Transworldone:
You need to take the bull by the horns. Call NW and ask them the fare and fare code for the lowest upgradeable fare to your Asia destination (This will be either B or M -Remember that NW codes and CO codes are completley different. B for NW does NOT equal B for CO). Then call CO with this information. Be very clear that you want to purchase a NW ticket, NOT a CO ticket on a Northwest codeshare. Tell them you want to upgrade at the same time with Onepass miles. If they seem confused, ask them to talk to a supervisor or hang up untill you get someone that know the procedure. I have done this on 6-8 tickets and never paid nmore than $1,100 (JFK-SIN). Of course, the M or B fare must be available on the flights you want, but you can check this in advance on ITN and you can check on the NW site via the reward booking section that free (and hence upgrade) seats are available.
Armed in advance with this information before I called CO, I have NEVER been unsuccessfull.
This NW loophole is what makes the HoKeY fares tolerable.

Vulcan,

Perhaps I don't understand what you're doing completely; but:

how is your procedure different than booking a NW flight and upgrading to WBC using your Onepass miles? If you're booking on NW why are you bothering calling CO?

Thanks.

[This message has been edited by jetsetter777 (edited 10-19-2001).]

I've been watching this thread in amazement for a while and I finally must ask the question:

Everyone here does realize that coair.com reads this forum, right?

dbaker:
CO used to rea this thread. Of course you must assume that they still do, but I can tell you that the people who had that job are now gone http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif. They were nice people. They also read all of the megabonus threads last year.
Jetsetter:
yes. the goal is to get into B/F. However, I was responding to Transworldone's post regarding his experience with NW.
If you can't get into B/F at a reasonable price, AND you really, really want to travel in business class to Asia, then if you have OnePass miles, buying a NW ticket from CO is the only way I know to do this. At least it offers a way to spend the miles on international upgrades at reasonable ticket prices.
Remember the reason for the B/F 'enhancement': "To reduce the pool of people competing for a scarce resource", the B/F seat. CO chose to do this by simply rasing the price out of the reach of many, like myself, who can't afford $2,000 upgradeable tickets to Asia.

You're presuming that I'm assuming. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I know for a fact that multiple people from coair.com read this forum.

Just like how delta.com reads the Delta forums and amrcorp.com reads the American forums.

It doesn't really matter if they read about a few agent's mistakes here. The mistake is later discovered and the agent in question gets a "training memo" each time something like a non-HoKeY upgrade takes place-- this I know for a fact.

So, we're not exactly exposing national security issues in this thread.

And, I'd be just as happy if this forum was monitored so that certain folks would understand how much the H and K rule has influenced some of us elite members.

I just did the NW WBC work-around that Vulcan made reference to for a HKG trip in February-- that's lost income for CO every time someone does that, and I'd suggest that everyone try it!

Maybe then the penny-wise/ pound-foolish number-crunchers at CO will see how aggrieved this stupid "enhancement" has made some of it's high-revenue passengers.

dbaker,

Perhaps you didn't see my earlier post? I am sure Continental has people who read these threads. They probably are amused by some of the issues and grateful for free (anecdotal) market research delivered directly to them.

The words that were used when I spoke to them were that "we read flyertalk all the time and we laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh......" (Laughing as she said the words)
True quote http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

JohnNYC is correct about the loophole and I suspect more will be using it. NW got my $1,000 recently on two Asia tickets that I would hve preferred to give to CO. The only way this makes sense is that CO would rather fly the B/F seat empty than have to take an "insulting, measly" $1,000 from a Platinum member. Unless of course, every B/F seat is full with a B/F paying customer or with a customer who is willing to pay the $2,000 upgradeable fare CO thinks its worth. I would pay maybe $200 more per RT because I think that COs product is far superior. But not $800-$1,000+

[This message has been edited by Vulcan (edited 10-19-2001).]

Well, allow me to play this out to it's natural conclusion-- just for fun:

Let's assume, for a second, that there is CO monitoring of a thread such as this.

Hey, CO luker(s)?? Listening?

Why don't you come out and play? In other forums, official lurkers make themselves known and are subject to remarkably little abuse. They will give definitive answers to complicated questions and everyone is very grateful for their input.

Why the Romulan cloaking device? (please check me on the spelling, Vulcan http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif) Come laugh with us instead of at us! We'll be nice...

Dear Lurker-

I want to do the right thing, so am turning myself in. Let me give you some more details of my flight so that I can be appropriately reverted to my previously-enhanced state:

1. I am travelling on 2/29-2/30
2. My BF seat is 8C (on a 767-400)
3. Did I say EWR-HNL? I meant AOL-QQQ.
4. My ticket is an O fare.

Please downgrade me ASAP!! Just keep the withdrawn miles for the inconvenience that I may have caused Gordon et al.

HoKeY-ly,
MS

[This message has been edited by Mileage Schemer (edited 10-19-2001).]

The HoKeY thing is just truly ridiculous. Let me just say that if you DO try to weasel a diversion, be gentle. I just got a printout of a PNR for a IAHCDG round trip where I must have pushed a little too hard - it now says "pax advised this fare non upgradeable using onepass miles." Just be gentle. Hopefully CO will see the rror in their ways very soon and reverse, I know they are losing people left and right over HoKeY. If I wasn't infinite, I'd be gone about now considering all the double miles promos elsewhere.

My big beef with HoKeY is not only that K is often 2-4x, but that K tends to have earlier adv purchase. e.g. especially in the winter, CO will release last minute Q/T fares with a 3 or 7 day adv purchase. Of course, there's no comparable K ... you still have do the 14 or go to an H, making the differential much higher.

On the bright side, I did manage to get an upgrade with miles to Upper Class LHR-EWR. The agent was very knowledgable about the rules. We chatted about HoKeY for a bit ... sounded like they'd been getting a fair amount of complaints. Said she thought they did to "be closer to NW".

That's quite a goal they've set for themselves there.

Your point about the advance-purchase requirements is a very, very, very good one. I've encountered that myself twice recently. Both times I was looking to just get out of town for the weekend and was looking to do a BF ticket to Europe for $1000 or so.

In both cases, the only K-fare that was sub-$1200 had a 7-day advance purchase requirement-- and barring that, the fare would be $1600ish, or, $2000+.

I would think CO should find a way of accommodating (if you call a $1200 ticket to Europe in winter "accommodating") last minute purchasers under the HoKeY scheme-- even if minimum stay/ Sat. night stay requirement is still necessary to prevent loss of higher fare business tickets.

These are seats that will not sell to anyone else-- either I go or I don't go. And some will choose to go for a $400 Q/T fare instead.

Does that not net the airline less profit?

Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine had "Difficult" written on her medical chart.

I once got called out on playing "agent roulette" with respect to paying $ and miles to upgrade my status (supposedly a once-in-a-lifetime event, if they even do it anymore). The agent said "I see here that you were already told that this was a one-time deal..."

JonNYC ,

Could you please tell us more about how the system works that sends agents training memos when they upgrade fares that are not in the appropriate classes?

Does CO run some sort of batch job that looks at the history of a PNR, and looks for booked J/R seats when the prev class is not = to one of the fare-allowable codes? I cannot imagine they have a human being reviewing each upgrade tkt?

Just curious about the mechanics about how they literally do it, and whether if I were a res agent is it a hit or miss thing that I would get a training memo, or am I sure to get a training memo each time I did an upgrade like this?

Also is the NW work around only for Asis, or does it work from the US to Europe?