I wonder what would happen if people decided to upgrade in the last minute

CX is quite good, they will call and check if there is enough catering. If there is a 2nd pax last minute I assume for certain dishes according to their calculations are popular they will load 1 more.

I once did a paid upgrade from business class to first class at the very last minute. The manager told me that I might not get first class catering because they could not load my meals. I would definitely get either business or economy class catering.

when you say manager do you mean ground agent or ISM? what meal did you end up getting?

Airport manager. Ended up getting a mix of first class meals and business class meals and economy class instant noodle. But it doesn't bother me cause all I needed was the big huge flat bed.

This is exceptional, normally they will refuse to issue you with the upgrade.

Was it at an outport or HKIA? I'd be very surprised if it was HKG, but could see it happening at an outport.

At HkIA they told me they can still onload catering at 40 mins but of course subject to availability

yea that makes sense to me, I do think at HKIA they'd be better.

Some of the outports are terrible. It wouldn't surprise me, for example, if ex-LAX the ground staff told you they couldn't load an F meal in time even if you checked in a few hours in advance and tried to do Instant Upgrade. I've had a few bad experiences trying to use Instant Upgrade at LAX I always feel like it's a meat market. It really sucks when both CX881 and CX883 are close to full. In that situation LAX ground staff become more obsessed with juggling pax loads b/w CX881 and CX883 to some optimal calibration that will earn them kudos from CX at home than they are actually serving pax interests..if what you want to do doesn't fit into the LAX manager's view for her optimal way to balance the pax loads on those two flights then you're SOL, even if it means trying to use an Instant Upgrade from J to F. I suspect they have various KPIs or metrics CX home base looks at (I don't know for sure, but I think op-ups might be one of them), and they are very driven towards hitting those goals.

So anyway, I guess my point is I could see what RA-wannabe said happening especially if the ground staff had other priorities.

It was ex-JFK.

bingo, yea that makes sense to me. outport staff can sometimes suck. had some great experiences, but also had my worst experiences at outports (notably: LAX). the manpower is lower and it seems if the guy at the top is having a bad day or is just off, there's really nothing you can do about it.

LAX staff are trained along the lines of this job would be great if it wasnt for the friggin customers. Now lets talk to the union.

ha. amen. i have had the worst experiences with them.

Same - even the Chinese staff there have a bad attitude! They don't give a shite even if you are DM+

Wow, this is bizarre. I've flown LAX-HKG at least a dozen times in all classes and I've never noticed an attitude problem there. I'm not saying you guys are all wrong of course -- I'm just feeling cognitive dissonance because I haven't experienced it myself.

What's the problem in LAX, check in staff or gate staff or ?