All,

On my recent flight on LAX-HKG on the 18th of August (the afternoon flight), one of my compatriots in J class was upgraded to F right in front of me. The lady said, "Mr. So and So, as you are an American Executive Platinum, we are going to upgrade you to F". She then said that it was being done as it is a oversold flight in all classes BUT F.

Mr. So and So almost fell over and died. He asked her "What???...Are you sure?". Since he and I had been in line and chatting, he said that he had been doing the route for quite some years and this was the first time he had been upgraded.

The most hilarious thing was that there was some mechanical problem and our boarding was delayed by 30 minutes. He was a nervous wreck. He was saying to me "Oh boy, I hope they dont take it back. I know my luck. Nothing good ever happens to me. I know they are going to cancel the flight. Then they will take away my upgrade. Oh my God. What will I do. i must get on. Oh Lord. Please let something good happen to me once. Oh Lord Please"

Ha ha ha. If any of you have ever seen Seinfeld, this guy was just like the character George Costanza. He kept mumbling and worrying the whole 30 minutes. He turned from a overall happy guy about to get on J to a very unhappy person waiting to board F. When they finally announced boarding, he RAN up the jet bridge. Ha ha ha.

Anyways, all the AA elites on this board. Good things can happen to you on CX. I saw it with my own eyes. But keep in mind, if you do get upgraded, please keep your dignity.

Thanks,

Panjabi

In the past 14 months on 3 trips to MEL/SYD (12 sectors) from LHR I have been upgraded from J to F on 4 of those flights as an AA EXP.

One of the these (the most recent) was on the LHR-HKG sector.

I think it depends on the route, date and tme and a bit of luck thrown in for good measure.

Mr. Moomba,

You are quite right. I only fly LAX-HKG in Longhaul with CX so I have no experience in any other longhaul route with CX. This gentleman also only flew this route and apparently this is one of the harder routes to get bumped up. I am only a AA Plat and in six years of doing three J roundtrips a year (18 round trips or 36 one ways), I have never been upgraded.

Thanks,

Panjabi

i can so relate to this

CX seems to have a policy of overselling J and then bumping premium pax to F as required. This seems to be different than SQ for example, who requires purchase of a F ticket should J become booked.

Choosing flights carefully helps your chances. My best experiences have been on LHR-HKG and HKG-SFO on Fridays. I'm on a waitlist for HKG-SFO in J later this month. It will likely clear, and the chances of getting an upgrade are high for a OW Emerald. I've been in the Wing before where they've called at least 10 people (to pick up their upgraded boarding passes) on flights from HKG to NA.

CX has been very consistent in the way that is uses the methodology that Norse_Aztec describes above, and combined with the fact that I have never had FF mile-earning issues with them, I am now more and more checking the CX schedule before I check the SQ schedule. If CX has a useful flight, I just have the flight booked.

CX then treats me nicely, often pushes me from J to F, and always awards the correct number of miles. Plus HKG is a good place to stop en route.

CX rarely oversells J and never for F.

It's usually the Y to J , and J to F ladder that is the case.

What do you mean? If the flight is overbooked, SQ can't force J or Y pax to pay for first class. Please clarify.

I've been upgraded on AA and BA (AA code share) twice to first from business in/out of India in the last year. A nice surprise, I must say.

SQ does op-up on the odd occasion... it's just rare as they have better revenue control management than CX.

And no, SQ will not make you pay the fare difference...

They used to just leave you behind and put you on the next flight rather than upgrade you..

That depends on your definition of "better" I guess. CX seem to prefer a full plane even if that means Y is 110%, J is 90% and F is 20% in terms of class paid for. SQ would prefer never to get the Y above 100% it seems... I guess the different strategies make sense for the different managements...

I was upgraded on CX880 on Thursday due to EXP status since some folks upgraded from Y to J using miles.

A few years ago, I encountered that many passengers were downgraded to J to Y. Fortunately(?), my booking was economy.
On the last day of Japanese holiday season, CX scheduled to use 747 for CX508 from HKG to NRT(most late departure to NRT on the day).
The flight was sold as C-Y two classes.
Saddly, last miniutes ship change occured.
Inflight Service Manager kept apologiing downgraded people on the plane.
She finally come to greet to me, and told terrible story.

I had connection BKK-HKG-NRT.
I was not able to get boarding pass of HKG-NRT flight.
Checkin agent at BKK told me that she was unable to issue boarding pass for HKG-NRT because of system could not assign a seat and seat assignment were required to be done at HKG.
Wow.

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse. What I meant is that if one is to try and buy a J ticket and J is booked, then CX will often sell a few more J tix and bump the premium flyers from J to F as required before the flight, while some others seem to require purchase of a ticket in a cabin that is not full.

While that's what I meant, this is solely based on experience and not inside knowledge of any airline policy, and, from other posts here, is possibly inaccurate. Guy Betsy, who would know better than me, points out that my experiences have likely been the result of some Y passengers being bumped from Y to J and then me and others from J to F. My assumption was based on being able to get a J ticket when the seatmap shows J full, and then getting bumped to F (I know, don't trust seatmaps). But with CX, when flying J, if the seatmap shows J as full then I believe I've been about 100% succesful with op-ups from J to F.

Upgraded 9/7 CX500 HKG - NRT was supposed to be a 773 and ended up being a 330. Unfortunately I was travelling with my boss so I gave my
upgrade to him. Oh well.