Lucky Upgrades
 

Our son is incredibly lucky and is traveling Priceline cheapo via SwissAir (I am acronym-impaired) from LAX to ZUR to Prague with his gorgeous Angellina-Jolie lookalike wife. Anyone have good stories for winning the hearts of gate agents and getting upgraded to business? (Nothing smutty please.)

Not a gate agent, but an Avis agent in Germany.

At the time you had to be 21 or 25 to rent over there, depending on the size of the car you were getting. I was 19. The agent gave me a gigantic discount on a nice VW Passat.

I really didn't say much too her, I guess the charm just wears off on people. ;)

This is 2005. If he wants to win the hearts of gate agents, have him take out his credit card and pay for the cost of the upgrade. I'm sure the gate agents' hearts will just MELT with the sight of plastic. :D

For some reason this request makes me think of the short film, The Upgrade (2000) which had Mimi Rogers and Minnie Driver in the cast.

I always did like the tagline for the film. In coach... no one can hear you scream. :D

Pavane, Analise is correct, your son does not need to be in economy with Angelina, Does he have status ? If not my immediate advise is for him to get business class discounted tickets. Otherwise, ask him to sit back relax and enjoy his flight in a seat that has probably a 32" pitch. Let's be realistic, why would the airline want to upgrade a passenger who is not a frequent flyer and is holding a discounted economy ticket ? One more thing, ask him to join one of the programs so that he may accumulate miles on this trip.


http://travelclub.swiss.com/FFP/CDA/...1_0_1_,00.html

I'm an FF on Swiss transatlantic routes and I often get bumped to C or F class. There are several ways to accomplish that:

1. pay the C fare
2. pay the upgrade fee at the gate (last time a pax requested that on the ZRH-BOS flight was about $1500 per person one way)
3. Be a TravelClub Circle member (200K miles per year, 2/3 of that in paid C or F class)
4. Be a TravelClub Gold Member


BTW, this applies to each person travelling

good luck