Ok, apologies all round. My upgrade has come through 24 hours prior to departure.
However... when I first requested the upgrade 88 days ago, there was of course plenty of space in Business for paying pax. But no 'upgrade award' space. Since then, I have variously been told that there was plenty of space and I would be upgraded 'no worries' all the way to 'It's chocka and very unlikely'. Some consistency and transparency in the process is what I guess I would be looking for in an ideal world.

Dave - I WAS flexible with dates and routings, but was told it either didn't help or that I had to change my booked Y ticket before they could 'tell' if it helped..!

All's well that end's well I guess.

[This message has been edited by gbogo (edited 04-03-2002).]

I am glad to hear that it all worked out ok and not surprised. It is sounding like the wait list on the V long hauls on busy days don't happen till close to departure.

Whoever told you that you had to rebook before they could tell you was talking rubbish. They can easily check and they have done for me recently. They were able to check CDG, FRA and LHR flights for me for a 2 week period in just a few minutes and found availability out of Paris. It is also possible to check most flights out on the website by going into award bookings since the booking class for a free ticket is the same as the upgraded class.

Have a good flight tonight

Dave

Glad to hear it came through for you. Yesterday I waitlisted for FRA-SIN and SIN-MEL for D-F upgrade. I am not expoecting to see any progress on this until 24 hours before departure.

I also tried to waitlist for my outbound flight MEL-LAX but since it was less than 72 hours before flight time, I was unable to do so. But I really did not expect any success on that flight due to the booking load (F=1, J=2, Y=6). At least I have one of my favourite J seats booked.

And to answer the question regarding using points and credist to upgrade LHR-SYD, you can do it by looking two different flight numbers and use points for one upgrade and credits for the other. eg QF10 LHR-SIN and then QF18 SIN-SYD. The upgrades are seen as two separate redemptions.

Actually, you could probably do it using the same flight number - I was booked on QF 9 MEL-SIN and QF31 SIN-LHR - when QF31 was handed over to BA (temporarily) they moved me across to QF9 SIN-LHR (I was peeved at first, until I found out F1 was operating QF9 that day!)

Admittedly, the SIN-LHR sector was upgraded using the four upgrade credits I bought for 5000 points. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Dave

Try doing an on-departure upgrade for your outbound flight. If there's one seat, they'll give it to you.

On departure upgrades are good but you can only use points for them not upgrade credits.

Dave

I tried for an on-departure upgrade on QF93 at both Melbourne and Auckland QC lounges, but alas the plane was chockers - not one spare seat in any class.

Oh well, I am in LA now so it doesn't make any difference anymore. But I hope the waitlisted upgrades for the FRA-SIN-MEL do come through.