Using mileage upgrade is nearly impossible?
 

Hi everyone,

I'm new to flyertalk, and im running into some trouble here. I booked my round trip tickets from LAX to AMS 3 months ago for next year 4/15/18 departure. Meanwhile I transferred 190k miles to my flying blue account. I have been calling flying blue since I bought my tickets but it just receiving the same answer that they don't have availability. Is there anyone run into the same situation before?

Rongarlicbun Welcome to FT

Upgrades are never guaranteed. Supply is limited. Having freq flyer status can help at times, but depends on the airline/freq flyer program.
With some airlines low priced are fares are not eligible for upgrades.

Yes I understand, good thing is the tickets I purchased are eligible for upgrade. Do you think it's still too early to request, it's 204days away from departure

LAX is a heavy flown awards route I think. AF/KL uses different buckets for seat upgrades and standard award seats, although mostly there are seat upgrades (what you want) available if you can book a standard award seat for the cheapest flight. I believe for AMS-LAX it's 62.500. You can search in the booking engine on the website.

If seat upgrades are not available, then your best chance will be when OLCI starts or even at the airport. Every empty seat would then be available for seat upgrade requests.

There is a small chance that somebody booked award seats and cancels, but don't count on it.

i just checked this after, they do have 62500 special going on but unfortunately my ticket cannot be cancel. Therefore I can't waste $4000 on my 3 adults and 1 baby to just rebook it.

I think keep calling flying blue is the only method for now...

Are you on the 747 or 789? The 747 only has Elite availability, the 789 has Classic Award. Might be that they still have seat upgrades for that flight. I don't know how badly you want it, but you might be able to switch your flight to the 789 and then do a seat upgrade. You can call KL and ask for somebody. The desk was previously called Ticket+, they are able to look and book cash tickets + seat upgrade request etc.

All KL tickets are eligible for an upgrade, however using miles to upgrade an economy ticket is almost always a bad deal, it is much better to just use your miles to redeem business class tickets in the first place, with 190K miles you could have purchased 3 one-ways in business, you'd have to be in a relatively expensive economy bucket to be able to make more out of it...

It's always worth checking again closer to departure time, maybe 2-3 weeks before, but nothing is guaranteed, I hope you have a backup plan for using those miles in case you cannot use them for an upgrade.

unfortunately im on the 747...and I want it very badly!
May I know more information about Ticket+?

thank you so much. In the meantime I don't have any back up plan unless I can use the mileage for extra comfort seat for all 3 of us..

Updates:

i just spent 2 hours with flying blue, the agent suggested me to book award ticket one way from lax to ams for 62500 miles each plus tax, and she puts a remark for able to change and cancel on tickets. Then i got all 3 business award tickets already with separate booking code. After connected with KLM, they want $6700 extra to cancel the outbound ticket as the ticket difference. Connect back to flying blue, they said they can't do anything, apologize about didn't mention for extra cost, and they couldn't do anything beside cancelling my award tickets.

It used to be a special desk were agents could access award seats/tickets and cash tickets. They could also look at the possibility of buying 1 ticket with cash, 1 with miles and then join the PNR's, etc.

I don't know if the fares have gone up from when you bought it. The prices for both flights are the same now. So you might be able to change your tickets to the 789 flights and upgrade from there. You have to call though to find out availability.

For what it's worth, I've never had success calling and being able to use miles to upgrade. The only chance I've ever had was either OLCI or on-board. The on-board upgrades are quite high as everyone has been saying.

Finally, in my experience LAX-AMS is always full in J. I've been watching an upcoming trip in two weeks and the availability plummets 3-2 weeks out...which is expected.

That said you can always get lucky... You could always get EC seats and, as it's the 3 of you, reserve the front row near the exit. Tons of leg room...

i checked yesterday, both flight actually went cheaper, but I have the $300 each rebooking fee, so if I change to the 789 flight will be $10 refund, I called flying blue yesterday and both flight doesn't have any upgrade available yet. Do you suggest I should just change to 789 flight first and try from there??