aviators99

I suppose it's possible that someone at the airport may have done this. I have had CS agents on the phone try, and could not figure out a way.

In any case, I changed the FAQ a bit, to make it clearer about upgrading before even going to the check-in page.

Kremmen

It doesn't seem likely that someone at the airport did it 23+ hours before departure. More likely, it was totally automated because a disabled passenger was in the booking, or that flag raised an alert with someone who manually moved us forward.

Good to change the FAQ if their system is that picky. I'd read discussions about which way worked for various people, but I'd never seen that simply going into the OLCI screen first would stop both methods working. (And since we might as well use OLCI anyhow, we were trying to minimise use of the 55c/min wifi.)

aviators99

Row44 (the company that does the satellite-based wifi for Alaska and Southwest) should get into the ship-based wifi business! (Although, who knows? It might be the ships that are marking this up so much).

GoAmtrak

SFO-IAD: 2/2 with 1 pax
IAD-SFO: 1/1 with 1 pax
LAS-SFO: 1/1 with 2 pax
SFO-LAX: 1/1 with 2 pax

100% success every time I've tried so far!

lainys

Thanks for the tip! Flying SFO-SNA tomorrow morning on my "virgin" Virgin American flight. Only 2 out of 8 F seats taken so plenty of upgrade availability when I went in to change seat. Paid the $50 change/upgrade fee before checking in. Upgrading would have been confusing if I hadn't read some of the FT threads. Trying F going there and Y product on the way back... Will send in a trip report on my return.

nermaljcat

Congrats! I hope you enjoy your flight

It's not long enough to enjoy the full F experience, but IMHO it's worth the extra $50. From reading your previous post, this is still less than the UA alternative?

GoAmtrak

IME, when UA offers paid upgrades on routes under 500 miles, it's usually for $77. For 500-1000 miles, I usually see $154. And transcon can run $400-500 (possibly more). Not a good value compared to VX, and the paid upgrade option is not always offered. But at least on UA one can enjoy E+ and accumulate upgrade certs, among other perks. Value is in the eye of the beholder, of course.

nermaljcat

That's a good point. But I was referring to another post about the original booking. VX was $79, where UA was $284 (∴ VX + T24 is still better than UA).

BTW - I remember being offered a UA transpac (SFO-SYD) u/g a couple years ago, I think the price was somewhere around US$800pp.

SF1K

Doing lunch in Vegas tomorrow. Got upgrade for both my mom an I both ways. I called in to phone number and must have gotten a really good agent who seems to have bent the rules a bit. Was checkin in for out Lund at 24 hour mark and had credit to use for upgrade. We are on seperate pnrs so couldn't do the upgrade online for my mom and use credit. Agent did it over the phone no extra charge and did both outbound and inbound even though inbound was 34.5 hours away. I said that I wouldn't be able to do this for myself online so she processed both of mine as well.

Don't think vx is loosing out on any revenue by this little favor because even now we are the only two assigned seats on both flights in first.

Eastbay1K

Not to hijack this thread, but does VX send an "OLCI" email at about 24 hours out? (My first VX flight is coming in a couple of weeks)

lainys

Hey nermaljcat! Just catching up on some old threads. The VX ticket price (in Y) at that time was significantly less than UA for the same flights. These past 2 weeks I've noticed that SFO-LAX-SFO on Tue/Wed/Thu prices are exactly the same on VX and UA. Had a meeting in SoCal last week. Bought my ticket on UA (DEQM helped me hit 150K for the year) otherwise would have preferred VX (for the free wifi this month). Upgrade on UA did not clear both segments. On LAX-SFO last Thu afternoon I was #12 on the list. It's a short flight so upgrading here isn't that important to me. However in future if I wanted to maximize my upgrade chances (especially for longer flights) I will probably take VX for any last minute trips (as long as it's price comparable). Upgrading as 1K just isn't what it used to be.


I'm no VX expert (2 x SFO-LAX/SNA-SFO) trips) but I don't recall receiving any OLCI emails. I treat it like a WN flight and set a T-24 alarm in my outlook.

El_Chiflero

1 FOR 1: SFO-SAN


and I loved it. wish it had been longer!

eponymous_coward

I get OLCI checkin mails, but my email is in my Elevate profile.

GoAmtrak

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8330/4.5.0.138 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Had my first miss last night on SFO-LAX, along with a hit. As t-24 approached, I watched F availability go from 3 to 2 to 1. Was able to snag the last F seat for my SO after a phone agent separated out our itineraries and put me on a separate reservation at no extra cost. (Normally, all members of a party must upgrade, so a big ^ to the agent for the elegant workaround that netted VX extra revenue and made my girlfriend happy!)

mugen910

First time flying tomorrow on VX and total miss for 2 pax. I was told to call by the website and the CSR said there was only 1 main cabin select avail Oh well...idk if biting the bullet for first class from BOS-LAX OW is worth the $$..

**Edit**
Some seats became available...woohoo 100% for upgrade.