First off, if one is waitlisted for such upgrades, what is the order on the waitlist? Status, date booked, class of service, etc. If, e.g., V-fare + $$$ is more than H-fare, does this make a difference?

Ongoing complaints. 1) When you try to book, you are not told if BF upgrades are available until you ticket (though I was told if we paid full-fare coach, we could upgrade with miles; no thanks, waaay too costly). 2) At least they are finally telling us this --- if you have a domestic leg connecting to the intern'l leg, and if you are not upgraded to BF in advance, on the day of travel, if you accept the domestic upgrade, your full miles (one-way) will be deducted (and it makes no difference if you think you had a status upgrade).

None of the above is new, but its been awhile since I've tried to use CO miles in this manner, and am still upset about all this nonsense we have to go through.

Hi,

About one month ago I called the Elite line (Silver Elite) and talked to a nice lady. I wanted to buy a ticket IAH-CDG and upgrade to BF with miles. I told her that before buying the ticket I wanted to be sure that the upgrade was available. She checked and confirmed to me that such an upgrade was available and so I went ahead and got the ticket and she did the upgrade at the same time. No problem there. So I think you may want to call and check on that.

I hope this helps,

dc.

Same here. Took 3 trips this summer to PEK and got upgraded at time of ticketing using miles. No problems at all.

Sighhh. Maybe its my market, south South America.

As others have hinted, this is absolutely untrue. They can certainly tell you if the proper class inventory ("R" I think) is available whether you have a reservation or not. They cannot, however, hold that inventory for you until it the flight is ticketed and paid for, IIRC. That might have been the source of the apparent miscommunication between you and the res agent. Flyertalk Rule #1 -- if you don't like what you hear, hang up and call back again.

Most of your other complaints probably have at least some validity though...

Really annoying when you can get a reward ticket for B/F (even standard!) to EU or HNL but can't upgrade with miles on a paid ticket. Wish there was capability on the web to do the mileage upgrade. Why doesn't Co want to get the dollars for the paid ticket instead of only miles????

This issue has always interested me as well. I understand CO wants to avoid bogus reservations and related issues with upgrades, but the current policy does not make much sense in the big picture.

I was told this twice ("won't tell you until you ticket"). On my second call back, I did book the flight, and then was told I was waitlisted! (H-fare). And BF on the seating chart looked wide-open. (Agent also told me they would waive the $5 service charge; of course, it DID show up on my CC bill!)

My return GIG-IAH finally did clear, but IAH-CLE has not (always hate to end a trip in coach - takes the nice edge off the BF portion). Flight down is still waitlisted. Which raises another question. If not cleared within 5 days of the flight, who gets the priority (for the IAH-CLE domestic leg), a Platinim or a BF passenger??