Missing UG's as a Plat - second & third time in 2 years!
 

I'm on my second full year as a Plat & I've got 2 trips planned for next week.

April 8-10/11 - DCA-DTW-SFO-(redeye on 4/10)DTW-DCA
April 12 - DCA-MSP-DEN with an April 16 return DEN-MSP-DTW-DCA

Last year, I flew about 50 upgradeable segments & only 1 was in coach for MSP-SEA.

This week, I've missed two advance upgrades - oddly, both are DCA flights (which I've never missed upgrades on, even as a Gold & Silver the past 3 years before). I didn't get UG'd on my DTW-DCA flight (a Wednesday 6:36AM flight - showing P5 F3) or my DCA-MSP (a Thursday 8:45AM flight - showing P2 F2) flight. Neither flight's remotely close to being over & both are on paid fares. I'm not so worried about the DTW flight, but I really wanted to be in F on the MSP flight.

Such is life...I'm just suprised the advance UG's didnt' go through on these routes...

That's good luck on your part. Next Monday I'm flying MSN-MSP-SMF in the back. MSP-SMF is already P0 F0. The Thursday return is already upgraded all the way through.

I don't much care about upgrades MSN-MSP or MSN-DTW (or vice-versa), but I like having them on the long segments. Oh well.

The flights haven't occurred yet, have they?

Sit tight. NW has been playing with load managements a lot lately and upgrades have been coming later than usual. I do think the thread is a bit premature. ;)

I've already been in coach twice this year, LGA-DTW and LAS-DTW. That's double my entire total (1) for last year.

Interesting that both occurred after March 1st, when common wisdom says, "upgrades will be easier."

Count your blessings, one for five so far this year! Yes, as Plat. Tickets bought well ahead of time, OLCI 24 hour mark. I think capacities are up this year.

Well, P0Y0 means I'm SOL unless someone doesn't show up or changes flights.

I wasn't responding to your post, I was responding to bhatnasx's.

Yes, you will probably ride in the back. Bring a pillow.

I had the same thing on one of my CO flights in January, and still got upgraded at the gate. What with no shows and such, I wouldn't count myself out until the wheels were retracted. :)

Nope. Last Sunday DTW-LAX was P0F0 and I got the UG at the gate along with a few others. It never over till ....

Those DCA-DTW flights are really tough. I have only gotten upgraded on three as a Gold in the last year or so. (At least 15 flights). Success on a Saturday afternoon, a Wednesday afternoon, and one really random upgrade on a Friday night. According to the Worldclub, my worst waitlist position was 49th as a Gold on a K fare on a day with a lot of cancellations.

I know - but I'm just suprised that these are the routes I didn't get the UG on - DCA, for me, has always been the first one to clear with no problems. And the times that I'm flying are generally non-peak times (which is part of the reason I picked them). We'll see - I'll hopefully get UG'd at the gate (especially for the MSP flight) - I'm not complaining - I've got exit rows & bulkheads for the coach segments, so it won't be the end of the world & the extra miles for flying in coach will be welcomed as I've burned through over 500K miles in the past 3 years. Maybe I should just start blocking the rest of my flights from UGs to get some extra miles? Nah! :)

I'm the polar opposite - as a Silver, Gold, and Plat - the DCA-DTW flights over the past 4 years have been the guaranteed upgrades. But as a Silver, Gold, and first year as a Plat, all my travel was personal vacation & mileage runs so I'd fly out mostly during off-peak non-biz travel times...

The last 2 months have been unusual in that 25 -30% of my flights have ot been upgraded until the gate or worse. I'v been in coach 3 times in the last 2 months. That's 3 times more than all of last year.

i too have been noticing a lot of missed UG's lately...only 7 for 11 this year...and before this, i've only missed 2 in the last 3 years combined!! what is going on? can it really be that many people are flocking to NW metal on paid F??

Other Possibilities...

Fewer scheduled flights

More cancellations - I 've already had flights cancelled due to "pilot called in sick," to pilots simply walking off the plane with no explanation given.

Greater number of Platinum Elites

I missed my first upgrade in two years last month on MSP-SEA Friday night. Normally that route hasn't been a problem for me. In any case, I had my exit row pre-selected so all was well.

I wonder if this is in part due to higher load factors? Haven't the load factors on NW been on a fairly steady increase? And haven't they been slightly reducing the frequency or volume of available seats? That'd be my guess. If someone wants to be a research hero, they'd go look up the load factors and prove me wrong. ;)

Your experience seems unusual to me. I missed 8 of 43 upgradeable segments as plat last year, and 3 of those were MSP-DCA or DCA-MSP. Other than LAX, it's the airport I have the worst upgrade track record with.

I attribute the low upgrade rate to the presence of two (one?) air marshall on every flight, reducing F inventory. Not sure if that is true any more. I also do a poor job flying in off peak hours.

I still prefer to fly coach into DCA vs F to IAD or BWI. It may be my favorite airport, due to convenient location, small size, presence of WC, ease of access to rental car lot.... many things keep me chosing it over the others. BWI's stock was rising, but the ice storm a couple weeks ago brought the karma score down a notch.

I did DTW>DCA>DTW for 11 months. High peak flights, Fri/Thurs 4-8pm out of DCA. Rarely did I get UG'd. My PE friend who did the DCA>MSP missed it 50% of the time.

One time I inquired, I was 59 in line. Yikes! I've heard them tell people, "there are still 19 PE who are on the wait list"

bhatnasx ... remember my words of wisdom ;)

Trust me, I will!

One reason I abandoned NW as a regular carrier in 2006 (aside from the labor uncertainty) was that I'm based in Seattle, and getting any upgrades SEA-MSP or MSP-SEA was very difficult unless I flew off hours. So I let my Plat status drop to Silver this year. I can get the exit rows on NW, should I fly them, as an AS MVP Gold. Not the same in terms of promise, but pretty much the same in terms of result.

If I flew past MSP or DTW more often (rather than ending trips in either), I'd reconsider. But SEA base is not easy on NW, just as someone else mentioned with LAX.

I can certainly understand that. And most of my MSP/SEA flights I try to fly off-hours whenever possible. The one I missed was the Friday 5pm-ish MSP-SEA flight, and it was PACKED.

I do wonder what your upgrade percentage is now that you've switched airlines. Presumably upgrades are tough at peak times on any airline, no?

I often fly on weekends and take red-eye flights back from the West Coast - and as a PE, I always get upgraded, although some of the upgrades come at the gate. Only market that has been really tough for me is DTW-IAH and back.

I didn't switch as much as shift. I've been MVP Gold on Alaska (their highest level) for a decade and was Platinum on NWA for only a couple of years. Rather than preferring NW for transcons, I moved those flights to AS in markets where AS has SEA-originating transcons. (I did a NW Plat status match on UA at the same time and never used it due to AS' nice SEA schedule.)

I still fly NW when I have to go to MSP specifically. But, for example, when I have to go to Cedar Rapids, IA, I'm more likely now to fly SEA-ORD on AS and drive, rather than fly SEA-MSP-CID on NW/Pinnacle.

I almost always am upgraded on AS for any flights that are not transcons. On transcons, it's not as often since -- like MSP-SEA NW business-hour flights -- there's a lot of high-level frequent fliers on them. But on AS I don't have to make connections when I fly to BOS, MCO, EWR, DCA, DEN and other non-stop destinations that AS serves from SEA. That, in itself, is a benefit, even if the identical seats are exit row.

Who knows? It may all change again in a year or two and I may fly NW more, depending on my travel patterns.

Upgrades tanking fast...
 

>>>>>>Greater number of Platinum Elites...

I don't think it's that. In Jan/Feb of this year I was 12 for 12, all Friday/Sunday evening travel.

In March and now April (flying at the same times) I'm 7 for 11 (64%) and since the MSP-MSN flight I'm sitting in the WorldClub waiting for is P0F0 the percentage since the new Elite year started March 1st could go down into the 50's by this evening.

ALL of these non-upgraded flights never ran EUA, because they were already full of people with confirmed F seats (visible by looking at very full F seatmaps before EUA was scheduled to run); my late upgrades on earlier Jan/Feb happened on flights where F was actually empty and coach was heavaily sold. On my recent non-upgraded flights, plats have been frustratedly asking at the gate, and the 2 top plats would get the upgrades (except in the case of a JAX-MSP flight where the GA gave away the upgrades according to her whim). And this after 90+ % upgrades both as a Gold and previously as a Silver flying in the same relative timeframe over the past few years!

In my experience it is not that there are more plats around (after March 1st there should have been fewer, on my flights), but that now it hasn't been the traditional plat/gold/silver upgraders who are getting into F.

Oh mightly one, does thou care to share thou words of great honorable wisdom? ;)

Indeed. We all can't be at every DC Happy Hour...or wherever the DC branch of the ringers meets. ;)

Come to the next 2% Club meeting later this month at the Marriott Gateway in Crystal City VA... I believe the date is 26 April ;) and all will be explained

[QUOTE=SchmutzigMSP;7538634]Sit tight. NW has been playing with load managements a lot lately and upgrades have been coming later than usual. /QUOTE]

This seems to be true. I've missed 3 u/gs in 5 years as a Plat, almost all upgrades have occured within the 5 day mark. The last 4 however, have shown zeros across the board but I've gotten them at the gate.

Is the date not April 28th? ;)

I'm afraid I can't just depart for a weekend. You'll have to give me a rain check. Dinner on me next time your in the islands? That tempting enough?

The 26th is the Freddies at Gateway - I'm sure there'll be some NW senior management present. The 28th is that "other" meeting...

Ah yes, forgot about the Freddies. Thanks. ^

I have had better luck with bumps than ug's this year! Looking forward to another free ticket the hard way 1K platinum bonus x 25 missed UG's = free standard award ticket! YeeHa!

Also, don't forget that oversold bumps trump all waitlisted Elites. It only takes one severe oversold flight to take all F seats in the remaining day. That's what happened to my last MSP-SEA flight and I chose to be bumped and sit in F of course.

Are you sure about that? AFAIK, only bumps that have specifically negotiated to be rebooked in F (or have been offered F by the GA) would trump any elites.

If they were in Y, got bumped, and rebooked to Y. An elite still in Y would beat out a bumpee in Y on the FC waitlist.

(I think) :)

Yep, I had a Y BP on my original flight and when they were looking into the next available flights, they looked straight into F and told me one was all out but the later one still has F and booked me straight into that one. I didn't even try to ask but GA just offered it. There were other fellow bumpees in the F cabin too. The mileage credit remains the same though as nwa.com lists both Class Flown (F) and Class Purchased (K) and miles were based on purchased obviously. I remember someone mentioned this kind of booking called forced F.

I just found out that my travel agent was not adding the ticket number to the reservation record quite right. So NW wasn't trying to upgrade those reservations. Most of the time I was able to get the upgrade at the gate. Twice the gat agent came and got me out of my coach seat.

Hopefully, now that they are aware of the problem our corporate travel people will get it fixed.

I've had about 20% (4 of 20) segments miss an UG as a plat this year. A couple were on tickets I didn't buy until the day before travel but the other two were MSP-MEM on B fares purchased more than a week out.

The ironic thing is that after complaining about my woeful upgrade rate ex-DCA in this thread, I got EUA'ed for my Wednesday flight DCA-DTW for the first time in a year. ;)

MSN-MSP, seat 7D
MSP-SMF, seat 7D

2000 free miles for me. Time to update the sig.