Garanteed Upgrade?
 

Would the following scenario work:

1) Buy several fully refundable businessclass tickets on your airline of choice.
2) Buy one coach class ticket that gives you the right to be upgraded, either based on your status with your airline of choice or as a result of fare class.
3) Ask for an upgrade during coach class booking or get yourself on the upgrade list.
4) A few hours before departure cancel the whole lot of refundable businessclass tickets, effectively opening up seats for upgrades.

DONE!

nice try
 

not all business class seats are available for upgrades...so even if you do cancel the refundable biz class ticket...no guarantee that the airline opens that seat for an upgrade.

What your suggesting is also explicitly against the Contract of Carriage for most or all airlines. It's a real easy to get yourself on a lifetime no-fly list.

No guarantees.... among other reasons, the upgrade waitlist could very well be longer than the number of biz class tix you purchased and then cancelled. @:-)

But, hey, go ahead and try it and tell us how well it worked! You first.... :p

Exactly! There are some airlines like AS that have a very limited transcon flights and are almost always full especially in first, and like you said the wait list can be longer then available seats.

This sort of thing is why the airlines don't do the cheap standby tickets anymore.

People would over reserve the plane with confirmed reservations that weren't paid yet, and cancel at the last minute, so as to get on cheap with a standby seat.