My guess would be yes for no other reason than J seats won't fly empty if the upgrade did not clear by the 24hr mark.

If I had to guess beyond that I'd say upgrade percentages in both EUAs and BF terms have gone up this year as demand for paid J/F has seemed to wane with the economy (but of course I have no hard data to back that up, just speculation.)

Feb 6-7, hmmm... it might actually work out for me this year.

I would really love to see CO finally open its mind to Premium Economy, at least on the BF a/c.

A number of airlines have adopted it in the past 5 years only to discover it has been a net revenue generator.

Premium economy allows carriers, especially on transpac, to monetize a whole category of customers who can't afford J and are now simply sitting in Y at the cheapest fare.

PE woulds also provide CO a whole new benefit to the legions of elites currently sitting in Y on domestic flights.

With PE CO would not only be the best airline in America but one of the best in the world, especially in light of the new BF cabin that will be installed shortly.

+1 ^

I think that the availability, or lack thereof, of BF upgrades can be tracked via the PDA website. Clicking on the upgrade standby list will list the number of BF upgrades for a flight. For example, today's flight 56 to CDG had 11 upgraded out of 34 booked (which was out of a capacity of 48, so presumable everyone on the wait list got upgraded).

I was listed on the upgrade site when I flew BF from NRT-EWR, which I used my WP miles to upgrade with.

Why don't you check pda.continental.com/info. Pick the international flight of your choice, check the upgrade standby list at least 2 hours prior to departure and you'll see how many people were upgraded on that specific flight. (After about the 2 hour mark they start clearing nonrevs into BF, so the list is less reliable for this purpose).

I can GUARANTEE you that there are LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of people who successfully upgrade to BusinessFirst on CO flights.

It's really a shame that you've posted so much patently incorrect and misleading information in this thread.

Great suggestion. I will do that and get back to you.

Things have changed in the past 3 years.

And l'Avion was purchased by OpenSkies, which has the IATA designation EC, not OS. OS is Austrian Airlines, which was recently purchased by Lufthansa (LH) but is expected to continue operating as an independent carrier, at least for the time being.

I never said that the upgrades were easy to get, just that they did not have the arbitrary limitations that you were ascribing to them.

Understood about upgrades.

regarding the IATA code for OpenSkies, I never used OS, please go back and check my posts.

Cheers.

OK, I thoroughly checked tomorrow's flights and here are the numbers:

FLIGHT--UPGRADED TO BF--TOTAL BF CAPACITY--% UPGRADED
CO18--1--16--6%
CO28--0--50-0%
CO110--0-16-0%
CO56--1-50-2%
CO138--2-16-12%
CO54--0--16-0%
CO99-16-50-31%
CO9--6-50-11%
CO80--2-35-1.75%
CO50--0--25--0%
CO96--4-25--16%
CO38--1-16-6%
CO122--0--16--0%
CO62--2--25-8%
CO144--0--16-0%
CO120--1--16-6%
CO76--3--16--19%
CO26--2--16--12%
CO82--2--48--4%
CO48--2--50--4%
CO22--2--16--12%
CO24--0--16-0%
CO68--5--16--31%
CO89--14--50--28%
CO70--0--35--0%
CO36--2--16--12%
CO31--1--25--4%
CO51--0--25--0%
CO84--4--50--8%
CO90--5--50--10%
CO32--1--48--2%
CO4--5--50--11%
CO93--0--35--0%
CO10--2--48--4%
CO58--0--25--0%
CO16--2--16--12%

TOTAL BF CAPACITY: 1,098

TOTAL PAX UPGRADED: 89 (30 of those on the two China flights ex-EWR)

% OF TOTAL CAPACITY AS UPGRADES: 8.11%

Of course, this is just a snapshot of one day. Clearly the upgrade situation is dynamic but in most of these flights there is no one currently listed as standing by for upgrades.

We can also assume that there are likely more upgrades in this, the low season, than most of the rest of the year.

On the whole, if this is an accurate snapshot it appears to be a definite improvement over the situation a few years ago, but the upgrade numbers are still fairly low.

If some of the numbers are low, it is because you divided by BF capacity and not number of seats booked for the individual flight. CO9 may only have 6 upgrades, but with 43 seats booked there is room for more. Presumably everyone on the wait list may have been upgraded, and if not, a few more people will be tomorrow. Given the recent changes to the BF upgrade policy, we could assume the success rate to be 100% if any BF seat goes out empty. Similarly, CO48 only has 14 seats booked with 2 upgrades. CO 28, though, yea, that looks like a tough nut to crack on a Sunday.

You are doing it wrong.

What you should be checking is # of people on the standby list vs # of people upgraded, 1 hour pre-flight. (When CO gives up on selling BF tickets and upgrades all standbys). Unfortunately, after flight departure, pda site removes the "standby" list, so you can't tell if there were any people waiting for upgrade, but you can presume that if booked < capacity, that means everyone on standby list got upgraded, and you can count 100% upgrade rate.

I don't have time to do full test, but first 10 flights that departed today, checking booked v capacity:
CO18: X
CO28: X
CO110: ?
CO138: X
CO54: X

Means out of those 5 flights, on 4 of them, *everyone* that wanted BF upgrade got it.

There are still quite a few people waiting for upgrades on a number of these flights (I did check that)

Other flights are completely full so it's possible that pax did not attempt to upgrade in the first place.

The system of upgrading itself is not simple either and may act as a deterrent in the first place.

There are many variables.

In any case, this is only one day and it is not possible to draw any sweeping conclusions. But judging from these results I would say that more people are upgrading under the new system than previously.

I wanted to measure upgrades as a factor of capacity not specific seats booked, because capacity is a constant while the number of revenue pax per flight will obviously vary.

It is interesting to note that there are upgraded passengers on completely full flights awhile some flights that are 75% empty have no upgrades and no one on the upgrade standby list.

Did you check tomorrow's flights? If yes, were they booked full? If not, most likely, (capacity-booked) people *will* get upgraded (absent FC seats being sold at last minute).

Indeed, possible, particularly for 75x with 16 seats, but unlikely.

Yes, I think, the changes for upgrade on 76x and 77x approach 100%. 75x is more spotty. Book flights accordingly.

What's wrong with that? You understand that "booked" number does include upgraded passengers?

This is a very logical result, if you presume that not too many people are willing to part with co-pay fees to get upgrades. In fact, just the co-pays approach cost of discounted first! For example, I booked trip to TXL for 1300$ r/t - if I booked coach, it'd cost me 700$, plus $450*2, plus 20k*2 miles, total of 1600$ plus 40k miles.

Even if it was un-discounted FC ticket, roughly 2000$ to TXL, it still makes more sense to just pay cash (and get extra 50% mileage/eqm bonuses).