Upgrade availability?
 

Is it possible to find out the availability of upgradeable seats prior to purchasing a ticket? I would like to purchase an economy or CC ticket and then upgrade to business class with TK miles. Since I have some leeway in my travel dates, I'd like to find the flights where those upgrade business seats are available before buying the tickets.

You could use KVS or ExpertFlyer to check seat availability on the flights you're looking at?

I'm sure someone here will correct me but off the top of my head, a points upgrade relies on J fare bucket seats being available, not an I award seat?

Upgrade availability?
 

Alternatively, you could buy the ticket vua the call center and confirm the availability of the upgrade class when you make the purchase.

Seat availability does not usually correlate with upgradeable seat availability. I've never used KVS before, but it looks like that might provide the info once you pay. Is there another way to do this online for free? If not, then I would just do as erteke recommended and call TK to check on availability of upgradeable seats before buying the ticket. It's a pain to do it that way, but free.

TK Award and Upgrade availability is available on ExpertFlyer.com which offers a 5-day free trial and no software to download.

Indeed, upgrades using TK miles require availability in J Class (which the KVS Tool fully supports).

Please see http://Help.KVSTool.com/#TK for complete details on TK Award & Upgrade Booking Classes.

I went ahead and got the one month basic Expert Flyer subscription and was able to see the availability of upgradeable seats. And it was very helpful. When I called the TK rep, he told me there were no seats available on the flight I had booked, though EF said there was one seat left. I then told him that I had access to the availability data base and he should check again. He looked again and said "You're right!". And now I'm upgraded to a J seat! Thanks, Expert Flyer! Worth every penny!

You're welcome! Glad we were able to help, enjoy your flight.

How many miles is it to upgrade from economy to business with UA miles for LAX-IST? I am confused about the Star Alliance UG chart since TK has Econ/CC/Bus only instead of Econ/Bus/First. It looks like Econ->Bus is 45K one way with TK miles if you go through them. I'm hoping to do this with UA Miles instead.

Maybe best asked in the UA forum where folks may have done this before.

As suggested by starflyergold you should direct that question to the UA forum...that chart is for someone using TK miles to upgrade a full fare *A flight, not for another partner airline to upgrade on a TK flight. I think that makes sense.

I'd be surprised if you have a full economy fare for LAX-IST, so I'd be checking that first in any case before hoping to get an upgrade. It needs to be Y or B fare class.

I did not buy the economy tickets yet as my dates are not set but there's plenty of J upgrade availability on Expert Flyer for that month.

The chart that I'm looking at is the Star Alliance upgrade chart, not specific to TK: http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...2012-03-03.pdf. I was hoping someone here would have experience specifically regarding upgrades on TK since they don't have the econ/bus/first designation like most other airlines. Looking at this chart makes me think it would be 25K one way, but upgrading on TK with TK miles (no Star Alliance involved) is 45K, so the 25K seems way too low in comparison.

From the responses on the UA thread and my research, I gathered the following regarding upgrades. Could someone please correct me if I am wrong on any of these:

- *A upgrades to business require purchase of a full fare Y or B economy ticket. Not possible to upgrade to or from Comfort Class.
- Upgrade with TK miles is possible from any class including low paid economy
- Possible to buy award ticket for someone else, but not possible to upgrade someone else with my TK miles (?) unless we have a family account. Only option is to transfer to their account at 10 euro/1000 miles?

Nope that all sounds about right. Bear in mind the upgrade rates vary with TK dependent on obviously the class and also the time of year you're flying

Hi all! I have a trip coming up April 13-19 - IST-PEK-IST. Booked CC, Waitlisted for J. The IST-PEK has cleared, and by the looks of things there were quite a few seats open. I know seat selection is not a direct indication of J availability, but it's better than nothing...
My question is what do you think my odds are on the return? It looks like there are only 4 seats unclaimed - with all J fare classes at 0...
What do you think!?