No upgrade available for AY+ points - a first
 

This seems to be a first for me - tried to u/g my BUD-HEL flight. They put me on the waiting list for two weeks, didn't clear even at check-in ("we have two standbys for one place") and at the gate the rather unfriendly lady just told me "we filled up". There were only 6 C seats assigned (1AC, 2ACDF) but they didn't move the curtain to accomodate upgrades. :td:

Wonder what card the lucky winner had that trumped my OWE - AY Plat?

I got my prebooked exit seat with free middle seat (I get more and more convinced that this is an unpublished perk, as it's been the case for several flights) so I ended up with 2 glasses of champers poorer and 5k points richer. Points were re-deposited within 8 hrs after landing. ^

It is probably due to ongoing campaign for shorthaul upgrades eating all inventory (but it has been immensely hard for me to find upgrade availability for longhaul this autumn. I sure do hope they have not killed the only valuable perk on the program by limiting availability).



I have been told that the date you were put on waitlist counts too. If they still prioritize plats, it might just be a plat with earlier waitlisting.

This has happened to me twice during these campaign months - but never during the previous years! :confused:

On an overbooked DUS-HEL flight some people were upgraded at the gate, including a teenager whose mother remained in economy... obviously without any points.

I was on the "waiting list" with points, but no place for me. I wrote AY asking for explanation, but no reply has arrived. :td:

I checked availability almost immediately when campaign was published and availability was already quite limited... I think Finnair has reduced F class availability.

I wonder if the demand for better service has also gone up. Similar offers have also been available during the last few years. Maybe the fares offered by LH and BA (C class for 400 - 800 € could also be sold intra-European instead of the standard 1800 €). In a recent flight there were over 30 passengers in C, so there really is some need for better service. A rather annoying feature is that the upgrades used to clear up in a couple of hours, no it is nearly five days. A reduction of the team or an increase of the requests? Only AY knows the truth.

I think that the CI and gate agents abroad do not have a clue of the "waiting lists". Somebody in Helsinki should check them before CI begins.

I think there would definitely be demand, as currently the 1800€ fares you speak of are really only feasible for business travellers looking for flexibility and LH connects. Finnair is ignoring the higher end "luxury" SH traveller, which is a market segment I think e.g. BA has managed to capture quite well with their rather reasonable CE pricing i.e. HEL-LHR €400 vs AY's price x3-4 that.

At least the lady at BUD checkin said - "there are two of you for the one available seat" The sour faced supervisor at the gate simply said "we filled up"

For 1800€ you very often get the full EU-HEL-longhaul ticket in C - in the worst case it creeps a bit over 2k

Same here two weeks back.. Called for an upgrade one week prior and they put me on waiting list. Was surprised the upgrade did not happen. Anyway, short EU flight so not a biggie..

On another occasion 3 weeks back checked in my luggage and asked for an exit seat. At the priority counter they told unfortunately all were gone and the flight was overbooked to Y. Tried my luck and said I would not mind if she would put me then to the front and tadaa.. 1A OP upgrade :) Made me very happy

I usually call them to reserve the exit seat (as the system seems unable to recognize OWE status) and so far it worked.

Waitlisted for upgrades HEL-ZRH and return mid-August, fingers crossed…

None of the dates around then seemed to have much availability. :td: :(

FCO-HEL went through at first try. ^

What's the point in launching a 5000-point intra-European upgrade campaign and reducing at the same time F class availability?

On a recent flight - once again - they had received only 4 seats for J, although there was some place in Y.

Assuming logic is in control of an airline - yeah, it would be no point to do that.

But the "cheap" J-upgrades for points have been launched every summer and probably is something marketing just do every year without ever speaking to anyone about it.

F availability however is something that is under the control of revenue management and from what we've heard (like from the capital markets day) AY has new revenue management in place and also has "launched some activities that soon will give us better revenues". No details told, so it is anyone's guess.

LHR-HEL showed availability and went through straight away. HEL-AMS showed no availability, though it could be the well known website bug (did not actually place a request).

My exact thoughts! :) A case of left hand not knowing what the right hand does (?)

To AY's credit the 5k points charged for the unsuccessful upgrade were redeposited the following day to my account.

Same day HEL-AMS waitlisted, AMS-HEL cleared while on the phone.

Availability clearly is worse than it used to be.

Do they sell upgrades on S/H like they've reportedly been doing on L/H? That would pretty much explain the shortage.

Or they could just have moved the separator forward if they have more Y customers (but I don't really see how that would have happened).

Apparently during the summer season they now sell upgrades on L/H. For my recent HEL-ICN I got an email offering an upgrade for 185EUR. I declined, and got upgraded at the gate anyway :)

It would have been very cheap u/g but op-up is obviously so much better :D

Collegue could not u/g fm HKG for points got op-upped anyway - go figure :confused:

The two last post kind of confirms they killed off the only perk they had left for their frequent flyers.

So they toook away availability from AY+ members in an attempt to sell upgrades. Fails to do so even at extremely low prices and uses the space to upgrade people for free. I'm speachless. (actually not speachless, but words in my mind is not suitable for print)

Did you have an AY ff# stored or your BA ff# at the time of the upgrade e-mail offer?

Yeah, this put me to re-evaluate where to credit the flights of the coming trimester. Most everything will probably go to BAEC with some opportunistically to AA (mainly AY s/h in Y)

BTW, how do you guys valuate avios vs AA vs AY?

My very rough rule of thumb is 1 avios : 1,3 AA : 3 AY+ (this mainly based on European redemptions ex-HEL)

With such valuation it is even worth to credit HEL-ICN-HEL flown in AY C to BAEC i/o AY (11k avios vs 30k AY+)

On the other hand IMO European redemptions are not very good benchmark. For example NYC-HKG return as OW J award is 220000 AY+ points and (according to BAEC calculator) 140000 avios. I think this can be even more favourable for AY+ if adding a connection to somewhere in Asia from HKG.

Just my five cents. :)

I didn't find any points UG availability for the scheduled flights to Phuket in January/February. One would think that Business class of these flights are demanding to sell. Are they waiting if they get enough paid Y pax through travel operators or do you think they might open some UG seats closer to departure? Winter holiday in Thailand became much more interesting when these direct flights can now be credited to AA.

Sure, everyone's benchmark is different. While NYC-HKG relatively rarely comes my way, I have family in the UK, so European redemptions are very relevant for us and with the "free" UK domestic connections even more so. Not to mention other bits of the family in different parts of Europe... We are using at least a dozen European redemptions per year - with AY we'd be talking at least 500k points, with BA only 150k avios or so.

BA all the time.

Yes, AY is "cleverly" enough not targeting its own frequent flyers, as they must be kept in the dark.

Happy to hear that! ;)

Trying to use my sh vouchers but kinda feel worthless since what is the benefit these days on my upcoming 1,5-2h short hops? No lounge without Emerald, fast-track I have already, exit-seat is better than 1A cell.
Worthwhile on BCN hops though but I don't have such coming...soon I have give away those

I am a bit lost what AY thinks.

Recently requested shorthaul upgrade with voucher on E90 hop. I had to burn one and there was no lounge for me as AY Gold, so I thought I need to have some food at least. Stats showed there was 2 J seats and Y at least 8, but no upgrade available (2 days before flight) when phoned Gold line. Put me on waitlist. During boarding, upgrade cleared. Stats showed 2 J available, 6 Y. Given seat 1D. Entering the cabin, all row 1 was seated, but row 2 empty! (row 3 back Y). My fellow 1C moved to row 2 as soon as boarding completed.
Weird procedure all the way from upgrade request till seating...

My upgrade voucher became thus a mere "meal voucher" :D

On another note, I am now good for my first ever Plat card, but my past flights back 10 days have not posted (usually it takes exactly 5 days), I dunno whats going on there

I am very confused with AY upgrade policy too.

For the first time my upgrade (with voucher) didn't clear on HKG-HEL yesterday. I asked at gate one more time and was told business is full. Well, that can happen and I thought it had worked almost too well before.

But during boarding a man before me got the beep and red light when his bp was scanned and received a surprise upgrade. :confused: I asked him about the upgrade when walking to the plane and he hadn't done or asked anything.

So instead of upgrading me with voucher or another person who I saw at the gate asking for an upgrade with points they decided to upgrade someone for free. The upgraded man was AY gold though, but still this episode left a bad taste in my mouth. :(

To me this is a clear "evidence" that AY has radically changed upgrade policy. They ar removing upgrade space and instead offering these seats as upgrade-for-money, where they offer this to non-frequent flyers. Then, when they cannot sell these seast, they are returned to the pool and used for operational upgrading.
:td:

And it probably will mean that the AY Diners Club card will have a short life in my wallet. A lot depends on the new Amex scheme, but I took out DC in view of AY ugrades only.

The same happened to me on a DUS-HEL flight this summer. I was on the waiting list, but no upgrade was available. Instead, they upgraded several people for free, including a teenager whose mother travelled in Y. :confused:

I complained to AY and received an answer: Upgrades are unfortunately not always available... blaa, blaa. :td:

+1.

I am really sad to read these stories lately, since I shifted to AY a year ago because of better upgrade perks. Now they seem gone.

After all these I feel, and after learning a lot from you about AA&BA crediting, that my soon-to-be-arriving AY black card will fly to trash bin and I begin with BA supported by SK.

On CDG-HEL ten days ago, the gate attendants had a huge pile of extra boarding cards and a lot of priority customers got the red light, but not me :-( Unfortunately I could not overhear or see if there were being operationally upgraded or merely moved.

On the bright side, I got a "Are you Mr Courmisch? Can I offer you a free newspaper?" and my middle neighbor seat was blocked :D Meanwhile the the AF plat two rows behind got nuthin' :p I did not bother to try the rental Samsung fondleslab, since it's not discounted for elites, and the content seems a subset of the seen over and over again L/H IFE offering.

But yeah, it definitely seems that upgrades are harder to get. Notably I have not received a 24 hours discounted upgrade offer SMS in ages.

Don't throw away the card, it get's you access F-lounges (and other OWE perks) while you build up status with BA!

(If you fly 4 legs/yr on AA metal I'd take a hard look at their FFP, too)

I was one of those who got the red light. No uprgrade, just a change from window to aisle seat.