Hi All,

Not sure what the best forum for this is, but any op please feel free to move this to whatever forum is appropriate.

The inlaws need to fly from LAX or ONT to DAY or CMH and have asked me the best way to upgrade or travel in F (cheapest). They have no status with any airlines and no miles or affinity programs anywhere. I also do not currently have the miles to spare as I need my miles for tix I am booking next month. They do not care which airline they travel on or how they get there.

Could anyone recommend a strategy for me to give them. Willing to consider buying miles, consolidators, use of my mid level status (somehow) on DL, Continental, US, UA, etc. and of course gate purchased upgrades, but need to keep the cost as low as possible.

Thanks in advance.

Umm. Not to sound smart-a**, but how about buying F tickets?

No status, no loyalty, no miles. That pretty much leaves $$.

Assuming there are upgrade seats available (big assumption), you could use your status to upgrade their tickets. Ah - no miles, no problem. Get an Amex Platinum card and advance yourself 60k MR points and then xfer to co, dl, whatever. Just make sure you earn them back before you have to pay for them.

If you do this, just don't advance the miles or xfer them until you find that you can upgrade their seats. If you can't you can cancel the card for a refund.

True on most cases. But there has been rare (I mean rare) circumstances where people have been op-up without any of the 3 above. So I would not give up hopes until you have sat on the aircraft....slim as it may be.

"He who gambles his travel comfort on the possibility of an op-up dooms himself to frequent disappointment."

how about have them fly on UA, and buy Economy Plus tickets? They would get a good deal of additional legroom, though same seat width and economy service.

Another option is to fly "business class" LAX - DAY on FL (Airtran; http://www.airtran.com/Home.aspx). Airtran offers day-of-departure paid upgrades from Coach class to Business Class (subject to availability). The price would be $80 each for the LAX - ATL segment and then $40 each for the ATL - DAY segment. (same prices on the return). Total of $120 per person each way, or about $480 for the whole trip. OR they could just purchase business class tix on FL in advance for ~$900 each r/t, all-in.

Wise words, indeed...^^

To the OP: Do some research on the airline with the most buy-ups at the gate (UA comes to mind), use some of your leverage (Like the Amex Centurion, for example, there's gotta be some perks there...), and visit the Coupon Connection, to see if you can score some upgrades instruments on the cheapo....

Either way, good luck!

Taking the idea from some other recent threads...

Why not just have them ask some other FC pax to switch their seats with them? I mean as long as they are giving them an aisle seat they should do it!

Smarta**

Thanks for the replies everyone. Figured there wasn't much to do.

The Airtran advice was the kind of advice I was hoping for.