I am QF Platinum and was persuaded that would give me 90% chance of getting upgraded form Econ to Biz SYD-LHR, even though there were no award seats at the time I enquired. "They'll put through a special request and allocate a seat for you" I was told, by QF phone sales. Lo and behold, once I booked and piad for the econ. ticket, no amount of nice requesting, pleading, offering to change days or time etc is helping. "We won't release any more seats until 2 weeks b4 the flight" I am now told! That's not much help to me as my plans need finalising prior to then, also, what's the point in having a longer waitlist time for Platinum members if seats don't get allocated until 2 weeks before??

Any tips or suggestions as to how to increase upgrade chances from here? (Using UA miles and NZ points beckon as the alternative. I just thought I'd use up the QF 'upgrade credits' I had sitting around...)

Being Platinum will pretty well ensure you are top of the upgrade waitlist (even Gold seems to do that most times). Be patient!

You are at the top of the waitlist pile. I would think that you stood a reasonable chance. Since you must have paid for the ticket, would you get a refund if you were to cancel it anyway?

Dave

Well here I am 3 months on, being very patient and my flight is in 2 days. LAtest I am told is that I am still number 2 in the waitlist but that Economy and Business are completely full. There are however plenty of seats in 1st. Why oh why does Qantas not do what other airlines do and upgrade a grateful paying business customer to first, an economy platinum (like me!) to business and then have another full-fare economy seat to sell? Do they really think they are going to sell that first class seat for cash at this late stage?

If there are people waitlisting for business to 1st upgrades, they might well do them tomorrow and then you will most likely get yours. Why would they just upgrade someone else for free in order to allow you to upgrade?

Dave

So that they can get some goodwill from a Full Fare J Class pax on a route with a lot of competition AND get goodwill from a QF Plat FF on a Y tickets AND they can then sell another Y ticket (which is more likley than a F ticket) or not bump someone AND use up some contingent liabilities in the form of upgrade certs!

If they have to do an operational upgrade from J-F due to Y being full and wanting to fit people on, then I would be surprised if they didn't then upgrade the person waiting an upgrade. Given the no-show levels, it is also quite possible that there will be no need to relocate anyone on the day. Giving someone else an upgrade in order to give the member an upgrade would seem mad to me.

Dave

This is an interesting one - gbogo, please let us know how it turns out. Good luck!

A little off-topic, can anyone tell me whether it is possible to use upgrade credits to upgrade an award ticket? I had always assumed that it was not, but I couldn't find that written anywhere. If I could use points to book Y and then credits to upgrade to J that would be awesome!

Mad_atta!!!
Are U mad????
NO you cannot upgrade and award ticket using upgrade credits or points or money or anything!
The trick is to book a business class or first class ticket in the first place.
U used to be able to use points to upgrade
an eco to bus or bus to first but I understand that now it is a 5000 penalty to use points to upgrade from eco to business.

"Giving someone else an upgrade in order to give the member an upgrade would seem mad to me."

Well, in the real world (ie businesses that make money) looking after your best customers and keeping them loyal would not be seen as mad, but as sound business sense. However, I am willing to bet that there is at least one J class customer on my flights, who has upgrade credits or points in their account and doesn't know that they could upgrade to First. A quick call to them could keep TWO good customers happy while reducing liabilities / increasing economy revenue etc. Why bother spending all the money on a FF loyalty scheme if you don't encourage your customers to use it and benefit from it? If I don't get this upgrade, QF can be sure I will be moving my business to other airlines in future, and permanently.

And then you will defect from them the 1st time that a flight is full for award travel?

It is not hard to get upgraded travel UK to OZ if you are flexible on travel dates or routes. e.g. go via CDG or FRA to London.

A friend of mine was recently waitlisted for an upgrade and it came through about 24hours before departure.

The fact that there are no seats available suggests that they are being used. If there hadn't been, then it would have been available to you immediately.

Dave

You still can use points to upgrade a PAID ticket from Y to J or from J to P - there is no penalty for doing this, apart from the actual points.

Just to sidetrack a bit here, does anyone know if you can combine points and upgrade credits on the one sector? As an example, SYD-LHR is 5 upgrade credits OR 50,000 points from discount Y to J - if I have only 30,000 points and 2 upgrade credits, can I combine the two to get right through on the one sector?

Dave

Thedocta.
I was writing about an award ticket.
I did not use the word paid anywhere!.
The post was talking about an award ticket and wanting to upgrade and award ticket.

You have NEVER been able to upgrade an award ticket, that is why I assumed you were talking about paid tickets.

Dave

This is prohibited by the rules, you must use either points or credits:
12.2.1 Flight Upgrades are available by redeeming Points or Upgrade Credits at the rates set out in the Benefits Guidebook as updated from time to time.