Clydez

haha yeah you are right. India is weird place. was at mumbai, and refused entry of airport, had to show them something which i didnt have.

Had to open the email attachment on the phone to show the security guard im flying today.

Justinus

ffay005

Quite the opposite. The message to the most frequent customers is, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you and protect you against those hoards of basics trying to redeem." To basic members, the message surely is different, along the lines of "Okay, your points don't expire anymore, but even if this enables you to save those 50k points, don't even think we'll let you upgrade to J with them:"

intuition

You really are an optimist, aren't you!

Sorry to say, I agree with the darker views. I don't believe this change has been made as a nice gesture towards frequent customers.

I am not even sure it is a conscious move. Rev mgmt changed something and it meant the online waitlist "broke". But because the waitlist method still exists, no one really knows or cares about the problem.

Eyrie

As a basic member...yes, this is how I see it. It was nice to not have to think about points expiry but right now I'm not sure about this. If this is the trade off, I'd rather have the expiry back (although I recognise that different people might feel differently).

Carotthat

This is so ridicolous:
Got an email with the C Upgrade offer for the incoming leg to HEL from FRA - for 173.- - without being on the great waitlist here.
My waitlisted leg, HEL-FRA, is still unavailable.

Thanks, AY!

FFlash

intuition

I do get that the effect of putting everything on waitlist is that a larger quota of F-seats are allocated to higher tiers.

But there really wasn't a problem before, was there? We didn't see numerous posts by platinums saying "why don't my upgrades ever clear?"

It sounds like many fear the competition from in-frequent flyers, but I don't think that demand is much higher now, even if they can save their points for more than 3 years. I mean, we talk about those who couldn't save points for an upgrade in 3 years, but now suddenly is in heaven because they can have one after say 5 years. Yes, the non-status members are many, but seriously how many new upgrades requests is that going to generate?
Also, won't that influx come only after a few years of the new rules have passed?

Vesseli

As a "non-status 50k once-in-a-lifetime horder who doesn´t have the cash to pay for J", I don´t like the system at all.

Another funny thing about the "View availability for business class upgrade" -tool is that if you check the flights separately, the system shows space in business, but if you combine the whole while (feeder+long haul), then there is none.
I had that now for my trip to LAX. Checked the tool for FRA-HEL and HEL-LAX, both has availability separately, but FRA-HEL shows 0. Called CS and got put on a waitlist. Wife is a low silver, im non-status so going to be a nice trip with only handluggage to LAX!

I even told the CS that f*ck that feeder, there is availability for the HEL-LAX, just use 50k per person to upgrade that and I dont care about the 2,5h intra-european shorthaul. Not possible they said. Either everything or nothing. Cool.

"If you haven’t booked flights yet, check the upgrade availability for your desired route and make your booking. After that, you can request a travel class upgrade conveniently online." Yea, right. Nice and easy.

AlgoRhythmic

Yeah, I have seen the exact same thing on my CPH-HEL-NRT route I fly a lot, HEL-NRT and CPH-HEL both have tons of availability, but suddenly if you combine them it disappears! And it's like this for every single flight I looked at, I am very flexible when choosing the dates I fly usually, to make sure there is upgrade availability, but recently it has been impossible to find. Unless I look at the two flights separately, then there is tons!
I honestly thought it was a bug in their system first so I called CS, and the person I talked to seemed just as confused as I was and assured me there was availability. Then when I tried upgrading online, the interface even told me it was possible and there was availability, until I actually click the upgrade button where suddenly it crashes and tells me to "please contact CS". I did, and the person I talked said she would try to upgrade me or maybe put me on waitlist if necessary, she seemed a bit confused about this, and the next day suddenly my LH flight (HEL-NRT) has gotten upgraded, but not the CPH-HEL one, and I'm not even on the waitlist for that one. But my app shows me I can upgrade the short one as well with 7500 additional points! So I call CS yet again, and this time I get put on a waitlist for the short flight, and it clears me literally 10 minutes after the call and I immediately get the full upgrade!
I honestly have no idea what is going on with this, it makes absolutely no sense to me. In the end I got my entire upgrade cleared so it's fine for now, but I feel really annoyed that I cannot upgrade HEL-NRT flights just because I happen to fly from CPH first.

Carotthat

This sounds like AY changed the computer service system, making it nice and easy to run, maybe like Lufthansa's

FFlash

Vesseli

I guess it has something do with FF status as I spoke with CS in phone and chat with two different people and neither one were ablea to do it. I did send a feedback through form that they should fix the tool if that's really the case that checking separately =/= checking whole itinerary. Would not have flown to LAX for holidays if we can't upgrade with wifey .

Steve_Hun

My experience is from last year. Bought one of these cheapo ex-FRA USA tickets, but have only asked for the upgrades of the LH flights. Both of them, HEL-SFO and LAX-HEL has cleared (LAX-HEL had instant availability, HEL-SFO was waitlisted), while FRA-HEL and HEL-FRA remains economy.

Carotthat

Would be economic thinking, to sell the business seats on SH for real price, waiting till the departure.