Actually...perhaps i shouldn't tell people this, but, a few weeks ago I was asked for my dinner choices first by the crew as they told me there were a few upgrades and as a paying passenger they wanted to make sure I had my first choice.

PAH! I wish I could just do those 4 ultra long hauls....for me it is just DXB - BKK / LHR / DME / MAN :td:

Living in DXB its been a hard effort to make plat.

Won't be bothering next year to renew it though given recent experiences.

I am starting to agree with you, I will finish the year on around 300k tier miles and then I will then move down to EY....it is only about 20 minutes difference to the airport from home in JBR and to be honest, AUH is a dream to fly from compared with DXB

+1

As a matter of fact, I don't want to know who's been op-upped or not.
Otherwise, next phase is : did the guy next door (totally appropriated word :D) paid more or less than me ? Therefore, do I deserve better service than him/her ?

I don't want to end like US-pax spying on others (US-pax are trying to guess who is the guy above on the op-up list).


I find this totally tactless. They should have come to you first without disclosing all these details.

Anyway, I thought that FAs couldn't tell the difference (unless obvious onboard upgrade).
It is mentioned in the detailed manifest, by any FA has access to it ? or even look at it ?

You can have your view - whether you want to debate it or not, I completely disagree with your view. imo , however someone got into 1st class - whether it be a Full unrestricted 1st ticket, a discount first ticket, an award ticket, an involuntary upgrade, a mileage upgrade - is irrelevent

All are entitled to the same - knowing how it works, I just put request in as soon as I board and always get a time that I want

I agree with you up when it comes to paid for tickets - whether it's full F, discounted, award, mileage upgrade, they should all be treated equally, but I think there is a difference between those and complimentary upgrades. After all EK itself takes the same view: complimentary upgrades don't come with the entire package of benefits you get for purchasing a premium ticket - there's no lounge access, no additional baggage allowance, no chauffeur drive, for example. imho, it's simply the airline doing you a favor and changing your seat which simply happens to be in a different cabin. The airline is also being nice by also offering some of the amenities that come with seats in that cabin, although it's under no obligation to do so (e.g. catering, showers). I find some of the behaviour I see by those who have received complimentary upgrades incredibly distasteful when they complain loudly about the lack of benefits they get from complimentary gesture from the airline (hang about at a lounge reception and you'll see what I mean!)

The serious issue I think would be if a paying customer (as in, someone who is entitled to the full range of amenities that come with their ticket) was denied access to something they paid for directly because a complimentary upgrade/seat shifted pax had already consumed it (e.g. catering/preferential shower slots). Still, that is an operational issue, not a comment on the passengers themselves.

The rest of it is an issue of tact in how staff deal with passengers (I agree with ioto1902 here in that it's a little bit gauche of the crew to disclose possible service issues before they arise)

The airline business already has an implicit ranking due to revenue: discounted staff tickets, for instance, are going to get offloaded first in overbooking situations. I think there is also an argument to be made that complimentary upgrades should have a technical lower priority in amenities if it ever got to a situation where there was a capacity problem. The crew, of course, should know how to communicate this effectively (and head it off by talking to their revenue booked pax first), without ever having to be tactless in raising the issue of explicitly ranking passengers to their faces.

ET has hit the nail on the head.

Why should a gold member on a cheap J fare who gets an upgrade to F for free get the meal choice/shower before someone who paid a fully flex f fare?

I agree wholeheartedly.

Shorthand manifest no, Purser tablet etc. yes.

However, most (all?) crew religiously check the loads before their flights, so they will notice the discrepancy from what they expect and when the final manifest is sent to them an hour before. In F it's especially pronounced given there's only 14 pax maximum there.

Yes depends on how good the purser is. The person who does the shower bookings is likely to have no clue.

I assume once Plat I will be given preference on my up coming flights?

True enough. Actually why not just do away with free upgrade completely, and just go with "get-what-you-pay-for"?

The problem is if someone is upgraded, does it mean he/she needs to be made to feel like a 2nd class citizen/beggar who's encroached on higher classes turf? At the same time it's a hard pill for someone who've paid (cash or miles) for the service, to be told a free upgrader got the meal/time slot/drinks they wanted.

An alternative to the "get-what-you-pay-for", is to state clearly that any free upgrades will be served last. This way everyone's expectations are managed well before take-off.

Actually, I will defend the crew here, I checked on line very late and was the only person on the seat map in first, when i boarded there were only 1 or 2 seats spare so I was joking with the FA that I thought I would be having a private cabin to myself, that's when she said they were op-ups and mentioned the dinner order

I think the better option is better staff hospitality training - the trick of high-end hospitality is to never make anything explicit (so for instance, the best Amans which don't make you sign room service/restaurant tabs), which takes a bit of juggling between the reality of what's available (e.g. catering might be off by one), and steering conversations and interactions with passengers so you never need to bring it up (hope that someone doesn't order food which neatly solves your under-catering problem).

Great hospitality is about not making people feel uncomfortable - so that means both that complimentary upgrades are not meant to feel like encroachers or beggars or second class citizens, but also that people who have purchased a service receive what they are entitled to (a feeling of superiority to other pax is, though, not an entitlement from the airline :D).

Sometimes, from a service perspective, it is better not to give your customers all the information they could need :D

Only as a last resort do you tell people something is not available - and staff can make the judgement as to who provide services to.

Op-up is not a reward to the upgraded pax, but a way to get revenue from the pax who otherwise would have been offloaded, at least, as far as EK is concerned.
But, I indeed join you into informing clearly the upgraded pax what he is entitled to. The difficulty here is not to cool down the overjoyed upgraded pax. To avoid adding burden to the check-in / gate agent, one solution is to print a form saying : "Congratulations for being upgraded. You may benefit from W and X. You might not get your first choice for meal, shower. By booking F(or J) next time, you may benefit from more advantages, like Y and Z" etc etc
Knowing how corporations work, they will do it if the estimated damage (based on claims) is higher than the cost of implementing such procedure.


Clear. (and reassured)