Andrew Yiu

I would like to know is it Exec Plat gets to claim an award ticket as long as there are seats on the flight? I will be schedule to make Platinum in 10 days, I want to claim an award ticket from YYZ-HKG for this christmas instead of buying J class ticket.

Also, once I do fly on the flight that I qualify, do I have to wait til that flight gets credited before I can call them and inquire about it?

I believe status is effective immediately, right?

What are some other benefits that EP gets... (starwood...etc)

Regards,
Empress

KenHamer

Executive Platinum members get "last seat availability" for themselves and a travelling partner. However, if you are booking a single ticket for a friend/relative, they are NOT eligible for the last seat, as you are not travelling with them.

There was a recent thread about this. While the 100% bonuses appear immediately on your statement, the actual E/P status doesn't officially occur until midnight on the first Saturday of the month following. However, if you phone the Gold line and explain the situation, they'll put you through to the Platinum desk. (If you have a problem, e-mail me once you've qualified. I'll e-mail you back the E/P number.)

-Starwood Gold
-20% off best rate at National Car Rental
-4 Ultimate upgrades
-6 System wide upgrades
-6,000 miles of upgrades
(You will receive a package of upgrades upon qualifying, then another identical package in February, so you can pretty much double the upgrades listed above. Typically, you will have so many upgrade stickers that you will earn them faster than you can use them.)
-access to any oneworld lounge, including the great new AA Flagship lounges
-Guaranteed seat on any flight (24 hours, Y fare)
-10,000 status miles (Legacy bonus) next year
-100 hour upgrades
-100% loyalty bonus points

There are other benefits as well, but these are the ones I use the most, and I think would be the most usefull to most FFers. But there is one more benefit that I haven't yet listed. This is because I originally thought I wouldn't care, but turns out the have been the best benefit: SERVICE!

You can't begin to imagine the level of service you'll receive. I once called the E/P desk with a super complicated itinerary, a particular fare I wanted, and would only fly if I could get upgraded. They took the details, hung up, and called me back 50 minutes later with the locator. Many of the E/P agents are now on a first name basis with me. And they'll often skirt the rules (slightly). Last week, I went to Dallas for the weekend. I got last seat availability. However, my "companion" was unable to take the same flights, due to other obligations. No problem. Even though we weren't on the same flights, they also got last seat availability, on the basis that we were both going to Dallas (for a Halloween party.) Another time, I got a voluntary stopover in LHR in both directions, on a BA award ticket.

The concierge serivce has saved my *ss on a few occaisions, with some very unusual requests. The answer is always, "Sure, no problem." Another service I've not yet needed is the late arrival. As explained to me, if you're say stuck in traffic, just call the concierge and let them know how many bags you have. They'll check you in, print the bag tags, arrange for a baggage handler to take your bags curbside, have a cart waiting to take you directly to the gate, have someone there to park your car, if required, expidite you through US INS/Customs, and so on.

Finally, whenever I have a complaint (which is pretty rare -- 2 so far this year, on about 60 flights) I get timely responses from the senior customer service people. In each case, the response has always been much more than satisfactory. (I.e. 2 Ultimate upgrades and 5000 status miles for a flight that turned around due to mechanical problems.) Compare that to some of the recent responses to complaints to AC S/E's, and well, what can I say?

BlondeBomber

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Andrew Yiu

Can't wait til I qualify.....just another 4500 points after this weekend...

Thanks Ken for the details..

Regards,
Empress

ALW

I've been having serious doubts about the value of Platinum based on my (Gold) experiences the past few months. I was going to post the following (as a data point) and then read of something almost identical in the latest InsideFlyer magazine waiting for me last night.

When I first switched over to CP from AC (which began with my June 27 flight), I was always able to get a confirmed upgrade YOW-YVR, and almost never YVR-LAX. The latter was reasonable since often there were 0 revenue seats left in BC anyway. I had excellent luck at the gate, I figure since I was (a) Gold, (b) on a B ticket, (c) travelling alone (couples would probably pass on the last single seat). Admittedly the good YOW-YVR luck may have been due to over-capacity, since BC was often not full on departure, and they've since dropped 24 of the 60 daily BC seats on that route.

However the last couple of months, I've found it almost impossible to get confirmed upgrades at all. I'm really anal about calling exactly 72 hours in advance, and will usually call back daily as advised, even though I don't ever hold out hope of extra upgrades opening up. I've still had pretty good luck at the gate, for the same reasons mentioned above, but I've seen (or think I've seen) what I consider a very disturbing trend.

It seems that CP is releasing very few seats for advance upgrades and holding more for some imaginary last-minute rush of Business-Class purchasers. My experience with yesterday's flights took the cake.

My schedule was LAX-YVR at 8:00am, YVR-YYZ at 12:00nn, and YYZ-YOW at 9:15pm. I called Wednesday morning at 8:05am (PT) to check on upgrades. There were none for LAX-YVR, although 6 of the 12 BC seats were open. It was too early for the other flights.

I called Wednesday night and was told there were still no LAX upgrades (6 open out of 12), no YVR upgrades (7? open out of 25), but I could have a YYZ upgrade (turned out there were 4 of us in BC, 10 in economy, in an F28). At that point I resigned myself to showing up at LAX at 6:00am to get on the upgrade list.

For some reason I decided to try again Friday night. I called the US number on my Gold card, got a "welcome to the Club line" recording, and sat on hold for 25 minutes (forget the data in InsideFlyer from last month!). The agent I talked to said there were still no upgrades available but thought she could do something for me on LAX-YVR. She went off and came back with the good news I could have one! Turned out there were _still_ 6 seats open, still none released for upgrades, but her supervisor allowed her to give me one. No such luck YVR-YYZ, where I think she said there were still 7 open. 6/12 seats open at 10:30pm Friday for an 8:00am Saturday flight, and they're still not releasing them!! So it was worth the 25 minute hold time since I could arrive at LAX at 7:00 instead of 6:00.

At Vancouver, I waited patiently to see if I got the upgrade (767). Luckily I did. Without keeping exact score, I think I was the fourth person called and at least one woman was called after me. I'd have been really annoyed not to get the upgrade, because while waiting, they loaded the premium passengers, loaded the back of the plane, and then called "all remaining passengers", so my early boarding (row 13) was completely blown, and I'd have been one of the last on (I consider early boarding into economy cabin a prime benefit of Elite/Gold status and never dally in the lounge).

What does this have to do with Platinum? Well one of the benefits is to elbow your way in front of the Golds, which is fair, I accept that it happens, both at the gate and with the extra 28 hours. But if Canadian has decided they can't afford to let members confirm upgrades just in case there's a last-minute rush, will it matter? No upgrades at 100 hours or no upgrades at 72 hours, either way I will still have to show up extra-early to get on the list, and board last.

Yes I know upgrades are a privilege not a right, but if I'm correct in what CP are doing, I think this is a short-sighted move.

My primary purpose in posting this is to ask if others (especially Platinum) have also found advance upgrades suddenly hard to get, beyond those resulting from capacity reductions. And if you think I'm out of line in objecting to this, I'd like your opinions (yes I have a choice of airlines, and that's partly my reason for asking, assuming I'm CP-Platinum+AC-Elite next year).

Thanks!
andrew

Andrew Yiu

Talk about this upgrade question..... This have been disturbing me for a long time and I have posted about this back in July.

The first time I noticed about this problem was back in June from LHR-YYZ. There were 15 seats open and they didn't even have 1 R class...at least not until 20 hours prior to takeoffs. The next was YVR-LAX-YVR back in July when there were 9/12 seats open and none were open. It is a dream to sell 3 or 4 last minute seats, but they have to be realistic. This problem have consider me to switch to AC next year if I wasn't going to make Platinum. First of all, AC's SE allows you to upgrade at time of booking whether it is domestic or international flight, although I don't know about AC, I always have a perception that AC's upgrades are harder to come by because they have more passenger.

The most disturbing about all this to me is that it will be an advantage to CLUB members since they can upgrade at the gate on day of departure.

I always call right at the 72 hours mark just to get the seats. Although I must admit I am 100% in upgrades this year (48 flights - 80000 miles), some of those are very hard to get. I always thought they would release seats as it get closer to departure time, but this was confirmed not to be true by a supervisor at CP, she said the yield management will release R class at 100 hours for domestic flight and 72 hours for international flight (since EP can bypass the yield management system for international flights).

That's why when I book my flights, I always look for one with only less than 50% of J class sold but sometimes this is not possible especially on flight between YVR-YOW and YVR-YUL.

Just came to mind, the most frustrating flight of the year was back in April when a YVR-YYZ flight has 21/25 seats (CP992 leaves at 1500) and no R class was opened... I found domestic upgrades are espeically critical since no upgrades means half points...

Although I have heard that Executive Platinum desk has the ability to override and give you upgrades...(only rumour...can anyone confirm?) But I am sure they have a waitlist for upgrades, well...doesn't matter if no seats are going to open up. However, being EP will put you right on the top of the list and you don't have to arrive 2 hours prior. But getting confirmed upgrade is what is on the top of my list.

Will you consider writing to CP about this?? I will be a big supporter if you do.

If you do have a choice of airlines...I would say stay with CP if you can only acheive Elite and not Super Elite on AC, after all, being Platinum will get you on the top of the list at the gate if you don't get the advance upgrade and there are usually no more than 2 or 3 Plats on board, sometimes none. Plus, the Platinum desk will probably do the best to get you upgrade.

However, I've been doing a lot of YYZ-YYC lately, and most of the time those flights are never full in J class at departure, so this problem was as big. But I am sure once I get back to YYZ-YVR or YVR-YOW,YUL, this problem will crept in again. Hopefully I will be able to tell you the difference when I get to call in and upgrade 100 hrs prior next week.

Another experience I forgot to mention was on a YHZ-YYC flight last week, there was no upgrade when I called in at about 72 hours, the agent nicely put me on a waitinglist for R class (usually only EP get this privilege), when I call back to check about 2 hours later, I was almost being yelled at by the agent for being put on a waitlist when I shouldn't have, turns out I was cleared for the upgrade, I guess when I called it wasn't exactly 72 hours yet, I then turn around got her name, hang up, then pick up the phone and call customer relations...for getting this kind of attitude...I have mention the upgrade problem to some agents, but they say nothing they can do.

Surprise to hear they can get you an upgrade just by asking to supervisor, anything you said to them particularly?

Anyways, still have quite a bit of experience about this whole upgrade situation, but I'll only post it if you guys want to hear about it. However, I am really glad I am able to get upgrades on my flight YYZ-HNL-YYZ this weekend...not bad for a $499 web fare and 9300 status miles...

Regards,
Empress

ALW

Empress,

I didn't talk to a supervisor (and I'm sure if I'd tried it would have done no good). The agent who answered put me on hold, went off, got me the upgrade, _then_ came back and told me she'd spoken to her supervisor because there were 6/12 open only 10 hours before departure.

It's interesting that your bad experiences go back to before mine began. It may be my perfect luck was due to overcapacity on YOW-YVR (which there was).

I had 100% confirmed upgrades as an Elite on AC from February to June of this year, at the height of purchased-certificate frenzy (at 7000pt for a SE YOW-LAX, it was ridiculous). Although there are more AC passengers, there are of course more AC flights (5/day YYZ-LAX, for instance). And since you can't buy upgrades for points or cash, there isn't the "unlimited" supply of upgrade certificates that you see on CP.

Some flyers (I would have been one if I'd stayed) even judge which flights are worth upgrading, either because of load factors (lots of empty seats and even whole rows in the back outside summer) or their own circumstances (fly up front on the way _to_ the client site, when you want to work or be rested, but save your certificates and fly in the back when you go home).

I expect that SE will not be allowed to upgrade all flights at purchase next year. I expect they'll go to 100 hours, and perhaps allow any-time upgrades from Y or M (which is essentially what TWA is pushing with UpFirst or FirstUp, but without the certificate!). What will clinch it for me will be if they allow certificate purchase for points again, but perhaps at a more realistic level (like double this year's fiasco, which was 7000pt for SE, 14000pt for E, for certificates YOW-LAX!).
[edit: actually it was worse than that; it was 28000pt/8, and it took 2 each way for an Elite member, 1 for SE. So that's 3500pt each way for SE, 7000pt for E]

The connection through YYZ is a shorter trip than through YVR of course, and when upgraded it earns more points (25% bonus, in Q-miles). Not to mention, their "C" fare [reduced J] appears to be always available if I'm feeling generous to myself.

As soon as this trip's points post (probably Thursday since I flew Saturday), I'm calling CPlus to see if they'll commit to a pro-rated target (back in June, they committed they'd pro-rate the target, but wouldn't say how much).

I'm still thinking of going to London in December for a week or 10 days, and I'd like to use my black stickers (or grey if they'll take 'em). Don't know if I want to be last-boarded for _those_ flights, if I have to wait until the last minute to find out if I'm upgraded (I'm always first on if I know I'm flying economy).

andrew


[This message has been edited by Andrew Webber (edited 11-15-1999).]