i have never tried tipping at the airport in an attempt to get an upgrade and was wondering if anyone ever tried. If I am flying intl, I would be willing to tip 500-1000 if they upgrade my seats to business.

I did it about 10 years ago in St. Thomas on AA, but things have changed since then so not sure it would work I am sure the more experienced FTers know much more about this than I.

I would have to say no to this. Not too many employees are willing to risk their jobs for a one time tip. Biz travellers are far too savvy these days to let someone bump ahead of them for an upgrade.

I don't think "tipping" is quite the right word for the transaction you are describing.

Agreed. I think the proper word starts with a 'B' and is quite likely to get the agent fired immediately. The computers have gotten much more sophisticated.

also down right offensive suggestion I would say

If you're willing to "tip" up to $1000 why not buy an upgrade?

I'll chime in. My boss attempts to bribe his way into C or F every single time he flies. Well to be fair, sometimes he "asks" about the cost of a paid upgrade, but more often than not, he simply utters the words "first class" and throws money ($50 intra-China, $100 intra-Asia, $300 for tpac or Asia to Europe) on the counter in a discreet way. His success rate is VERY high. In fact, I just noticed EK F tags on his luggage today and I'm positive he didn't pay for F. I think part of his good fortune has to do with his personality; while he's not attractive in the slightest, he's not the kind of guy that gets told "no" very often. Oh, and even more impressive, he doesn't do the FF thing at all! I'm doing a 3-city trip with him this week and would be shocked if we ended up spending any time in Y seats (the bad news is that he likes early AM flights).

Wonder what the results of trying this at LAX, JFK or ORD would be?

If he is flying with EK, is he mostly flying with that airline and local chinese airlines? My understanding is that most of the major, long-standing airlines (SQ,CX, BA, UA, AA, etc..) control upgrades pretty carefully due to the "family and friends" issues and the need to manage their elite paxs. Maybe some of the outstations might be able to pull off an ongoing scam due to the looser internal controls, but I can't imagine this working from an airlines' primary hubs.

I could see EK having a problem in this respect given their sheer growth - systems that worked when they were much smaller aren't viable. No or insufficient monitoring, very rapid growth and lack of training of new employees, vague or constantly changing policies (making a "paid" exception easier to slide through), or the possibility of having one of the outstations going rogue due to the bad apple getting promoted and being in charge of a station.

He flew DXB-PEK on a Y fare (I know this much because I audited it; it was damn expenisve, mind you, but still Y)... and flew F. BTW, he always attempts the same in the US as well; while his success record is lower there, it's still well north of 50%.

I'm assuming with EK for both the DXB and US parts (although going PEK to US via DXB seems rather roundabout)? If so, EK definitely has some major internal control problems. Any properly designed system should be able to detect this type of activity - one reason internal auditors exist. To make sure that the control system actually can catch this type of activity

Just a simple DXB-PEK, which is quite expensive, btw (more than double DXB-HKG and 3x DXB-MNL).

You should try uttering "11AM flight" while discreetly throwing some money up on his desk.

B/c an upgrade from LAX to HKG would set me back about 8k-9k