IAN-UK

There's acres written on this, and I understood that availability of upgrade awards mirrored that of mielage award availability. i.e, if you can get a seat for miles in F, you should be ably to e-voucher yourself from C to F.

Yet even though I could happily book TWO F-class seats for miles, the M&M folk are unable to shift my single upgrade out of the C-class waitlist zone.

I'm not particularly fussed about upgrading a routine flight home from SIN, but I'm knee-deep in e-vouchers I'd love to get rid off before they become worthless. I have also to admit to an unhealthy interest in understanding how systems work - so I find myself doubly frustrated.

So is the "same fare bucket" understanding wrong - and there are separate processes in place for different types of award?

Or perhaps I should get a life ...

oliver2002

weird... if O is available it should available to both awards and upgrades. Have you tried looking at your C booking within your M&M profile and trying the 'upgrade' button? That tool uses the same PoS as the award booking engine. If there is O free you can upgrade using evouchers or miles.

DFW-SEN

Availability online and for booking through the call center is different. I had the same issue last week. I wanted to book a oneway award from KL to Rome, which can not be done online. Even with SEN waitlist I was not able to get FRA-Rome in Biz (only in Eco). Online there was availability in C if I tried to book a roundtrip.... Go figure...
S

IAN-UK

Thanks for the idea - but then it gets even more puzzling, and slightly depressing...

I get the message * Your booking is not eligible for upgrade (119405), not even giving me the option to upgrade my connecting flight home from FRA. Not that I want to, but it'd be nice to have the option

oliver2002

ok, next try: did you call the UK/GB or the german call center? The germans see the PoS that the M&M website has, the UK sees something else.

IAN-UK

I spoke to a friendly agent in Germany who said "no availability": I officially give up.

I also asked about the "not eligible for upgrade" message, and he said that was because you can't book upgrades online .

I explained I'd already done the outbound online. I also explained there was a helpful "upgrade award" button. He said it must be a speciality on the English website

That was Germany not Capetown. That's when I REALLY gave up !

NewbieRunner

I have seen a similar error message but later on was able to upgrade with miles/eVouchers, so don't give up especially if you have many eVouchers to burn.

LarsMB

The website seems to be a bit erratic. (Let's not even talk about the time where the upgrade only became available after I had already checked in; upgrading from C to F then screwed up the system so badly that the transfer desk in FRA needed 45 minutes to piece it together, I was given a print out of their internal booking system data in Hamburg. Yes, I do computer QA for a living, why do you ask ;-) )

Back to the point, keep trying. The check-in counter can help; and if they can't, the gate agents can make almost any last minute change they feel like and that is remotely possible (+ nets LH more profit).

Always be friendly to the gate crew!

fradoc

Strange, I got the message once after prematurely pressing the button before the ticket was issued. Otherwise try FT algorithm #1: If not satisified with the answer, call again.

IAN-UK

I was too smart-arsed and called up the technical support team (button 5, I think). Hardly satisfied but not ready to go through the pallaver again..

Anyway, your FT-ers words of wisdom are now blessedly redundant:an email pinged through during the night to say I am now a First-class customer. Spooky, it must be Oliver2002's mojo