I am very new at this FF miles thing, and I tried to read as much a possible, before asking a question that I am sure has been asked a million times before…I did not find the answer, so I apologize in advance.

We only fly for vacation, so we do not have tons of miles (about 50k). But we will fly to Buenos Aires next Nov (2010) and would like to upgrade. We will purchase the tickets, and plan to use miles for the upgrade only. According to the CO chart, we need 25K/person/flight (and some co-pay, depending on the fare type).

Because we do not have enough miles, I am thinking of applying for a Chase/CO credit card, that will give us 30K miles as bonus (recent email). However, before I do that – realistically, what are the chances we could actually get the upgrade, considering we have no status? We will fly EWR-EZE on a Sat morning, and return 2 weeks later on a Sat.

Thanks a lot

First......welcome to FT, xyz99!

You won't be able to get anyone to give you a solid %-age likelihood of chances for upgrade.

But I would wager that if you are absolutely locked into flying Sat -Sat, your chances will be lower than if you had some flexibility in dates.

But either way, 30k miles for a fairly inexpensive card is still worth it, so go for it.

Purchase your tickets, waitlist for upgrade and cross your fingers.

Dergon,
Thanks a lot for the prompt response. I realize there is no way for guarantees…I did not expect any, just an advice, based on your experience.
How does this work – when do signup for the wait list? At booking time? A certain time frame before the flight? Online?

Sorry, I know how this sounds…but I really have no experience with FF.
I expected you to say something about the Sat-Sat flight, but when you only get 2 weeks vacation and want to take the whole 2 weeks, there are few other options. Will take your advice, and cross my fingers. Thanks

check this out:

https://www.continental.com/web/en-U...e/default.aspx


SO....when you book the flight online at Co.com you can use the advanced search function and look for upgrades.

In the unlikely event that space is available at the time of booking ...just click and go.

More likely, however, you will have to call and request to be placed on the upgrade list.

Now you have a decision to make.....if only one seat is open....do you two want to be split up?

Your chances of clearing the waitlist could go up if you split your reservations and waitlisted independently. (If only one seat is realeased and you two are together, then you would both be bypassed). So if you are OK with the possibility of only one of you clearing, then split the reservation and both of you cross your fingers.

An option is perhaps looking into Friday flights as well....