I'm probably firmly in the realm of wishful thinking here, but I'll ask anyway.

My partner and I are flying BHX-AMS-EWR on 20DEC on nonrefundable tickets that I've upgraded with miles + copay. He's a general member, I'm silver. Our itinerary was split as the upgrades came through at different times.

The first leg departs at an ungodly 6am and we have a 5-hour layover in AMS. Needless to say, I'd prefer the non-stop.

I know I can't change to the non-stop, technically (barring a significant schedule change), but has anyone had any luck in situations like this, perhaps by asking at the airport?

Thanks for any tips.

Actually, you can change to the non-stop using the Same-Day Change feature. The charge is $50/person and you can call within 12 hours of the new flight time to see if you can switch to it. The only thing I'm not sure about is how the upgrade affects the SDC switch.

Changing farther in advance than the night before would require the change fees + fare difference.

Good to know, thank you. I'm not sure we'd want to risk losing our upgrades, though.

As a follow-up, too, I've been in BF on the 757 transatlantic a number of times and know it's no great shakes, but I haven't actually been in BF on the 767. From the looks of it there's really no difference, except maybe a marginally better AVOD system?

AVOD does not exist on the 767s. The 752s have a siignificantly better IFE experience. Otherwise the seats are about the same and the service should be, too. The 767s and 777s have espresso/cappucino machines, if that's your thing.

I really just don't know the answer on how the upgrade affects things. When I had a REVUP from HNL I was able to SDC into the BF seat on the non-stop to EWR just fine, but I don't know if cash+miles upgrades are treated differently. You'll also have to deal with making sure that there are seats open in BF that day, which may not be the case.

Along that same lines of question from the OP, if I am booked in FC on an LHR-EWR-IAH flight, am I understanding it correctly that if I call within 12 hours of my flight I can change to non-stop LHR-IAH (if available of course) for only $50 (vs. the $300 change fee they would charge if I did it today)?

Please say "yes".

Well in the end it just took one phone call, very good timing and rather good luck.

I called to sort out our seat assignments on the return and while I was on the phone I inquired about the nonstop option for the outbound. The agent informed me of the ~$100 change fee but the fare would decrease (we were on a moderately high economy fare), so I went ahead with it. But the reason for the fare decrease was actually that she'd priced the change with the wrong return date -- the correct dates would actually entail a large increase, as one would expect. When she discovered this, she put me on hold to reverse everything out. In the end it took probably over an hour, but because of the lack of availability on our original flights she ended up switching us over to the nonstop, retaining our upgrades, and only charged us one change fee (fare increases were waived).

Worth noting it probably helped my case that I stayed cheerful throughout the long wait, she thanked me repeatedly for my patience. Could be wrong, but I suspect if I'd gotten snippy and impatient, she wouldn't have tried so hard to make it all right for me.

Kudos to CO.