I just found out that I have to go to Rio the week of 6/8 for work. For four days around when I could potentially fly, BF is sold out IAH-GIG. Same with the return. I'd rather fly coach than deal with a lengthy connection in ATL or MIA (let alone EWR).

I searched, but could not find a thread re waitlists for purchases, rather than rewards - does anyone know if I could purchase a Y-fare in coach and get on a waitlist for purchasing a BF seat should one open up? Can this be done at the airport should someone not show up, misconnect, etc.?

These flights look very full, even in coach. Is this a seasonal thing? Or are they always so packed?

Thanks!

A travel agent should certainly be able to waitlist you in BusinessFirst. I do this all the time (domestically). I don't believe there's any mechanism to do it directly through Continental or the OnePass program. Also, it would be unrelated to whether you purchase a Y fare or not. You can obviously do that as backup -- the TA can hold that reservation while you remain on the BF waitlist.

Paging shellnyc

shellnyc had a similar problem not too long ago. I believe her solution was to keep checking everyday till something opened up. GIG is a market CO could have more J-seats with no problem. Doubt anything will change in the near future though.

I would try the route with the TA and keep checking. Something may very well turn up

Some warnings (or better said "considerations") on the waitlist.

1) Even though a seat might open up and you're on the waitlist, you might not get it. This happened to me once and I noticed it, called my company TA and was able to get the seat, but just being on the waitlist didn't seem to do much.

2) When I've done waitlists, I've generally booked a business seat on another airline (generally AA or DL out of JFK) and found a discount ticket . . . when the waitlist has cleared, its cleared into full J . . . with generally a significant price increase.

Again, just considerations . . . you might not care much about the price of the ticket, etc. I always just found it difficult to explain how I found $3,500 airfare out of JFK, only to pay $8,000 airfare later on (although my company policy says you can fly EWR if you live in Jersey over JFK regardless of price).

it seems that CO has made it difficult for me to give them $10,000. I assumed that a bean counter would have implemented an easy and efficient way to waitlist for paid BF a long time ago...especially considering how much effort has been spent on the award BF waitlist.

Last I heard, you can waitlist for a paid BF seat as long as you have a booked Y seat on the same flight.

Whoops! Almost missed this one!

Yes, I've had lengthy conversations with Scott about this one. It happens most often for me going to EZE or GRU, but sometimes European destinations as well.

There's no waitlist to purchase BF. My solution was to purchase a less-than-ideal but refundable ticket on DL and stalk the CO flight using ExpertFlyer. I'm supposed to book all business travel through my corporate TA, but in this instance said screw it and booked the CO ticket when one J seat opened up in the middle of the night. Why oh why do they make it so hard to give them >$9K ???

This is not necessary if a travel agent is doing the waitlisting.

Well, like I said it's always worked for me. I've cleared off waitlists for FC on sold-out flights without ever seeing the inventory open up publicly (by way of an ExpertFlyer alert). Again, this is domestic, so maybe that system works better?

Well this is definitely true. I do it domestically and am always waitlisted (and clear) into "A" class. Of course on many routes A is the only paid FC fare available, and even if there was a discount R fare, it's not usually much less. Internationally there is a much wider variation in front-cabin fares. I assume you can theoretically waitlist for D or Z or R class, but when that one seat opens up, it's likely to only show up in J inventory, so if you really want to get on the flight, you have to waitlist for J class, and then deal with the pricing consequences of that. But if there were say only one seat available in the first place, there's a good chance you'd end up having to pay the J fare anyway. It's not common to see J1 D1 Z1 R1, except maybe shortly before departure. That's just how revenue management works.