Upgrading first time question
 

A newbie with questions, please don’t flame me, and I did a search, but couldn’t find clarification.

Once you obtain silver elite, how do you go about upgrading to FC?? Does this cost you miles or what?? Is there more than one way to do this, such as using miles for an upgrade and/or just requesting standby for an available FC seat at the gate?
Thanks.

as long as you're flying domestic, the upgrades are free.

When you buy the tickets, just make sure the PNR (reservation #) has your WP and it reflects your silver status. Start checking 3 days before the first flight to see if you were upgraded.

Enjoy!

edit: do all this throught NWA.com if you did not know already.

Just put your WP number on your res when you buy at nwa.com and it happens automatically and for free. You'll get upgrades on a space available basis and are behind NW Plats, CO Plats, NW Golds, and CO Golds in line for the upgrades. My upgrade percentage as a Silver our of DCA was about 55%. Free upgrades are ONLY for domestic flights. Booking yourself on flights that are not at peak times when lots of high level elites are flying will help your chances. Welcome to the NW elite ranks and to Flyertalk!

peace,
~Ben~

You don't have to do anything--as long as your WP number is in the reservation, and it reflects your status. Others have reported that they needed to manually remove and reenter their WP numbers in reservations they made before achieving elite status to get the status to show for those reservations. But once your number and status are in the reservation, it's up to fate, luck and NWs computer. There's a pecking order, and there are a few routes and flights on which even some Platinum Elites end up in the back (hubs to LAX and DCA seem to be a problem at peek times, for instance). But there are plenty on which Silvers have a great chance for an upgrade.

Good luck.

Ned69, welcome to FT. You may want to sign up for advance notification of upgrades at Worldperks Manage My Account on nwa.com. As silver, you would get 1 day advance notification when you are upgraded.

If you do have any flights that were booked before you were elite, (correct me if they've fixed this) you will have to call and have an agent remove your worldperks number and re-enter it in the system or else you won't get in the pecking order.

I'm sure someone can pm you the silver elite number if you don't have your card yet - might make it easier to get through to NW.

That is still correct, but you can fix that at nwa.com as well. Just click on your frequent flier number and re-enter it. Once you submit that, your silver elite status will be reflected on the reservation.

Welcome to FlyerTalk. As a Silver, I've seen upgrades about 75% of the time, but do my best to book at non-peak times and have just forgotten about the possibility on west coast flights (except red-eyes).

welcome to FT and congrats on silver

I thought I read somewhere that you will see your new elite status but you that won't make it elite for upgrade purposes. Darn, I wish I could search better - I thought it was discussed in this forum not too long ago.

I and some other posters have been told by CSRs that when you update your status on the web, this adds the new status to your reservation, but doesn't wipe out the old status. In other words, if you reserved as a base member, then updated to reflect your Silver status, you would have two lines in your record: Base member and Silver member. The UG software supposedly only looks at the first status line, not the last, so your old status is what will be used. The CSRs apparently have the ability to fully delete your old status and leave only your new status. It would certainly be easiest if you could simply do this yourself, but if you want to be assured of being eligible for the UGs, take a couple minutes to call in.

You forgot to mention all the Flying Blue elites as well! It appears all three elite levels are now eligible for NW upgrades.

Too many hands in the cookie jar :(

I live in SAN and I think i've missed one upgrade in/outta here all year... LAX is a different story.. lot of plats in the back, even on 757s.

edit: sorry as a silver, and I also try to fly off-peak.

Congrats on becoming silver. Enjoy your upgrades. My success rate is about 90% out of DTW.