Doing a quick check of the "big 3" U.S. airlines, it seems that it is fairly tough to get an upgrade on an international partner airline, even an alliance partner.

Delta: Used to have upgrade awards on the Qualiflyer partners (SR,SN,Austrian); now, only offers upgrades on Korean and Singapore(?!). No upgrade awards on major partner AF. Upgrades on codeshares are allowed.

American: Upgrades on Cathay Pacific. Upgrades on codeshares not allowed.

United: Upgrades on LH. Upgrades on codeshares -- not sure, I think not.

Continental: No partner upgrades that I can find. Codeshare upgrades allowed, at least on Virgin Atlantic.

Northwest: Upgrades on KLM. Codeshare upgrades -- yes, I think.

I mined most of this from web sites, some may be incorrect. So corrections are welcome!

CO: Full upgrade abilities on NW, HP, and Copa, whether codeshare or not.

NW: Full reciprocity with CO.

HP: Full reciprocity with CO.

There are full reciprocity between CO, NW and KL, including codeshares. However, they have different upgrade seat inventories. You can only upgrade if the inventory on the flight you booked is available. For example, CO9 and NW7009 are codeshares, upgrade is available on CO9, but not on NW7009; you can only upgrade if you hold coach ticket on CO9, not if you are on NW7009, even though they are actually the same flight.

UA: since the OS-Group (Austrian Airlines, Lauda, Tyrolian) joined LH's miles&more as fully integrated members, I believe (but not even my OS-people at LH's office in ZRH are sure!) that you can also upgrade on OS et al using UA miles.

For sure cou can upgrade on UA using OS- (=miles&more) miles.

Although I admit that I may be misinformed, I was once told by a NW Customer Service Manager that First Class upgrades on NW come out of the same invntory for both CO and NW flyers. She also said that codeshares shouldn't make a difference, once either carrier has the upgrade inventory available.

But again, I caution that everyone take this with a grain of salt.

It is not news that you get different answers from different reps. Although what avek00 said makes more sense.

Once I was booked on KL JFK-AMS and I called to check on uprade availability before ticketing. I was told that no upgrades available on the KL flight, however, it is available on NW flight (codeshare of the same flight). I rebooked on NW ticket and got the upgrade. That was more than a year ago though. They might have changed their policy.

(I think NW7009 should be 6009.)

Has there been a change in policy?

I did upgrade on CO9/8 and the ticket I bought was NW6009/8. This was in January. NW dips into CO's upgrade inventory and they reissue NW6009 ticket as a CO business first ticket.

I also did the same in June last year, buying NW tickets and upgraded on these CO flights. But at that time, they still could upgrade as NW6008/6009.

So it's no longer available? Oh, well, another reason not to buy NW tickets for me.

I believe that the upgradeable inventory on any CO or NW international flight is available for mileage upgrades with either WP or OP awards without discrimination. Since there is no codesharing on those routes and the computer systems do not mesh at all, the agent from one must manually call the other to arrange the upgrade. A key fact to remember is that OP upgrades can only be obtained on NW coded itineraries that do not have any KL coded segments. If you are connecting to KL in AMS from NW on a KL coded flight, you will not be able to upgrade the transatlantic segment with OP miles.

Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to use an AC SWU on an AC/OS codeshare flight from YHZ-YYZ-VIE-SJJ and back?

I am flying YHZ-YYZ on AC, then YYZ-VIE-SJJ on OS. I wouldn't bother to use an upgrade cert from Halifax to Toronto, but would like to do so across the water. If I use the upgrade to check in to YYZ, would there be any chance that the upgrade would follow me?

AC told me that I couldn't use the cert unless it was AC metal across the water, but I wonder if OS might be a bit more lenient.

Am flying tomorrow (Aug 30), so if anyone who has any insight reads this, could you answer fast? I'd be grateful for any help.

Thanks,
karen

I don't have an answer to the question posted by karns immediately above, but just wanted to caution anyone reading this thread that everything before that post is over a decade old. Much of the information in those posts was correct at the time, but no longer is.

thanks, efrem. it would be great if there was someone who could update the info.

I will call austrian in the AM, as it's too late to call them now. Still hoping that someone might know if what I want to do is possible.

I noticed that LH and OS are offering mileage upgrades, and I wonder if I could approach it this way.

Thanks, karns

The ToS discourages bumping old threads for this exact reason.

http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q77