E-first Upgrade prices
 

Hello.. I have a question concerning the E-first upgrade. What are the usual prices on E-first Upgrades between LAX and MSP? ^

Not sure, but unlikely you'd ever find availability on a LAX-MSP flight to have one offered at check-in.

Elite UGs would come first and even though it's a small sampling (below) it shows Elite UG success isn't even all that sure:

making my answer the same as Phil2016's. It might be possible for low elite travel periods, but otherwise not likely.

Before I was elite I was offered a $35 UG from DTW>DCA on a paid M-fare. Hopefully that will help you judge the price a little, my guess would be $100-200 range.

If this helps any... here are loads from www.seatcounter.com for the flight i will be on:

2 Northwest 308 757-200 LAX/04:05p MSP/09:36p B9 F9 H9 K0 L9 M9 P9 Q9 T5 V9 Y9


This is on January 8th fyi...

All I can say - regarding the fare buckets posted above - is alot can happen between now and January. Beside ticket purchases, elites will be UG'ed into the (hidden) R bucket, which is a subset of F, which is a subset of P. You're likely to see those FC seats decline significant'y at 6, 4 and 2 days out as the Plat, Gold and Silver EUA windows pass.

On the other hand, 1/8/2008 is a Tuesday so you're much better off than on a Sunday-Monday or Thursday-Friday, which are the traditional FF/elite-heavy travel days. YMMV, of course, depending upon convention traffic, etc.

OP isn't asking "if" an e-first upgrade is going to happen, op's asking the price....

You never know, fare paid also plays into it. I think it has to be an M-fare or higher, Perhaps a H/Q. I don't think a V/L/T/K will even be offered.

going off now on a side note
 

I will be flying back to the US on Korean Air in Business Class in a full fare C class. I am wondering whether to use my Korean Air Skypass miles to acrue the miles or my NWA Worldperks.. What is up with the EQM etc... my itin. is taipei-Seoul-Los Angeles.... in C Class.. How many miles could I earn out of this on NWA WP?

Go for it. C/J gets you 125% EQM and RDM's.

Korean Air



Earning/Redeeming Miles
Earn miles on SkyTeam-coded, Korean-operated flights.
Redeem miles on all Korean-operated flights (excluding KE 6000-6706 and 6711-6999).

Effective January 1, 2006, WP members may no longer redeem miles for First class travel on Korean Air.

Destinations
Korean Air serves 84 cities in 29 countries worldwide.

Website: www.koreanair.com

Earning Banked Miles
100% of actual miles flown (500-mile minimum)
50% mileage bonus for First Class travel.
25% mileage bonus for Business Class travel.
Miles not earned in the following classes: G, B, Q, N, A, D, U

Elite Qualifying Korean Air Fare Classes on Korean-coded, Korean-operated
Elite Qualifying Miles at 150%: P, F, Y, M
Elite Qualifying Miles at 125%: J, C
Elite Qualifying Miles at 100%: K, T, H, Z, L, O, S, W, E, R, X, V
Elite Qualifying Segments: P, F, Y, M, X, J, C, K, T, H, Z, L, O, V, S, W, E, R

Award Blackout Dates on Korean Air Flights

At the beginning of the summer, I got one MSP-SFO for $105. (That was before Silver-Gold-Plat in four months)

The first two of us said we didn't know the how much, but it might not matter since it's a hard elite UG usually. I was hoping someone who actually had some idea of the $ would post later. That said, with about six weeks to the flight and more than forty of the P seats taken already, I doubt there will be any seats for a paid UG since there are only 22 seats in F and there will probably be a lot of elites added to the flight who don't know they'll be on it yet.

What status if any, how many EQMs and how many total miles do you have in each?

right now with nwa current balance of miles 5,056 and with korean air a balance of 5,500-ish miles and 0 banked for the year 2007 (used 15,000) to upgrade Seoul-Taipei) but a total banked for this year so far.. 20,500 miles....

EQM's etc. etc.
 

Ok so.. if i used my KE skypass.... i think i would have similar statuses as per their website:

http://www.koreanair.com/local/cn/gd...g_sp_cb_mc.htm

and

http://www.koreanair.com/local/cn/gd...g_sp_em_ka.htm

but the question is which would i get a better deals with miles

on that second link it shows the air mileages between their cities.... so using that mileage chart...

with the total miles.... would it be better for me in the end to acrue the miles on my NW WP or on my Korean Skypass?? :confused:

With NW WP, you'd be SkyTeam Elite/NW Silver Elite after 25,000 EQM in a qualifying year, which would last through the rest of that year as well as SE for the next year. If you reach 50,000 EQM in a qualifying year you'd be SkyTeam Elite/NW Gold Elite, which would last through the rest of that year as well as GE for the next year. If you reach 75,000 EQM in a qualifying year you'd be SkyTeam Elite +/NW Platinum Elite, which would last through the rest of that year as well as PE for the next year.

With KE you'd be SkyTeam Elite when you reach 50,000 EQM in a year (30,000 of which must be on KE - NW doesn't have that restriction) which would last for two years, and to retain that status you have to earn 30,000 EQM (20,000 of which must be on KE) in the next two years. You'd gain SkyTeam Elite + status after attaining a lifetime of 1,000,000 EQM, which it seems you retain for life.

As to which benefits from status and which rewards from RDM (redeemable miles - for awards) would be best for you, you'd have to delve into the benefits and rewards in each program.

The SkyTeam benefits of SkyTeam Elite and SkyTeam Elite + will be the same no matter which program you pick.

I am a Skypass member (can't remember why I got the card), and I always found their elite program to be completely bizzare, at least from a European/North American perspective. Elite Plus certainly doesn't look like a dawdle!

So? your suggesting that I change the FQ F program in my res. from the Skypass to NW WP???? :confused:

Even most other Asian FF/Elite programs, which, from what I've seen, do seem to be quite different from US, don't require a million EQM for SkyTeam Elite+.

Thanks for all your insight into the matter. Something just came up that has made me make a change of date to an earlier time. I tried to change the date on the ticket, but it wouldn't let me. So i've made several calls... mind you at wierd hours of the night/day here in Korea back to a US office, since on the weekend the offices here are closed. They told me at first just to cancel the ticket and then reapply the value towards a new ticket. We tried this, still didnt work. So the agent reinstated my reservation. I then did some further inquiry via e-mail and there was a form e-mail sent to me telling me to contact the 1-800-692-6555, the nwa.com support line, then I called the number via SKYPE, and they tried to mess around with it but said the same thing. In the fare rules for the ticket it said that a change is possible after a $50 change fee plus any increase of fare. IT says this RIGHT at the beginning.. but then she pointed out that if u look much further down (through that long mess of stuff..towards the middle and end) she said that however it says changes to date, origin or destination or fare class booked are not permitted. So she then told me to cancel the ticket and purchase a new ticket and the value of this new ticket can be used for a ticket at a later date. She then told me that if I have problems trying to use the value towards a new ticket, that I should call nwa.support number again so they can fix this. So, I recancelled the ticket.. and just to see if by luck I could resuse the value towards a new ticket ex. Los Angeles to Minneapolis for dates at the end of december or into January before jan. 8th.. still wouldnt let me do anything. So I then thought.. hm lets see if i can use it towards a ticket in March, April, or May by playing around with dates and several cities ex-Minneapolis or St. Cloud.... guess what.. NOTHING that I gave into the system would let me reuse the ticket. So they tell me that it has value towards a new ticket, but when? Never? In the mean time, I have purchased a new ticket with US Airways. Throughout this whole exchange via the "phone" (internet phone) they showed little or no disregard that I was calling them from Asia at 1 AM on Sat. and again on, Sunday./Monday.. because the Res. offiice in Korea is closed on the weekends. Please tell me what I can do, and I'm not going to accept anything like... oh well your screwed. They tell me that I should use it for another time. What makes me think that if this wasnt allowed to be changed when I had the reservation in the first place and couldnt change it.. that i could use it towards a new ticket.. as described in the case i listed above. So how if they can't provide this service at anytime.. whether its on the 8th of jan. when I orginally planned, but now have to change because of personal reasons... or if its at an earlier or later date., which requires me to change the ticket, but I couldnt to begin with. Sorry that I am ranting on and on.. but its now 4:07 am here and I am extremely pertubed about this. Please give me advice about how I should go on from this and what I should request from Northwest or how I should "talk" to them about this?

Cordially,

Brandon :( :(