I was truly blown away by jocjo's statement that he has gone 0 for 50 on upgrades as a plat on transcon (I guess that brings a new meaning to unlimited free upgrades).

As I've mentioned here numerous times, I went 0 for 25 as a Gold before throwing in the towel and doing my knees a favor by flying transcon on jetBlue.

I would venture to say that jocjo's mark of 0 for 50 is likely a record, something akin to Joe DiMaggio's 52-game hitting streak...

I wonder if others could post their no-upgrades streaks. Please make sure you include your elite level and whether you fly mainly transcon or not transcon.

Please feel free to include your streaks that may have one upgrade (or a very few upgrades) out of many non-upgraded flights (like 1 for 20, or 2 for 35).

We are obviously not including non-upgradeable flights such as CoEx, CoCo, or BF international.

I have flown over 100 segments on Continental this year. Approx 91 of them were mainline segments which were upgradable. I have been upgraded on all flights except for 4.

113 segments
91 upgradable
86 upgrades

IAH Based Platinum. About 80 % of my flights were either to or from IAH. I flew 6 transcons originating in EWR. I was EUA'd on 3 of them (PDX, SEA, SFO), and used miles at the time of booking to upgrade the 3 transcons from EWR-LAX.

At 15,000 miles, it is mileage well spent on the elusive EWR-LAX upgrade as I know I am not going to get it otherwise. I did not use miles to upgrade any of the others.

I don't keep records of my upgrades, but I had a real bad dry spell recently, going through my statements online looks like I went 0 for 13 from mid summer through the beginning of Nov (including an H fare to SNA), most were transcons. I finally snagged a battlefield upgrade LAS-EWR on a return flight.

My upgrade percentage is well under 50% for 07, worse than last year, had to laugh when it was reported on this forum that either Jeff or Larry stated at the DO that upgrades for elites were holding at 65%...not for this Platinum.

I have already hit platinum for 08, I am thinking of trying NW on transcon's through DTW (can't deal with CO E- for 5 hour plus flights anymore). The one NW flight I booked this year I was upgraded on both legs. Even if I don't get an upgrade, I can break up the trip a bit.

Trying to decide whether to qualify as a CO elite next year or switch to NW, If I go to NW, I will use my CO FF # and status when booking the flight and change to my NW FF # at the gate (hopefully after an upgrade).

I'm an IAH based CO Plat and almost all of my travels are to the central US or mid-west through CLE. Unless I buy a Y fare, I never get an upgrade. I've lately been flying through DTW or MEM on NW and almost always get upgraded 5 days out. Granted, an IAH-MEM upgrade is pretty worthless, but the PC in A at IAH usually has very few people in it, which is nice.

Do you include Y-Ups?

I'm 41/47 on upgrade eligible routes this year as a platinum. I have 3 transcons (2x SEA-EWR, 1x EWR-SEA) and I got 1 EUA upgrade, 1 Y-up and one in coach. I'm flying to SFO later this year and expect to do so in the back of the plane. I cashed in miles for the return. My other 44 flights were mostly EWR-Florida/ATL/MSY, with a couple JFK-IAH mixed in. Only 3 of those 44 were Y-ups, making a total of 4 aU tickets for me this year.

If you add in companion upgrades I've got probably 7-10 more F seats accounted for, putting my rate at over 100%.

Don't be surprised if the upgrade disappears when you play this game. It has been known to happen that way.

I went 0 for 17 before finally getting an upgrade on a 7 AM Saturday morning flight DCA-EWR. That's my usual route, but I have done a smattering of other flights with no upgrades. We'll see how it goes next year as Gold.

This year, all as a Platinum:

• 37 CO mainline flights - Upgraded on 30 (7 were Y-ups) - 76.7% upgrade success, excluding Y-ups
• 20 NW mainline flights - Upgraded on 19 (1 was Y-up) - 94.7% upgrade success, excluding Y-up
• 57 combined CO/NW - Upgraded on 49 (8 were Y-ups) - 83.7% upgrade success, excluding Y-ups for 2007
• Longest streak of consecutive missed upgrades this year: 2

So while those upgrades can be really tough on transcon flights, for other routes, it's not so bad. Most of my missed upgrades on CO were IAH-EWR flights. My most frequent routes this year have been IAH to/from MSP, DFW, and ATL, and I've rarely missed an upgrade to/from MSP or DFW, and not missed one to/from ATL on CO.

I think a lot of it depends on where you're flying.

To all of those of you who have replied with your high rate of upgrades post, thank you, but this is OT.

The purpose of this thread is simply to establish the incidence of elites with low rates of upgrades and to try to surmise the reasons for this.

It does appear, however, that the upgrade rates are higher ex-IAH than ex-EWR. I know that when I went through my 0 for 25, my last upgrade before that run was an IAH-BTR.

And while it is well established that upgrades are virtually nil on EWR transcon, my dry spell included numerous non-transcon destinations, but still all out of EWR.

Finally, you may include Y-UP, but only when your Y-UP did not result in an upgrade, which is certainly possible, especially on EWR transcon of course.

I hear ya, but I'll also argue that only showing half the data makes analysing and trending much harder.

Fair enough. So be it. Let's start posting all upgrade %'s...

33% as a Gold; no transcons taken

I think it's a little unfair to say I'm 0 for 50 (or whatever) on upgrades without factoring in fare class, aircraft type, days of the week of travel, etc...

It's possible in this thread that someone can take the same flight every Monday that's packed, and book their travel months out, on an aircraft that's tough to upgrade.

With so many people replying that they aren't 0 for double digits in upgrades it's not really Off Topic because it makes me wonder what those who claim they are lacking in upgrades are doing wrong to miss the apparent abundant availability of them.

What's unfair about it? CO does not target its upgrades marketing to specific routes (Unlimited domestic upgrades [except not at all likely on transcon])

All of the respondents will be CO elites who all have the same desire for upgrades. Some fly transcon, others do not, some fly expensive fares, others do not, some fly on weekends, other do not, etc.

The point is not to point the finger but simply, if we get enough responses, to establish the likely percentage of upgrade given the above factors.

From my own personal experience, I can tell you I flew on cheap fares and expensive fares (although never Y-UP), I flew during the week, on the weekend, early morning, mid-day, late night, transcon, not transcon.

No matter, I still went 0 for 25.

delpreston: What did I do wrong?

I think that's a good point -- if people are posting their stats including the time, AC type and fare class would provide context to the numbers.

That said I'm (obviously) a IAH based flyer and have experienced an EUA rate of 95% and about 14% of my fares have been Y-UPs.

I avoid transcons (that's what UA's for) and try to pick flights where I suspect loads to be low.

The longest I've gone for missing EUAs on eligible flights is 1.