Hi,

I'm currently a low-milage flyer (usually 1 or 2 TATL/year) and a couple of domestic trips per year with no status because I tend to go with the best price and itinerary with Expedia. I was the lowest Premier with United for a couple of years but that's been it.

I hope to change jobs soon which will involve more travel and I have been avidly reading flyertalk which, by the way, ROCKS!

In reading flyertalk, a question occurred to me. if you are a really high-milage flyer, can you get upgrades on virtually every flight for the cost of a Y-ticket? Or, if you're only willing to pay for a Y ticket, are you sitting in Y most of the time? It doesn't seem likely to me that you could "always" be upgraded but, I guess if you spend a lot of $ on the credit cards that allow you to accrue miles, it's possible?

ETA: Homebase: Washington DC metro (DCA/IAD/BWI)
Likely routes: I'm not sure yet but I would think to and from the West Coast and Europe. I do not anticipate a lot of travel to Asia.
I think my next job will require 25%-40% travel but, again, I'm not sure if it will be shorter domestic stuff or long haul.

If you are a "high-mileage" flyer, as you say, then you will receive free upgrades on domestic flights. You will also receive a number of certificates to upgrade international flights. Note you don't say where you live, so I will assume the USA, although many other airlines have similar upgrade schemes.

There is no way to get upgraded all the time. The higher your status is, the better your chances. The only way a credit card would help is if you spend so much (99.999% of such cases will be business cards) that you spend the earned miles on upgrades.

I have no idea where you live, but I would recommend US (if you're in the USA. They've got sort of a bad reputation, which means many frequent flyers are elsewhere. You can get free domestic upgrades, and as a Silver, the lowest US status, I was upgraded on 4/5 domestic degments this year. You can pay $200 for a "trial" of their status, and that way you don't have to earn it. You just have to fly 7,500 miles in 90 days, so if you do this before a TATL trip, it will be knocked out with only 1 trip. Then just sit back and enjoy the free upgrades.

And welcome to FT!

It depends on the airline and, as gwar69 notes, your status level. As an EXP (100K mile/year) AA flyer, I'm upgraded 98% of the time domestically and something like 75% of the time on long-haul international flights, all for free. This latter number could be ~100% if I were willing to use cash+miles to upgrade the remaining flights. AA's international (systemwide) upgrades work on all paid fares, even the dirt-cheap economy ones, which is why I can do this. Some airlines only allow more expensive Y fares to be upgraded. On the downside, if you're a lower-tier elite on AA you have to pay for some of your domestic upgrades.

perhaps some details like home airport, routes you are likely to fly w/ # of trips....

Thanks. I asked the question more as a theoretical one because it seems like some of you get upgraded almost all the time but I should have provided that info.

Not so much anymore. You should have seen us ten years ago.