Upgrading Yourself
 

I recently boarded a plane only to find someone in my seat in economy, and it turns out that we both had boarding passes with the same seat number. So, I walked to the nearest available seat, which happened to be business class, and sat down. Within 60 seconds an FA comes up to me... and asks me if I would like something to drink! Needless to say, I had a pleasant flight.

Has anyone else tried this? Did anyone notice?

--Jon

Rarely ever will this work. The OP just got lucky and I would not recommend it as a way to get upgraded. Duplicate seats do happen and there is a slim possibility that if Y is sold out and J/F has an empty seat one of those paxs will end get upgraded for expedience sake of getting the flight out. This happened to me years ago on a JFK/SJU flight were a pax with no legs had also been given my same seat. Since it was not practical to move that pax the GA end up handing me a BP for F.

I've been on a UA flight where the FA approached the passenger with the creidt card machine in hand, quoted the 'upgrade' fare, and asked which credit card they wished to use as payment. When the passenger refused to move and declined to pay, they were advised that they would be greeted at the gate on arrival with a team happy to collect the appropriate payment.

I recall a similar story here on LH.

OP got lucky. Dupe seats seemed to happen to me once or twice a year in the 1990's but do not happen to me anymore. Back in those days, the GA would sort it out...and sometimes I ended up in F/J if I happened to be the one with some sort of decent status. (Seems like this happened a few times to me on AA as a regular Platinum.)

Most self-upgrading tales do not end well. Most of my flights go out 100% full in F/J - usually with a long list of people waitlisted to get the upgrades - so you wouldn't last long in a seat not rightfully yours. Besides, FA's would know if there was supposed to be an empty seat...the passenger names and locations are on their printed manifest.

Why are you bragging about stealing something?

Ahhh :rolleyes:

I guess the person in his seat should be put in jail for theft and the airline for conspiracy to commit fraud.

I've had the duplicate seat number thing happen to me twice. In both cases, the other person in my seat was unaware that they had been upgraded (once from Y to C, once from C to F). So maybe the OP wasn't challenged for the seat because its rightful owner was back a class unaware of their good fortune and the FAs didn't say anything because they were expecting someone there.

I've seen UA go after scammers with the CC reader both for poaching E+ and F. On an oversold DCA-ORD, they used it to boot a guy off the plane and fill his seat with a SB !

I saw someone try this a few years ago on a flight. I believe it was HNL-SFO on UA. I was in F, and the two F seats behind me were empty. A guy snuck up from coach part way through the flight, nabbed a seat and immediately dozed off. An FA noticed almost immediately, came and woke the guy up and asked if he was in the correct seat. He readily admitted that it was not his seat and he'd upgraded himself. He slunk off to coach without any fuss.

It was like the classic Seinfeld episode when Elaine snuck into an F seat.

That doesn't surprise me a bit on LH. Zey haf vays uf makink you pay....

Had to post:

Years ago, 1990 when I was younger and not as well off (also single - between M), GF and I were in Narita and the line for check in was extremely long. I asked her to check us in and try and get exit row seats and I would go get something to eat. She said she was not hungry and told me to take my time and perhaps take a nap since the flight was hours away.

I came back after about 2 hours (I know, I know...I should not have left her for so long) and she said the ticket agent gave her (I am guessing the row number) seats 11C & 11D. I was a little upset that we were flying a "small" plane home to EWR.

We boarded and were directly to the "second floor" and did have exit seats but in FC.

All I can say is that I sweated it out until the plane started to taxi but the flight home was extremely comfortable.

The best thing about passengers attempting to self-upgrade is watching them get caught by a flight attendant and sent on "the walk of shame" back to their seat in y. I find this very entertaining.

That's the second best. The best is the walk of shame off the aircraft to the GA.

Na, these are third and second best.

The best was a removal by the local authorities.

No and if I am in F or C and see someone doing that, you bet I would report you right away.


Challenged or not, there is no right for anyone just take any seat that is open. OP should have just flag the FA down and let he/she sort it out. That's what I would do and I saw others do the same thing too.

Not to mention, there could be other open seats in Y too, by self upgrading yourself only show the person have no class whatsoever.

This scenario doesn't sound like any US or Asian carriers, as US carriers F would be full before any Y pax get on. And Asian carriers the FA which serve F or C would already know the pax well by name and face.

Just a few weeks ago, my mother and I were flying on AA from DFW to HNL. We were #1 and#2 on the upgrade list. We received boarding passes for first right before we boarded; we had bulkhead aisle seats but on opposite sides of the plane. When she boarded, a man was in her seat. He moved over after helping her stow her bag. After champagne (sparkling wine for the purists) was served and consumed, I noticed that my mother was sitting with an empty seat next to her; it was the designated rest seat for the pilots.

She said that the FA asked the man sitting next to her for his boarding pass; he handed it to her and she told him that his seat was in row 11 - not in row 2. He looked at my mother and said something like "Well at least I got champagne," collected his bags, and moved to row 11.

This has to be a troll thread. Someone can't possibly be coming onto FT and be serious about bragging about a self-upgrade.:confused:

That's awesome.

Its done all the time (bragging about stealing I mean)

Agree, this is an awful idea haha

I'm not convinced this was a case of self-upgrading anyway. On KLM I am often upgraded and only find out when another passenger shows up with the same seat.

If I just stood up and moved to the front, nobody would say anything since the pax count per class would come up correct.

Self-upgrade: can it be done?
 

Ever been one of the last bodies to board before the door closes and then see the slew of empty F/C and E/C seats as you trek back to Y? I frequently ask myself, “If I just take a seat up here, and play it cool, could I get away with it?” I realize that there are many ethical and moral reasons against doing this, and for some FTers, even entertaining this idea by responding to my thread is out of the question. I do not want to start a (read: another) long thread about right and wrong. No lecturing is needed here.

I have been the last to board either an RJ or flight <1500 miles, asked the GA for a complimentary Medellin upgrade (and was not previously on the list), got it and a new BP, and assumed my cushy F/C seat. The FA had zero reaction either way. At this point, the manifest either was not in hand or had not been revised to indicate my upgrade. I was never subsequently asked to present a BP. So, setting aside the BIG fact that it is wrong to do, I still ask the question. If a pax was last to board, effectively eliminating the chance of assuming a seat assigned to another pax, could he get away with a self-upgrade to F/C or E/C? Forget trying this on long haul flights or vessels with two rows that are stocked with CC requesting your BP as if there is some secret code they need to detect to tell you which aisle you should use to access your seat).

I would like to particularly like to hear from CC. Do you ALWAYS do a headcount for F/C or E/C and compare to the manifest? What do you do if there is an extra body? Would it matter if it doesn’t appear to create a problem (i.e. all passengers in that cabin are business-savvy… no drunks or loud and obnoxious behavior)? Other than humiliating the pax, rightfully so, are there any other direct consequences the passenger for trying (i.e. reporting, FF account sanctions, etc.)?

Would also like to hear from any pax that have witnessed a FA make someone do the walk of shame.

I log ~15,000 miles and 15 segments/month, most in Asia. I am never going to see most of the pax again, so if it is just my pride, and if there was a decent shot at getting away with it, I would be tempted to try this regularly. I just spent two weeks exclusively on CZ and GA, where so many “locals” are too cheap to spring $50 for E/C. F/C (“Executive” on GA) was nearly empty, which I suppose was because so few had the necessary status for upgrades. On CZ I had E/C to myself, which was fine. But GA is not yet synced up with Sky Team, so no upgrades available. Also note that I typically get the company the best deal on my ticket, and frequently do not collect miles making the Medellin status a long trek to reach.

I trolled the forums for more than three hours reading about seat switching and squatters. In all except one case (the drunk on a PHL-IND flight willing to pay $1000 to upgrade his partner, IIRC), the threads were about people in the same class switching seats and pax trying to “share” a J or F ticket.

Domestically it is definitely plausible but not so sure about long international flights

You can be caught if your seatmate believes that there will be an empty seat next to him/her. For example, some airlines and GAs will block seats next to elites when the plane isn't full. Nonrevs have been known to watch seat maps and ask to move up as soon as possible after departure.

There are quite a few threads on it.

Sometimes it will work.

Most times it will not work.

empty seats in F ? Not in a long time.

years ago, SJO-MIA, J (AA A300) was half full, we had a mechanical delay after we boarded, people started spreading out. Some guy from back in 87E comes up and sits in the empty seat next to me thinking he just scored the self-upgrade. FA starts drink service during the delay, asks me what I want. The guy next to me orders a drink. She gave him the silent stare for about 10 seconds, then told him that the drink + the upcharge for the J seat would be $ 2500, and she needed his credit card. As he left, she said to herself "What is wrong with people ?"...

I don't care whether you want to hear a lecture or not.

What you propose is theft. If it were up to me, if I were the airline, I would do everything I could to punish you for attempted theft.

If you want to sit up front, pay the $ or learn to use the system on FT to get upgrades.

Welcome to FT by the way.

Having had my F/J seat poached on several occasions, self upgraders are DBs IMHO. A few even had the nerve to insist I take another seat.

And what would you do if the flight attendant knew you were poaching, let you stay there and then they charged you for the seat when you got to your destination?

How do they collect the charge?

(1) if you paid with a cc, they could try to bill the cc--I'm not sure that would work.:confused: [if pax paid with cash, what happens?...]
(2) they could call the police (it depends on the destination) to arrest the passenger
(3) I've been on many flights where pax have been upgraded by fa's after the plane left the gate--poacher could claim that he/she thought he had been upgraded

They should boot the poacher from the wrong seat IMMEDIATELY.

Don't.

Yeah, this works all the time. What's the problem? If you self-upgrade, that'll save you that many more miles you can sell to strangers on the Internet. Because that works all the time, too.

...

One time I was on standby after taking a VDB voucher, and the only available seat on the next flight was in F. I was the last person to board, and was given the F seat (and also the voucher good for future travel).

I have seen FAs randomly invite economy passengers to move up to premium cabins if there is space, but only on Asian carriers and not recently. I think this is a good practice: costs the airline nothing (don't give them the meal or other stuff, just seat) and results in excellent odds of repeat business.

The answer to your question, by my estimation, is that you have about a 5% chance of being successful. If you don't mind the likely embarrassment of being caught, then you have nothing to lose. They can't legally bill you for it later.

^^^^

On what planet is this the law? You stole a product sold to others at a high price. You can, and should, be charged, and then prosecuted.

You can only be prosecuted if you violate a law. Please cite the law that you would be violating.

Theft.