Hi - I'm new to the board as well. (Great place by the way!) I'm a PLT on CO and I have found that I get my upgrades about 70% of the time. I'm usually on the bottom of the barrel fares. I also fly from SFO to EWR quite often. The 752 with BizFirst cabin only has 16 seats! I've only been upgraded 2 times out of 10 and that was last minute being pulled up front from the back. I definately think something is going on with the upgrades these days.

I buy the "Q" fares all the time..my upgrade success depends on the city and the date.
Let's say going to ORD, its about 3 days out.
IAH, about 2 days out. FLL, depends, but got it 3 days out as well.

I agree there are so many elites that demand exceeds supply. The demand-supply ratio is highly correlated both to route as well as to day of week and time of day.

On last night's Houston-San Francisco 8pm departure, there were 17 platinum members seated in coach. 9 of 14 seats were filled by Y-ups, awards and other pre-EUA methods. By holding the remaining seats back from EUA, CO was able to accomodate 2 passengers who were bumped off United (and receive full revenue for doing so). That left 3 seats for EUA, which was done 10 minutes out, so these 3 people were pulled from coach. Assumedly they were all on high fare classes (I was a platinum on a "V" fare and I did not get upgraded). This flight is sort of a "consultant's special" - everyone rushing off to their engagement for the week at the last minute...its always impacted. But I could point to other Houston-San Francisco flights where platinums almost always are upgraded (like Saturday night last flight or Wednesday morning first flight).

There is obviously definite revenue management and strategy going on (and it may very well help CO pay the bills - they would have never received circa $4,000 from United last night if they had filled first 100% through EUA).

If you want to fly CO you just need to realize all this and deal with it. My guess is it will become just too much for some people, and, in conjunction with heightened requalification requirements, elite ranks will decline. This could ease the problem slightly.

It continues to be a concern that the advertising is somewhat deceptive - i.e., that they engage in so much gaming of the inventory (which I'm not per se opposed to) whilst simultaneously promoting to the public that upgrades are given on a space available basis 5/3/1 days out. They are NOT really given on a space-available basis, because many times there's plenty of space but because its anticipated that the flight is a "consultant's special" etc., they hold it back. Again, that's fine for them to do, its just contradictory to what they essentially promote to the public.

I wonder if Y-fares are being automatically dropped into First. Maybe the EUA sweeps are happening, but only flagging Y fares? That way, if you buy Y, you fly in F, which is one of the objectives of the "Elite for a Day" program.

Afterall, I imagine there are a number of Y fares who are not frequent CO flyers and do not know that they could request F when they checked in. But if everytime they buy Y, they're seated in First, CO hopes that everytime they buy Y, they'll fly CO.

Let's hope not. This is exactly what CO said would not be happening, i.e. "elites ofr a day" processed before regular elites. According to CO, a regular silver member on a T fare should get an F seat before an "elite for a day" member.

It seems that CO's main strategy is "YUP" fares, where a full fare coach ticket gets you confirmed or at lease a very good shot at first class.

How is that a strategy? They can call it EliteAccess or whatever you want, but basically its is free upgrades on full fare coach.

How is that a strategy? If it is successful, why wouldn't every other carrier follow? It is not exactly hard to copy a "pay Y and get F" approach.

AA already offers a Y-UP fare. To my knowledge, anyone who buys it is booked into A (discounted First) and assigned a seat in the First Class cabin.

UA also offers Y-UP, but only for their Elites (not general members or non-mileage plus members). I imagine it is the same procedure (booked in A, seated in First).

Got an EUA on SFO-EWR today as Gold. It happened at the 3 hour mark. Seems like CO is holding seats to the last minute (A9F0 up until this morning, just before EUA ran, then A2F0 afterwards), but mine was definitely EUA with email and all. We even had one empty up front, so either everyone eligible got it, or a lazy GA didn't process a battlefield.

So I wouldn't say EUA is broken, but they're definitely holding back inventory more than they used to.

I had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago that suggests that there maybe even more going on behind the scenes. I was on a standard Biz-First award DPS-GUM-NRT-EWR-RDU all was confirmed in F except the EWR-RDU leg. Checking in in DPS I was confirmed on the waitlist with several open seats (but no way to actually give me one), same story in GUM and NRT. I was told in EWR that there were still 3 open seats and I was first on the waitlist, but still they could not give me an F BP. In the end the gate agent told me F was full. Fortunately it was only an hour flight, but I was dismayed at the real fact that Elites (I'm still PLAT BTW) on coach tickets must have been upgraded over an elite on a F award ticket. Seems to me that I was not upgrading but on an actual F ticket and should have been given an F seat before *any* upgrades.

Anyway this got me thinking and I pulled out my customer profile that the agent in DSP gave to me. It stated my personal info, OP number, PLAT status - then next to PLAT it said "inactive". I have not flown CO since Feb 2003 and have a total of 4,500 miles this year from 125,000 in 2002. I wonder if this "inactive" status had any impact on my EWR-RDU flight. I am in the same situation for the return tomorrow. All confirmed in F (standard F award) for EWR-NRT-GUM-DPS, but RDU-EWR is waitlisted for F - I don't expect to get it.

Oh - and another odd thing, because I am waitlisted for the RDU-EWR leg I cannot pull up my ITTN on co.com - ???? -

I was suddendly told (yesterday) that I had to do a EWR-IAH-MSP tomorrow. CO/ITN was showing A0 on EWR-IAH & MSP-EWR segments, but since I had to go, I had to go. This am I was greeted with 3 EUA e mails from CO alerting me of my upgrades (I am Platinum). Now I will admit it, I am booked on a corp discounted Y coach fare of ... believe it or not, $2435!, so I'm pretty happy about not having to sit in the back at that rate-- but it does seem funny that suddenly those A0,F0 etc seats opened up!

flew with a gold elite member (i am platinum) on saturday to fort lauderdale from newark...returned on monday. both of us were upgraded both ways well ahead of time (i.e., no battleship upgrade, or whatever it's called).

[This message has been edited by fly co to see the yanks (edited 11-05-2003).]

I just did another post on EUAs so I won't re-type it, but to Rob (the guy that started the thread) if the name in your reservation does not EXACTLY match the name in your FQTV program, the EUA will not work. In other words, if your FQTV # is under "Robert" and your ticket is under "Rob," the EUA will skip you.

Check it out...

My name is not the problem.

I got the EUA to Denver at the 3 day mark last week and I also got the EUA back to Houston for tomorrow (3 days out). By the way, both of these segments are in "S" class.

Also, I got the EUA upgrade (3 hour mark) on my return from New York on Monday. I checked in online and was #1. Right up until I left the house, I was in coach. I always re-check my seat assignment when I get to the airport using one of the e-service machines. That showed I had already been upgraded.

I'm traveling again next week on "B" fares. EUA won't process me before Sunday.

I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks,
Rob

Well, it happened again. My 'B' fare class flight to the Northwest on Weds was *NOT* upgraded.

ITN shows: A5 D4 F0 Y9 H9 K9 B9 V9 Q9 S9 T9 L9

So fare class paid may not mean as much as people think this far out in the EUA process. It might play a role in airport upgrades however. Remember I was upgraded by EUA at the 3-day mark for two flights this past week in 'S' class.

Why would they hold NINE seats up front? Btw...it's a 737-800B.

RM

For all of the new elite access customers. Have to keep all of the full Y pax happy.