I've had a straight Y to F upgrade at the gate before but all other double upgrades have been step by step

Never got one but was told in NRT before at check-in that I received an opup from Y to PEY and might get one later to J. Unfortunately didnt happen in the end.

I guess you have to be extremely lucky and a couple of factors have to happen.
- Heavily overbooked.
- No other members in the next cabin class, probably not even GR.
- No higher tier members who also got upgraded to the next class

I've got a friend who just joined Asia Mile before his first flight with CX and got bumped up from PEY to J.

So I guess for a Y to J op up at check in to happen, the whole PEY class needs to be full with pax either travelling together or not even with AM.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...yyer-2.html#24

My guess is that all the other elite flyers in PEY were also upgraded to J, before him. There are only 21/32/34 PEY seats, and CX could only sold less than half of them and still need the space for the Y op-ups.

Since the guarantee Y fare gone, I've been forced to used my travel agent more and I do fine they some times have a different fare class availability. I have once be able to secure a V class ticket when CX's lowest fare was only B class. How does that work?

Which route was this? Better not been long haul....

I've had a two-step Y-F upgrade on KA from PVG-HKG. Check-in at PVG was Y-J, and at the gate my BP got the magical red light and the gate agent scribbled "1A" over my seat number (no new BP at the gate).

There was only one other person in F, not an upgrade, but we both got F meals.

Same. Two step Y to F on KA900... Y booking to J at check-in... To 1G at gate (new BP)...

F was full, in standard F service, but no idea which are paid F which are op-up like me...

I haven't heard of 2-step upgrades for a long time. It is definitely not CX/KA standard procedure. In fact the only other time I heard of it was for yours truly. It was when Elite was just merged into MPC (around the beginning of 2007), and I was probably the only DM on a HKG-PEK flight while the other Elite elites were still working their way to DMs. I was op-upped at check-in and again at the gate. F was not full. I was the first one who was offered a choice for breakfast, and I had a bowl of very nice congee.

Back when CX had just introduced PE, I got a double op-up from Y to J on the HKG-ORD flight as a SL. At T-12 or so I could see from OLCI that I had been moved up to PE. At airport check-in, the agent printed my PE boarding pass, went back to her computer for a second, picked up the phone to call someone (presumably a manager; she was careful to speak in a very hushed voice), tore up my PE boarding pass, and printed out a new one for J. Needless to say, I was a very happy camper, despite being in the last row of J!

Another anecdote experience to share. 3 men team going on a trip to Indonesia. On SFO - HKG I was in C class and my two teammates are both in Y+ class. One DM, and the other is OWS (AA PLT). Upon boarding, one of my teammate gets the surprise red-light, and promptly handed a C class boarding pass. No it's not the DM, but it is the OWS.

I have observed this "out of order" upgrades too often in my multi-personnel trips on Cathay that I am (myself, my anecdotal experiences) firmly in the belief that Cathay has a multi-variable system for upgrading people and not just the logical order of: DM, GO, OWE, OWS, SL... that is commonly believed in this forum.

Wow, wow, wow, no wonder I got so many op ups as OWS/OWE this year. Perhaps it is more about MPC hierarchy for OLCI op ups, and from this it seems that CIV score is the determinant for airport-controlled op ups.

Not like (or not should, as per the op up order that we all know) it matters, but were both of your teammates on separate reservations, any bassinet seats/special meal, or different booking class?

(Don't mind if that's true...i've always fantasized about op up from J to F on ORD route but I know it's hard... :p )

I also don't believe that the commonly held belief on this board as to how upgrades are awarded is true. The bottom line is that whatever algorithm is used is unknown to us and it's hard to "game" the system.

I do actually had a feeling that when I was GO, I receive more op ups.

It's common on BA for them to upgrade first time Y+ flyers to J, possibly as some sort of enticement that if you will pay more for Y+ lets see if you'll pay even more if we show you what J is like.

Given how frequently CX upgraded me from Y+ to J when i first started flying them, and how they have copied so many other elements of BA's business, it wouldn't surprise me if they followed that too.