intuition

For example, it allows me to select from departures that have waitlist and are open.

And for this route, all the returns are on waitlist, but this system allows me to book a return award flight anyway. (not sure what happens if return waitlist does not clear though!)

ffay005

Sure can! I don't know if anyone can do it, but being Plat, I have done it on several occasions. I just tell them which flights I want and if they're not available, they'll waitlist (and, in all three cases I had, the waitlists cleared).

A friend of mine, Gold at the time, was allowed to make two alternate award bookings (flights were available, no waitlist) and then talk to his wife and decide which flights to take. If memory serves me right, he had 24 hours to let them know his decision. So that's possible, too, and they charged him (both points and taxes) only after he had made his decision.

intuition

Yes, this would solve a lot of problems. They can still prioritise tier members, while allowing some planability.

As for the Lumo guaranteed upgrade, I think that is fair. Make it a 48h cut-off or something and it is not much worse than the seat guarantee thingy. Moving the lumo to J does free one seat in Y so that last minute full price J pax could still be on the plane, but in full price Y.

ffay005

Yeah, 48h cut-off and "If you need the upgrade at a shorter notice, you can always talk to the gate agent at the boarding gate. We'll upgrade you at the gate as long as there's an empty seat on the plane when boarding starts."

reflektia

Or maybe give platinums possibility once per year to upgrade into I inventory. That would save that super important family trip.

eg. LH gives this possibility to HONs.

cistavoda

I've always had waitlists clear, be it upgrade or tix. My SO (Ay gold) had her award tix clear immediately when I called platsku line and dykwia'd. So the old "Plat gets what Plat wants" is still true imo!

niksal

I can only congratulate you who manage to get upgrades cleared. Seems difficult for me.

Ed Size

I got all my upgrades and award bookings the way I want since 10 years or so (only once I could neither get awards nor flights booked), but I always offer a little flexibility in my schedule. Last time I need to stay overnight in HEL on my way back - but that was better then a waitlist which not get cleared.

niksal

OH-LGG

Move it to LGG's account and get 100€

SPBanker

I have been able to upgrade all four of us, and three family members with Plat upgrade benefit (i.e. I was on paid biz ticket).

Steve_Hun

Same here.... Ticketed revenue J for me and family perk upgraded 3 pax for HEL-SIN-HEL from Y

ffay005

Well, considering that they have 32–46 J seats, four seats represents quite a big part of all available seats. If the routes attract a lot of paid J pax, I think it's fair to say that it is understandable they don't want to clear that many seats. Even if they overall give out, say, five upgrade seats, maybe they want to spread them among several Platskus to make several happy instead of just one (party).

Would it be possible for you to negotiate with your family and split up during flights? Upgrade two on the outbound and two on the inbound. That way, the upgrades probably would clear and each of you would get to enjoy J one-way.

I usually fly alone, and while I'm sure four seats are not an impossible upgrade, like SPBanker have experienced, it's self-evident that my upgrade success rate is as good as it is because I only need one seat. Only once have I upgraded two pax, but in that case, I booked flights that had F availability, because it was a trip we would not have taken in Y so waitlisting was not a possibility (and if there had been no F availability within the window we had planned, we would have booked paid J).

As for those 800k points, if you don't want to consider splitting your family up during flights, why not book J awards? They're not the best available value for points, and you need to pay ~400 euros in "taxes", but that way you could book as many seats as they let you and then book the rest with cash.

ffay005

I think this is the right spirit.

I have two takes here – for upgrades, I book whatever flights suit me best, ask to be placed on the waitlist and rely on my luck. Should it fail, I'll sit in Y without grumbling (too much).

For awards, I force myself to be flexible and innovative. Strange connecting points that result in unnecessarily long flight times, layovers longer than I would ever accept on a paid ticket etc. I consider it the name of the game.

A very small part of me likes DY's approach, where the accrued "miles" are basically cash that you can use anytime to lower the price of your ticket at a certain exchange rate. But I would never wish for AY to implement such an approach. While it makes it far easier to use those points, it gives them a lot less value. This spring, I'll accrue 73600 AY+ points for a ticket that costs €2500. Think of it this way: buying one J ticket gives me (almost) 2.5 roundtrips to Europe on the house. If I spent €2500 on DY tickets, I'd receive €50 in cahspoints. Their "loyalty programme" really doesn't attract much loyalty at those rates.

NoWindowSeat