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-   Continental OnePass (Pre-Merger) (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/continental-onepass-pre-merger-488/)
-   -   Pay-For Upgrades (at gate)? (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/continental-onepass-pre-merger/893784-pay-upgrades-gate.html)

ijgordon Nov 29, 2008 10:31 pm
Originally Posted by TWA Fan 1 (Post 10831506)
Clearly the upgrade situation is dynamic but in most of these flights there is no one currently listed as standing by for upgrades.
The latter part of this sentence is key. If no one is standing by for an upgrade, that means that there is a 100% upgrade success rate. Everyone who asked for an upgrade got one. Hardly an "extreme rarity of availability" as you stated earlier.

Keep in mind that this analysis using the PDA website gets muddied by nonrevs who can stand by for BF on a space-available basis. I'm not sure exactly when they can begin to get added to the upgrade waitlist. If I had to guess it would be 2 hours prior to departure, at the airport only. That's why I originally suggested checking the PDA site prior to this mark.

We can also assume that there are likely more upgrades in this, the low season, than most of the rest of the year.
No, I don't think you can assume that. In this low season there are very inexpensive BusinessFirst fares, I think as low as about $1,800 r/t, maybe lower. Folks that may have upgraded at other times of the year might very well have purchased these sale fares. And frankly, since the co-pay system went into effect, I have not once tried for a BF upgrade. I will either purchase a sale fare, or use miles for a free ticket. In the past 3 years I have redeemed 5 free BF tickets and purchased 3 cheapo "R" fares. Others are probably doing the same.


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.
"Fairly low" relative to what??? 8% of total capacity "given away" as upgrades seems pretty generous to me. And that doesn't even account for REWARD tickets, which you cannot analyze on the PDA website.


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