MIAFlyer

Hello all,
My wife is CO gold via a corporate match program. I am looking to gage the upgrade chances for a gold + companion from ORD-HOU-PTY, V fare, with a cabin pet (small cat). She is flying on 29July (Tues) leaving at 5:45am. The companion is my 9 year old son. I understand with separate records, she would be upgraded 3 days out, and my son no more than two hours before (assuming availability, of course). The Houston connection is only 45minutes, so not much time to work/discuss with gate agents.

I am flying on AA with my two other children, all upgraded w/miles (no more advanced upgrade availability). She must fly CO, as AA does not allow cabin pets to Central America.

In this group's opinion, is the companion upgrade on this route on this day, a "sure thing", "likely", "might happen" or "book your kid on AA, ain't gonna happen here?"

We both understand if the companion upgrade does not come through, she will simply trade with whoever is sitting next to him in coach, and both fly coach.

Thanks for your thoughts!

ijgordon

Can you even book a ticket for just a 9 year old (i.e., no adult) without paying an unaccompanied minor fee?

Upgrade chances aside, I think there may be problems with your plan.

Certainly if the adult is upgraded and the child is not, there is a problem:
Continental designates children 5-14 years of age as unaccompanied minors when traveling without a companion who is at least 18 years old in the same cabin.
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...s/default.aspx

I think you'd have to book the adult/child together on the same record and try to get on the upgrade standby list together at the airport.

baglady

He's saying they will sit together and if she doesn't upgrade; she'll sit with the child. I book bl jr on a separate pnr always as she is gold and will upgrade after me. I'd never let her sit alone though

MIAFlyer

I am sorry, I must not have been clear.

I know I can split a record containing a CO status and non-status member. The real question is what are the chances of a Gold Companion upgrade coming through mid week on this route.

If the companion upgrade chances are poor, I will cancel the child's companion ticket, and rebook with me on AA.

If the companion upgrade chances are good (say 75%+) I will split the CO records, let my wife and 9 yr old take their chances, with the understanding it is pretty reasonable that the CO gold upgrade may come through at 3 days out and if at flight time, the companion upgrade is not confirmed, my wife will simply decline/recind her upgrade and sit with my son.

Have I added clarity, or does this logic simply not work with CO?

Thanks for your thoughts!

(Edited to add - yup - baglady's got it)

sdm1130

IME, companion upgrades are pretty rare for Plats and almost unheard of for Golds. I'd book your child on AA.

baglady

Though my crystal ball is a bit cloudy, I would say the chances are decent. I don't know that I would put it at 75%+, but I would say decent. I am not well versed at companion upgrades with connections being IAH based, but I thought that when you checked in, you were able to put them on the upgrade standby for both flights

Facevalue

Honestly, Plat’s aren’t upgraded 75% of the time. Be aware, there is a minimal chance you will be upgraded, and even less that your spouse will be. Good luck.

asnovici

I would say ORD-IAH slim to none and IAH-PTY are slightly better, slim to be precise.

ijgordon

No, I understood what you were asking. But I don't know if you can split a record into two if one half will contain only a minor passenger. Maybe someone has actual experience?

I don't think it matters what the chances are if you run into problems dividing the record in the first place; that was my point.

I'm not sure how easy it is to "decline/recind" an upgrade, in practice. First, you may run into problems checking in your son if your wife has been upgraded in advance. They'll probably try and charge you the unaccompanied minor fee because you're traveling in different cabins at that point. I don't think CO is going to be willing to "wait and see what happens" at the last minute, because in most instances companion upgrades won't be processed until just before the door closes. They're not going to let your son board in coach if you have a First Class boarding pass. And like I mentioned, I'm not sure how easy it is to voluntarily rescind an upgrade once it clears. I know on AA it is particularly challenging because the original fare class has to be available, and if coach is full, it won't be. I don't know if it would be as easy as swapping seats with the next person on the upgrade list, because that's not official and the systems still see your son boarding unaccompanied.

Because of this potential messiness, I think you need to call CO and get clarity on their policies before even thinking about the likelihood of an elite companion upgrade.

devik

Others on this board have way more experience, but poking around on the pda site for today's flight 463 (ORD-IAH), my guess is there's a good chance of an upgrade for both your wife and son, especially given that 5:45am flights tend to increase those chances tremendously. As I write this, we're at about 3 hours out from this morning's departure, and the pda site seat map shows only 8 out of 16 seats occupied (I know this isn't a reliable view of true availability though), with 6 of those 8 being upgrades. Similar results are showing for Thursday's and Friday's flights.

On this morning's flight 875, IAH-PTY, none of the 5 (out of 12) seats appear to be occupied thus far by revenue passengers, as all 5 of them appear to have been upgraded. Your wife's flights may be different, but these patterns look promising to me.

Again, this is totally unscientific and I'm sure there's better ways of guessing your chances, but IMO it's a gamble that could be worth taking. Can you get the seat for your son on AA as a backup and then cancel it and get your miles back if your wife's upgrade comes through at the 3-day window? I'm not familiar with AA's policies/fees to know if this is feasible.

The other not-insignificant wrinkle here is the in-cabin pet: they only allow one pet in First. Having the cat on your wife's reservation *may* disqualify her for any automated upgrade. I'm really not sure. I traveled a lot last year with my dog and I know I was upgraded at least once but I'm drawing a complete blank about how it came about. I suspect it was a battlefield upgrade. Regardless, I hope you added the pet to the reservation before yesterday, when the fee went up to $125!

Edited to add: The other completely non-scientific way to estimate the competition for upgrades on a particular flight is to look at the seat map and see how much of the front part of the Y cabin ("Elite" seating), and especially how many emergency exit seats (which only Plats/Golds can get in advance) are already occupied. These mthods obviously can't tell you if it's a 'go' but they can sometimes tell you if it's a 'no.'

MIAFlyer

Thanks for the input so far. Currently, all but one of the exit row seats are available on the ORD-IAH and all exit seats available on the IAH-PTY flight. There are quite a few seats taken in rows 5-8 though.

Seems I have three "high risk" factors: the cat, the child, and the companion. Each one by itself would probably be a reasonable risk, combined they may be too much to overcome.

Thanks for the input!

baglady

Yes, we've done it before with BL JR - now we just always book her on her own PNR, but yes, it can be done. Also, We've had the situation where MR BL and I are upgraded, BL JR is not. BL JR and I will take the upgrade and MR BL will take the spot in the back hoping for the battlefield - we always explain to the check in agent that we are not putting her in the back as an UM.

Another example - BL JR was upgraded; because of an equipment change her nanny (silver) was in coach, so we had the opposite problem and BL JR gave up her F seat - same issue; couldn't have an UM. There was never an issue - even close to departure (well, 20 minutes). I looked at the flight they are on and the pattern this week. It doesn't look horrible. Travel is a little off right now. Sure, the mom will have better luck going alone than upgrading a companion as well, but I don't think it looks out of line either.

CLG

I believe you are using the exit row seating being empty as a proxy for how many Gold/Plat elites are on your plane, and not suggesting that at least you wife & child will be a little more comfortable on the flights... due to the <14 age policy for those seats.

Don't get me wrong, I love it when I go to book a flight and the prime exit row seats are available, but I have found that a lot of Plat / Gold flyers don't bother to secure exit row seating ahead of time. I judge this by the fact that I don't get upgraded on those flights and I have been booking refundable fares as a Gold when a fair amount of others do (also a proxy and not a true, hard fact).

Good luck!!

CLG

MIA-SAT

I have checked IAH-PTY recently and have flown it many times in the past and it seems that upgrades are more difficult to obtain on that route. The last time I was on it, the bulk of the passengers were engineering types who were commuting to / from PTY on canal expansion related work. Recently I checked several days out and even a Y-up was unavailable. It may be that the surge in work related to the canal expansion has caused an increase in the number of full Y and F cabin passengers.