptive upgrade several days in advance about 2 years ago (allowing me to select an upper deck seat), but had to cancel the ticket.