Upgrading after selecting seat?
 

Hi

We are flying a week today as bronze members therefore will be able to select our seats for free as from later today.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that once you have chosen your seat, you may be prohibited from being offered an upgrade in MMB. Is this correct?

Many thanks

Assuming that you're talking about the special offer upgrades (known as POUG) I don't think it can be if you're simply making use of your free pre-allocation benefit. There are lots of Golds and Silvers who choose their seats for free at the time of booking and get offered special offer upgrades via MMB.

Ah yes it was the POUG's I was referring to but wasn't aware these are limited to Gold and Silver members.

Thanks for the advice ^

No, POUGs are not limited to Golds and Silvers. But Golds and Silvers who choose their seats for free at the time of booking get offered POUGs, so there's no reason that I can see why a Bronze who chooses their seat for free at the 7-day point would be disqualified from a POUG.

No, having already chosen a seat does not prevent you being offered POUGs, and it also does not prevent the possibility of operational upgrades.

Hi

I recall reading that it's best to complete OLCI, but not get (print/save/download) a boarding pass until you get to the airport for a better chance of an OPUP. Maybe that's what you were thinking of? By all means, select your seat as soon as your status tier allows you to.

My misunderstanding, in that case I'll cross my fingers and keep an eye out on MMB!

Now this is what I was thinking of, yes I also recall reading this somewhere. Thanks for the reminder!

Just to be clear, there is no better chance of an OpUp if you don't print your boarding pass. The FLY system will determine that automatically.

The sole advantage is that you retain the ability to select a different seat, so you might be able to improve your position (say with a bulkhead or exit row, or being closer to the front) within your booked cabin.

And anecdotally, those are the seats that status passengers get upgraded out of, so they can come free quite easily.

The other factor that may be worth mentioning is that, if you do get upgraded (or upgrade yourself I believe) you lose any money you've paid for seat selectoin.

Did this become so with the introduction of FLY, or have I had my wires crossed for a while?

I'd go with the latter ... :p

Even if just checked in you'd have a seat nominally allocated, so I'd think even before FLY that would need to be released if you received an OpUp.

The possible confusion is that holding off printing (etc) allows you to keep looking for other seat options, for example an exit row. But these seats would normally be in the booked cabin.

I always book a seat immediately after booking, and get upgraded from time to time. You used to have to wait until the "denied boarding" lights flashed on scanning the paper pass, and it was properly exciting waiting to see whether it would happen.


But these days the app changes the seat row to a lower number well before boarding. Takes all the fun out of it.

Thank you for uncrossing my wires. ^:)