Comodoro upgrade on TAM
 

I recently acquired a Comodoro status through status match. I have booked a deep-discount Economy TAM flight BCN-GRU, and I am wondering if my cheap booking class would allow for a potential upgrade to C?

It is clear that this wouldn't work for a LAN flight ("you must have bought an Economy-class ticket on a Base Plus, Flexible, or Full Flexible fare"), but the website mentions no such restriction for TAM flights ("you are able to request a Cabin Upgrade from Economy to Premium Business in all international routes marketed by LAN or TAM and operated by TAM").

That's correct,you can upgrade to J from any purchased fare on JJ flights. You need to make this request through Lan's call center and priority will be given according to date of purchase of the ticket (quite strange!)

Thanks for the info - didn't realize that key difference. So I can book MEX-SCL on TAM (via GRU) at the cheapest economy fare and still be eligible for an upgrade, instead of flying LAN (via LIM) and having to pay twice as much just for an eligible economy fare that may or may not get me an upgrade.

The lowest economy fares for MEX-SCL are usually priced the same on either routing.

Just to clarify, does this mean I'd need to purchase the TAM flights through TAM, or could they be TAM operated flights purchased through LAN.com?

That's great news. My flight is in November, so it's ~6 months away from the booking day. The flight looks fairly empty on ExpertFlyer, so there is a chance.

As for requesting the upgrade, I can only request it 48h before check in, right?

I'm not 100% sure, I believe it could be 72 hours but anyway it won't matter much since the priority is given by the purchase date of your ticket (within your status in lanpass of course)

I don't know until when this benefit will have these rules. I guess that they are not doing it because they are not able to efficiently replicate Lan's upgrade system in TAM, but keep in mind that booking systems will be unified within this year.

Finally, yes, I've been booking MCO-GRU-SCL rather than MCO-MIA-SCL or MCO-LIM-SCL because fare booking V is ridiculously more expensive (many times twice as much) than the deep discount fares. Flights have been booked on LAN's call center (since LAN is unable to display many of the connections that I would like to take of course), and have had no problem in upgrading.

You can request 72 hours before the flight, just like the check in. They suppose to have this option through their website but I never was able to use it and always made by phone, 100% success rate so far. ;-)

Seems to work, thanks for this. Knowing your TAM pnr rather than your LAN one seems to help.

Interestingly enough they can't see where you are on the list.

Just a quick update, last week flying CUN-GRU ground staff had absolutely no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the requested UPG. Their answer was literally "we are not doing system upgrades". And it was their reply for 15 minutes... I had to talk with the supervisor for a long time before being upgraded to J (I ended up being the last to board). There was plenty of space, so I guess it's just a lot of information that never made it to them.

Lessons:
- GRU and SCL is OK..smaller airports I can't tell anymore
- Have your LAN email stating the upgrade request
- Have a copy of the upgrade rules
- Get some boxing gloves

Safe travels!

Interesting. When is the upgrade usually confirmed? I assume not when requesting it 72h before, but during check-in. What if you do online check-in 24h before the flight?

Do they give out upgrade coupons to accounts that acquired the Comodoro status just through status match? I just got Comodoro through status match but I don't see any upgrade coupons in my account. I'm having a TAM flight from GRU to FRA in eco soon so it would be awesome to receive an upgrade there.

Hi ChrisTuff. Look for the Estado de cuenta Upgrade button at the bottom of your listing of flights in your account?

Thanks! Now the coupons are there. Yesterday they weren't but my account just got upgraded yesterday so apparently it took some time to get the coupons in the account.

Super! Of course, as a Comodoro you have unlimited upgrades, they just use the "coupons" as an accounting measure.

Thanks SCLflyer, all went swimmingly, got 2x upgrades on LAN and the 1x on TAM tatl.