Eilte Upgrades for fare class L????
 

Hi All,
Just bought tickets to LAX from PIT (via DTW) on nwa.com and got fare class L. I am Silver elite with NWA. My outbound flight is July 27th early morning and return is August 1st red eye. Per an FAQ thread on here, L is a new deeply discounted fare class. My question is, what are my odds of getting upgraded to first class? I am not too concerned with the PIT-DTW but it would be nice to be up front for the DTW-LAX-DTW legs.
Any input would be terrific.
Cheers.

Looking at the "Search for fare class" pulldown on NWA.com's "More search options" form, L appears to be less discounted than K or T... the order things appear there is K T L V Q H M B Y Z C P F J.

I pretty consistently book in fare classes K and T, and they don't seem to mind putting me up front when there's room. So I can't imagine them minding doing the same in L...

That said, I don't fly through DTW so I can't speak to the probability of it happening on aardee's flights.

Thanks for the quick response -
 

I'll just hope for the best then. Truly speaking, even the red eye I am ok with coach cos I can sleep well on flights. Its the morning flight that I tempted to go up front. Thanks again.

In my experience LAX-DTW-LAX can be a tough upgrade for a SE as a lot of PEs travel that route. I don't think your fare class is going to have that big of an impact. Good luck with the upgrade!

Agree... fare class, if a factor at all, will probably not come into play. You will be at the mercy of the platinums and golds, however. A slight positive, though, is the redeye. There is usually more F availability on those flights.

Post travel reply
 

I wanted to post a reply after finishing my trip last week. I got upgraded on the PIT-DTW and DTW-PIT legs but no chance of upgrades on the DTW-LAX and LAX-DTW route. Upon web check-in they told me I was on the waiting list. At the gate, the agent was like, "Sir, we will barely make it past the golds so no chance with Silver". Oh well - it was worth a shot. Just wanted to provide a post trip feedback on upgrade probabilities.

LAX will be nearly impossible for a SE. The only dtw-west coast I have gotten recently as a SE was SEA-DTW (several times). Gosh I miss the DC-10's on that route.

As good as 50%
 

Bonus miles that is....your chance of upgrade on LAX-DTW is near nil.....if you were Gold I'd say your chance of upgrade is as good as well nil+

It's really hard to get upgrades even as Plats on LAX/SFO/SEA to MSP/DTW flights. Because of the long distances, lots of people have higher elite is my theory plus they are high value/business areas and no one airline has a main hub.

I am 2 for 2 on upgrades in and out of LAS. I think this might be an exception though. One of thoes flights coming into LAS even had 3 seats empty in F and they were trying to sell them for $105 each as an upgrade.

I'll let you know how the upgrades go from now on, don't know if I just got lucky or what. I have a LAS-MKE red-eye on Sept 1 and MKE-LAS return on Sept 4 and then a LAS-DTW redeye on Sept 15th and evening return MSP-LAS on sept 18th. I'll let you know.