Upgrade Dilemma HELP!!!
 

:confused: Need some advise on upgrade strategies:

For the past 3 years, I was able to use my miles to upgrade from EWR to Asia (NRT or HKG) round trip in November. I'm planning my trip again now and can't get a outbound upgrade...

Here's what I have on hold:
Outbound: Nov. 9: EWR to HKG (economy)
Return: Nov. 23: HKG to NRT (economy) NRT to EWR (Business First)
The price for this trip is 1034.00 + 300 upgrade fee.

Question
*Hold out and buy a ticket later when upgrades seats might become available?
*buy the ticket now and ask them to place me on a waitlist for upgrade (what are the chance for that to happen)
*Still buy the ticket and if an upgrade seat becomes available +/- 1 or 2 day, just suck it up and pay the $150 change fee?

Have you checked if another route may have upgrade seats? Maybe via NRT, or perhaps NW out of JFK?

It's probably worth checking around if you can secure it ahead of time.

IIRC you have to be elite to waitlist the upgrade.

It does not state anywhere on CO's upgrade policy that you have to be elite to be waitlisted.

http://www.continental.com/onepass/r...de/default.asp

Can't hurt to try... guess it's how I interpreted the "priority" statement: