Hey guys... been lurking around the forum for a few months now. Just wanted to introduce myself to my fellow CO fliers. Been flying CO for the last two years now since I started my job here in Houston. Previously, my extend of travel was very limited and actually didnt even have an elite program with any airline. So I'm still fairly new to all of this. Been using the sticky to decipher through all the acronyms but i'm slowly getting over the learning curve

With that said, 2009 has been a very busy year for me and i received platinum status last month. So I'm excited to reap the benefits of that, although 2010 has already brought lots of cuts in our travel budget and will most likely lose my platinum status by the end of 2010. In any case, I've been very satisfied with CO as a whole (although i dont really have much to compare it to) minus a few bad experiences but that is to be expected in anything.

My question to everyone is upgrades (i know this is a subject touched on numerous times). I had a flight from IAH to NRT to BKK with UA from NRT to BKK. Due to travel cuts I was not able to purchase a businessfirst seat which i was extremely annoyed by but thats not CO's fault.

So coach it was... a "U" fare on my departure and a "M" fare on my return to IAH . To my pleasant surprise on my departure a FA came up to me in my coach seat and told me to get my stuff and follow her. I was a little startled by this but she assured me it was a good thing. I ended up getting upgraded to BF, at the time I was a gold OP elite. I was pretty shocked b/c it was my understanding that upgrades are not too common in int'l flights. So i was pretty shocked.

My question is, on my return flight i naturally was hoping luck would strike me twice. It didnt. No big deal.. i wasnt going to make a hissy fit like i've seen some passengers. The thing that struck me as odd was that i saw a few open seats in BF and was wondering why I or someone else got upgraded? I saw some FA's holding what looked to be the manifest walk up and down the aisles. Seemed like they were looking for passengers. I was hoping that one would approach me and get upgraded again but didnt see anyone go up. (i was seated at the very front behind BF). So just curious what CO's policy was on upgrades on int'l flights. Seemed kind of inconsistent to me but again I'm not as experience as most of you guys are so I was wondering if you guys could give me some insight for future int'l flights.

You got what is called "op-up'ed" which means, an operational upgrade. This generally only happens when coach is oversold. Otherwise, there are no upgrades allowed into BF just because seats are empty.

Do a search for "op up" in this forum. There have been two or three recent threads/experiences concerning this.

Op ups are rarely given, but they tend to occur when Economy is overbooked, BF is open, and there are CO Elites on the flight. Best advice is if this happens, don't take the voluntary bump offer at check-in.

Not sure what situation you were in that gave you the op-up - possibly a combination of overbooking in Y, combined with a high fare class, perhaps?

Thanks for the info.. never heard of the "op up" i'm going to do a search on that. Thanks again.

Just to clarify your OP, you won't lose your Plat status until the end of February 2011 so you will still be Plat in Jan and Feb of 2011. In order to qualify for Plat past Feb 2011 you must meet the requirements during 2010. I point this out because you said you are new to Elite status.

Welcome aboard

Got it. So CO's cut off is at the END of February each year and NOT December which I had originally thought?

Qualification is from January 1 to December 31 of a calendar year. Elite benefits are in effect until the end February of the following year. So if you earned elite status in 2009, your status is good through February of 2011.