CO used to swear they wouldn't or didn't allow fare downgrades if a BF upgrade didn't clear, but things seem to have changed. This may be the only good thing to come out of the recent "enhancements."


The war may make this whole trip moot, but I am flying dca-ams on 10/15. I purchased an upgradable coach seat in August, when the flight from EWR was a 767. Now it's a 757, with far fewer BF seats.

When I checked today, CO said all but two BF seats were filled with paying customers, no upgrades had cleared. I'm Platinum, so if anyone cleared, it'd likely be me. During the call, another seat was sold. While the agent couldn't be certain, she would say this kind of demand often means CO will keep trying to sell that lone seat ...and we all know that list cancels 72 hrs out.

And yes, the agent said BF seats regularly go out open, rather than going to a cert holding flyer at the gate.

The kind agent then told me that coach seats are currently 400 less than what I paid..and said if I was willing to do it, I could take a downgrade and the 400 dollar difference in vouchers.

So, while I'm not being gouged to sit in coach, I am still there.
As a lucky plat, I can't remember the last time I sat in coach anywhere...any tips for surviving a transatlantic trip? I can't manage to fall asleep in BF, so I am not holding out much hope for undrugged sleep in coach.


[This message has been edited by joanek (edited 10-07-2001).]

You didn't mention your return flight. Are there BF seats available?? and can you use 20,000 just for that portion?? It also seems strange that just about all the BF seats are taken, even given the smaller plane--is there a conference or something major occuring in AMS at that time? As far as 'comfortable coach' seats, try for an aisle bulkhead. I'm sure someone on this forum can tell you specifically which one to go for. Alas, I was already upgraded on my EWR-LGW and was told no problem on my EWR-MXP in early Nov--so can't really help with an actual coach recommendation

You can most definately upgrade one half of a round-trip ticket for half as many miles. AFAIK, all upgrade certificates are one-way certificates. Every time I've requested paper upgrade certs, I've always gotten a set of two one-way certs, even when I had confirmed upgrades both ways at the time I requested the certs.

Considering that there are only 16 BF seats on a 757, I don't think it's that unusual for most of them to be sold as revenue seats. There are still a great many companies out there whose travel policy allows for purchase of a business class ticket for international travel. Also, this is one of the reasons that CO BF upgrades are harder to get than on other carriers. Since many travel policies allow for business class tickets, and CO's BF is much better than business class on carriers that operate 3-cabin aircraft on trans-atlantic flights (which includes AA, UA, and BA), there's a strong incentive for the business traveler to take their business class business to CO, as compared to those other carriers.

I can elaborate a bit: there were only 11 or 12 open seats in BF when I purchased my ticket. I checked seat maps weekly and things didn't move until the downgrade. After the switch to a 757, 8 of the 16 seats were open. That was steady until last week, when there were 4 open seats. Two today---and when I looked at ITN this afternoon, zero. Now the CO site is showing 2.

It looks more promising for upgrading the return, but I decided to "tough it out" both ways. (Funny that we now think of a trip to europe in coach as a hardship!) More than half of the rows on each side of the plane are totally empty on the way out.

Much heavier load on the way back, but CO claims they don't fill that dreaded middle seat next to an elite until the very end. And it's a daytime flight, so I won't go nuts over not sleeping.

On a positive note, those doubled status miles on my 345 dollar ticket will keep me platinum for another year. And I've got enough in vouchers to ease the pain of a future hokey fare. And I'm still on a 777 waiting list for a early December shopping trip to London. Those flights only show two seats taken in BF.

To further convince myself I will be happy wiht my decision, I reflect on the fact the website now shows a fare of 421 in coach---my original was 781. The lowest hokey is about 1200.

joanek-

Nice move and I apreciate the interesting info on downgrading (I probably wont need it as I refuse to play the HoKeY FaReS lottery). The latest check of fares to LON show the HoKeY FaReS are $700 more than the lowest fare even though the B777 is only 18% booked. So I am flying DL using "old miles" to u/g a really low fare ticket.

MisterNice

I'll add one more comment to this: the kind agent who told me about the downgrading also said this to me after I expressed horror at the thought of cashing in miles for a BF ticket...not that one was available on my dates:
" Are you doing this for the trip, or for the miles? you know, you'll get almost as many miles flying DCA-SEA, as DCA-LGW. And you could probably do four of those from BWI for the cost of one upgradable european fare. Have you ever considered doing cheap trans-con RTs to get the miles (and usually elite upgrades) and then cashing in miles for your intl flight?."

I do have plenty of miles to burn and by thinking ahead and booking early, that might be a solution to HoKey fares.

[This message has been edited by joanek (edited 10-11-2001).]