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2018 Upgrade Success (Or Lack Thereof)

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Old Nov 9, 2018, 5:37 pm
  #391  
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Originally Posted by Duke787
PM:

RDU - JFK, E175, C+ cleared at booking (plus companion). Ended #3 and #4 for F (which was full before Diamond window)
RDU-NYC used to be my most reliable route and for a while I never missed it in either direction as a Silver but in the last year or so it's gotten harder, especially up to JFK
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Old Nov 9, 2018, 6:18 pm
  #392  
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Originally Posted by CMK10
RDU-NYC used to be my most reliable route and for a while I never missed it in either direction as a Silver but in the last year or so it's gotten harder, especially up to JFK
Yeah first half of the year when I was working from FO --> GM, I was batting 80%+ on RDU - NYC but seems like it's gotten worse despite going up to PM and despite the fact that all the routes were upgauged from CR7 ---> CR9 and from CR9 ---> E175 both of which added more F seats to the route. At least C+ for that flight in row 5 (especially when with a companion) is almost better than F (and you get the comp Woodford if wanted).

The timing of this one made it particularly challenging because it was the 350pm timed to be the the feeder into the Friday night JFK - Europe flights (though we got diverted to ABE so all those connections turned into IRROPs for folks connecting on to Europe).
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Old Nov 10, 2018, 7:29 am
  #393  
 
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Unexpected C+ upgrade with 3 companions

A few weeks ago, BNA > SEA, the GA must have upgraded the 4 of us to C+. At first I was a little annoyed because I wanted my 3 companions to get the row to themselves, and one of them to get a window, and I had an exit row seat. The 2 kids don't need free drinks or extra leg room so didn't really need the upgrade.

The upgrade put us B/C/D/E and I didn't notice until boarding when it printed out new seat assignments. I was grumbling about it, then after boarding completed I felt guilty because the A seat was empty so the GA ended up doing us a huge favor, so I hope she didn't hear my grumbling.
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Old Nov 10, 2018, 11:50 am
  #394  
 
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PHL to BOS, upgraded at PM window
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Old Nov 10, 2018, 5:45 pm
  #395  
 
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JFK-MCO upgraded at upgrade window
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Old Nov 11, 2018, 12:35 pm
  #396  
 
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Silver medallion, JFK-MCO on DL2162 last night, upgraded to Comfort+ 24 hours before and to First around 40 minutes before scheduled departure alongside four other people.
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Old Nov 11, 2018, 12:52 pm
  #397  
 
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Originally Posted by Ditti
Silver medallion, JFK-MCO on DL2162 last night, upgraded to Comfort+ 24 hours before and to First around 40 minutes before scheduled departure alongside four other people.
Was the flight full?
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Old Nov 11, 2018, 1:05 pm
  #398  
 
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Originally Posted by MarkP24
Was the flight full?
The app says that there were still two C+ seats left with 24 seats left in total, and that's after 26 standby passengers were cleared, if I'm reading this right.
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Old Nov 11, 2018, 5:16 pm
  #399  
 
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Originally Posted by Ditti
The app says that there were still two C+ seats left with 24 seats left in total, and that's after 26 standby passengers were cleared, if I'm reading this right.
Nice!
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Old Nov 11, 2018, 6:37 pm
  #400  
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Originally Posted by MarkP24
You seem to have very good luck. Is it luck or are you choosing specific flights and/ or using the SDC option?
As you can see my most frequent routers this year has been SDQ-DC Area, DC Area-FLL, NYC-DCA.

SDQ-JFK: Monday early morning flight, in the past as a FO or GM I would clear as well, however, this year I’ve seen a long list at the gate and very few seats left. The return is usually on Friday evening or Saturday morning. Friday is a bit challenging (my GM companion missed the upgrade back in May) but Saturday morning is easy.

NYC-DCA: Monday noon flight is usually very easy as a PM. Monday evening flight is more difficult but still as a PM I get the upgrade in advance. The return is usually an easy upgrade.

DCA-ATL-FLL: DCA-ATL is a very difficult one no matter the time or day. ATL-FLL is an easy one.

I don’t have the flexibility to SDC and the only time I did was on a Sunday and I was booked in F, so no impact on upgrades.
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Old Nov 13, 2018, 9:18 am
  #401  
 
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Gold Medallion

PHL-BOS on a Basic Economy ticket: No official UG but the flight was oversold, so they "upgraded" me to C+ an hour before departure to clear standbys.

BOS-PIT and PIT-BOS cleared at the Gold window at T-72

BOS-BUF cleared at the Gold window at T-72.
BUF-BOS cleared into C+ at the Gold window at T-72. Cleared upgrade to F around T-65. (System must have had a hiccup to clear me into C+ first since the upgrade list was empty at that point)

BOS-PIT and PIT-BOS tomorrow cleared at the Gold window at T-72.

All of my flights except for PHL-BOS were less than half full.

So far this month, I'm 6/6 for F, and 1/0 for C+ (1/0 because it wasn't an official upgrade, simply a seat change since my ticket was ineligible for upgrades.)
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Last edited by diburning; Nov 13, 2018 at 7:06 pm
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Old Nov 13, 2018, 4:17 pm
  #402  
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PM+1 cleared at the window for ATL-DCA (Sat 17 Nov/1755) ... still five open on the (not representative) SEA-ATL seat map, but I'm not holding out much hope
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Old Nov 13, 2018, 4:55 pm
  #403  
 
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PM-lite.

Op-up on AMS-DTW (on the A350) from Premium Select to Delta One Suites on Sunday. I'm guessing that W was oversold, as the seat map was full several weeks out (yeah, a full seat map doesn't necessarily mean sold out - but for what other reason would I get upgraded on an international flight into D1 Suites?).

Also got the regular upgrade on DTW-BOS 5 days out.
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Old Nov 14, 2018, 7:52 am
  #404  
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SMF-SEA 11/12 DL5699 F upgrade at window
SEA-RDU 11/12 DL773 no upgrade

CLT-MSP 11/18 upgrade at 4 days after getting my jacked up reservation fixed by Twitter team
MSP-SMF 11/18 stay tuned
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Old Nov 14, 2018, 8:02 am
  #405  
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Does anyone understand how the upgrade list is actually cleared at the gate? Does the gate agent manually assign travelers to seats or does the computer fill them in?

I am guessing that the gate agent manually does it because it seems that in cases where there are multiple gate upgrades (which is becoming rare) they are sometimes filled front to back and sometimes back to front.

There have been a couple of occasions this year where there were multiple window and aisle seats and I get assigned an aisle even though my preference in my profile is for windows, though this has been the exception, usually in these cases I get a window.
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