Northwest Phantum Program
 

All of the questions, answers, and experiences for the NW phantum program can be found in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/north...al-travel.html. You can see it took a while for us to understand the unpublished program.

I heard in the late spring in 2009 that some elite passengers were getting upgrades on international flights (hadn't yet heard the term "phantom upgrade"). So before boarding a SEA-AMS flight in May I asked the GA very politely (definitely not DYKWIA) about the possibility of an upgrade. She looked at my ticket, checked the flight lists, and gave me the upgrade. At the time I had been gold a couple of years but moving closer to plat.

I asked the same question on the return flight; the KL GA looked at me like I had totally flipped out.

Phantom upgrades were an unpublished program which no one from NWA management ever acknowledged as existing. I guess, they realized, the good times for us were coming to an end and they gave us a farewell gift. At the time I was a PE ( had been for 8+ years ) and I got Phantom upgrades DTW-AMS, DTW-FRA. I remember, that both times I was unceremoniously called to the podium to receive my WBC boarding pass. I thanked the agent and expressed my sadness about the upcoming merger. Thanks NWA, I will always remember that gesture of appreciation. Never flew DL!

I was a lucky recipient of 2 phantom upgrades (SEA-NRT and SFO-NRT) when the program ran. In the first case, I inquired at the gate about the possibility of an upgrade and was given a seat in WBC, and for SFO-NRT, I was running late for the flight and when my ticket was scanned at the gate the gate agent said "we've been paging you!", and handed me a ticket for WBC.

If I remember correctly, NW had some way internally of determining the worth of a customer, and that figured into how they determined who would get these phantom upgrades. At the time, I had only flown with NW for about 2 or 3 years at the time and was a platinum who almost always bought the cheapest fares possible.

My thanks for Gargoyle for starting this thread, and also my thanks to all the folks who came over from NWA for explaining. the phantom upgrade program.

As folks have said, it certainly sounds like a nice way to say "thank you" to valuable customers. Sort of like finding a prize in a box of cracker jack, except nicer!

Someone suggested that Delta should consider offering a similar program, except requiring an SWU to get the upgrade. I think that requiring an SWU would sort of obscure the intent of the program to thank customers for their patronage.

Being relatively new to posting, I was wondering if there are any recent unexpected UGs on TATL flights. I am flying MSP to CDG this week and Y appears to be completely full (I have been looking for something up front in Y and no luck changing). There are 15 or so open BE seats... would the GA move medallions to BE with it being half full? I fly the route often and either have BE seat or an M fare, this time, those fares were cost prohibative this time. I prefer working on the plane and obviously the BE seat is better suited for working.

Just wondering. Thanks.

Anecdotal evidence is that the TATL op-ups have become more common this year. It seems to be a combination of diminished capacity and increasing bookings. The high load factors result in situations like you describe, which are ideal opportunities for an op-up.

Note that this is quite different from a phantom upgrade.

They would if Y is oversold (ie they need the seats to give to others who are booked in Y but don't yet have seats). If its simply "full", then they probably would not move any medallions to BE.

IME, that is exactly the situation.