The recent decline in the international upgrade availability has been a much-discussed topic. I soon will be its latest victim.

I have a leisure trip from EWR to PVG departing in a few weeks. I currently hold a discount ticket, and am looking to upgrade using miles. Unfortunately, there are no D fares currently available, however there are plenty of WBC seats available in the form of C fares. My question is, does the C seats eventually gets released to D? If so, are there any patterns?

Looking at the number of seats available and the close proximity of the departure date, I can't imagine NW selling all those seats. Will NW's deny upgrades using miles even if it means flying with empty WBC seats?

I'm not 100% familiar with NW, but I believe those seats will eventually convert into D class if NW does not sell them.

If time gets short on you, you may have to get the miles processed in advance in the hope that a seat opens. That way, they can process you at the airport if need be. You can always bank the miles if you don't get to use them.

I would not be very optimistic. I had a similar situation in my flights to FRA/DUS from DTW, and return. On the way over, the agent refused any kind of upgrade at all... operational or mileage. There were only a few seats in Business, but they remained empty.

Coming back on KLM, the agent said "NO", then said "Go out to the ticket counter and try." Now that was quite a trip. After standing in line about twenty minutes, the KLM agent said "Of course there are business class seats available. But the only way you are going to get one is to buy a one way business ticket." About three fourths of the KLM business class seats remained unsold, but even at boarding time they would not allow use of mileage for upgrades on a discount fare. "It is a revenue issue," the agent finally explained.

The good news is that I found Northwest coach greatly improved, and KLM coach surprisingly adequate. Two empty seats beside me certainly helped. If you don't get the upgrade, ask at the desk if there is any seat with an open seat next to it.

Sounds like nonsense to me. If there's a seat open, and it's not going to be used at all? Why not allow pax to use miles to upgrade?

With the low upgradability possibilities of int'l flights, I'm thinking of moving to CO. To say the least, they display what's available.

Upgrades on NW remain a catch as catch-can situatuion. Remember that these come for the same bucket as the "free" business class tickets. As of last week, I could have gotten a free BC ticket or Upgrade to accompany my wife who is on a NW mileage run as we speaK, JFK-TPE-JFK. I also checked today , and there are BC seats avialable, JFK-BKK april 6/12, I believe. The key is to check back frequently at the World Perks Award site, as these open up unpredictably.

Vulcan,

I am planning (hoping) to score some WP WBC seats to NRT for a trip next year. At first glance, these don't seem to be available at the front end of the 11-month window.

Your opinion, please: Better to wait for the Bus Class seats to open up, or lock into Coach and then redeposit/reissue the miles if Biz opens up? Are some Asian routes more generous with award WBC seats than others?

Thanks,
Lori

[This message has been edited by tartetatin (edited 11-28-2000).]

Lori:
I have to say that I am a CO elite and it "appears" that it is easier for CO elites to get upgrades on NW flights than MW elites. This is just my feeling from reading posts. Also, it appears NW requires NW elites to buy a much more expensive ticket for it to be upgradeable. I can only say that as a CO elite, I have upgraded tickets to SIN, BKK, and TPE, all of which were less than $1,000 RT from NYC with CO miles thru OnePass. The only requirement was the availability of upgrade seats.
I would suggest first finding out what is the minimum fare NW will allow you to upgrade from. Perhaps you could post this as a question on the Board. Be specific as to your destination. I suspect BKK and SIN are the most difficult to upgrade to, but I think it is at random, depending on when/how many seats NW decides to release.
If you are thinking about NRT, then seriously consider using CO thru EWR, even though it is the long way around. IMO, BusinessFirst is superior to WBC. There looks like a lot of upgrade seats available on CO from EWR to HKG when this route opens in March, if HKG is in your plans. I hope this helps. If not, e-mail me.
Ed

i'm finishing up my trip to hkg which will make me platinum on nw. i took this trip on co because:

1. seats were made available on co, that weren't on nw
2. pricing was in line with nw
3. service on board is better

while it was a hassle to get the ti9cket upgraded using wp miles, it sure beats asia in coach. all nw is doing is making their own ff shift to their alliance partner. smart business?? i don't think so.

"all nw is doing is making their own ff shift to their alliance partner. smart business?? i don't think so."

Absolutely agree! So why do they do it?

Thanks, Ed.

Good info on upgrading purchased tix with miles. Probably a better way to go than all-award-miles tix.

Lori

Ionman:
I'll be doing the EWR-GUM-HKG RT in January. Any surpires on your run? Did you visit the Presidents Club in GUM? Thanks
Ed

its just sooooo long.

the only real surprise is that there are no showers in either the hnl or gum presidents clubs. this makes little sense to me, because the odds are you have just emerged from a flight of 5 hours, and if you're changing planes, it will be at least another 5 hours of flying. the club in gum is a nice size with limited seating based on the size of traffic to/from there. the most shocking thing about their airport, which appears to be fairly new, is that it is just as overpriced, if not more so than us airports. to see burger king charge $3.50 for a whopper was a shock. (i was going through junk food withdrawal, but at that price, i left it there.) i guess it costs alot to ship all that stuff over there.

when coming back to the us, they look at your passport in guam, and stamp it with the red stamp you usually get in your passport or on your customs form. however, you don't get a customs form until you're on board, and when you get to hnl, you must have your boarding pass available for presentation with the stamp on it. then you claim your bags and procedd to present your forms. finally you are then lead through a maze to get you into the main terminal. it was kinda wierd. i had never been to or through hawaii, but i felt as if i had seen all of the bowels of the hnl airport when i was done.

the entertainment system was cool, but i was surprised that many of the choices were the same on the na-hnl as well as the hnl-gum flights. these flights allow me to catch up on all the flims i missed as i was traveling during the summer film season, so with these two flights being so long, the less duplication the better.

as for location with the biz1st cabin, i'd opt for the front 1-4 vs the back 9-11. you get the full rolling cart service, vs the fa's bringing out the trays and placing it on your tray tables(which are bigger than most btw).