The best airline for upgrades!
 

OK.........any experienced travellers out there have an opinion on which airline is the best for upgrading? any suggestions welcomed. ^

WelshWizard

Domestic or international?

Free, paid, or with miles?

Also how many miles a year do you fly? What fare classes do you typically book? What routes?

I prefer Cathay Pacific for upgrading. Great product and service.

I guess which ones are good for both free upgrading and paidmiles upgrade?

I fly many times, mainly on flights within europe, and between europe and asia, US. possible 50+

I have a platinum with KLM, gold BMI.

Fare classes vary between discounted to full economy.

Hope that helps.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...light=upgrades
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...light=upgrades
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...light=upgrades

I would definately have to say EK, all Y/J fares are upgradable, there are tons of way to get upgrades and not the mention the high amount of involantary upgrades they give, especially on trunk routes.

Northwest Is Best
 

NW is best for free unlimited US domestic uplgrades for it's Elite. I have been Gold for the past 3 years and Silver the year before that and have only sat in coach on domestic flights a very few times on NW. My success rate is about 90-95% on usually very discounted tickets. On CO, the success is much less maybe 50% if I'm lucky.

Of course for international upgrades, there are none for free for Elites officially.

I must've been dreaming up my upgrades on OK then. ;)

According to Upgradesuccess.com, which is tracking upgrade percentages for elite members in the U.S., the current top three major airlines in the US are:

UA 92%
AA 89%
NW 85%

However, NW's upgrades for elites are mostly free, whereas I think there is a charge to upgrade on UA and AA.

Please visit the site and enter your data to improve the validity/accuracy of the numbers. Thanks.

Can you further elaborate on what do you mean by tons of ways to get upgrades on EK?

AA domestic upgrades are free for top tier (EXP) flyers. I've cleared 51 of 54 requests since the free upgrade program started.

I've had pretty good success with AA as well - too bad AA's premium domestic product is a bit shabby. :(

I may have stated it awkardly, for which I apologize, but what I meant is that there are many ways for you to end up in a J/F class seat.

~ Paid with miles (from any class fare)
~ Buying a J class ticket (no award inventory as far as i know, if there are seats in that class, youre in)
~ Involantary Upgrades
~ Upgrades for delays / inconviences on flights
~ Upgrades because of special offers
~ Volantary upgrades w/ seat on later flight because they have overbooked

These are also present on other airlines, but IMHO are much more common / frequent on EK

Cheers

I usually get upgrades about 60% of the time on AA and 50% of the time on NWA.

TACA airlines, you can upgrade even discount fares to business class for only $100 on international flights.

I gotta concur with NOLAnwaGOLD. Seems like NW is the best in terms of upgrades (about 60%).

It depends heavily on your status -- as well as fare type and several other factors.

The top-tier elite (75K or higher) flyers on Northwest have been reporting a 92% upgrade rate, which is similar to most of the other majors. One notable exception is CO, whose Platinum members have reported a 69% upgrade success rate.

Log in and share your recent upgrade success (or lack of) at http://www.upgradesuccess.com/

I have a 100% success rate on discounted fares with AM as a Platinum since Jan 2004. All are free upgrades, and you can upgrade on all their flights except to/from Europe. However on domestic US flights I can only upgrade at the gate on DL OP flights AM codedshares so I haven't had much luck (40% success).

US offers free domestic and Caribbean upgrades to all of it's preferred members (Silver, Gold, and CP) as well as their companions on any paid fare. CPs (top level) also receive 2 Transatlantic Upgrade certs each for themselves and a companion.

As a CP, I miss an upgrade about once a year. While the quality of US's FC cabin may be questionable these days, it still beats sitting in Y! :D

too bad for me.. I fly SWA 90% of the time...where would I get upgraded to??

the jumpseat :D