Free Seat Class Upgrades??

[stevoman 2]

Your Mummy is quite right Ben (isn't she always?)

 

As mentioned, Airlines do attempt to oversell the coach tickets by upto 125% this could mean that more passengers turn up than they have space for.

 

As a retired airline employee I also can vouch for the overselling of coach tickets to the tune of 10/15% but 125%??? never heard that high.If truly that's the case then when the new A380's come into regular service it's going to cost these airlines huge compensation monies if even half of this figure choose to show up,and are off-loaded!

[Eneukman 1]

I got a free upgrade to Business Class from QANTAS one year.

 

My knees tend to seize up if I'm not able to get up and walk around so I invariably request an aisle seat when I check in. I lived in Edinburgh at that time so I had to take a connecting flight to Heathrow. I therefore arrived at Check-In around 3.00 pm to be told that no aisle seats were available (at least 3 hours before the Check-In desks at heathrow would be open)

 

I get to the gate early and explain everything and request either an aisle seat or an upgrade. No aisle seats were available so I was upgraded to Business.

 

By coincidence, I happened to read BA's policy on overselling a flight. They said that it is their experience that up to one in five passengers don't show up for some flights. I have to say that I was surprised that the figure was so high. However, that explains why BA's flights to and from Bangkok seldom have any spare seats.

 

Alan

[casper_uk 12]

As a retired airline employee I also can vouch for the overselling of coach tickets to the tune of 10/15% but 125%???

My apologies, I should have said upto 125% (of the available seats). So that's an extra 25%.

 

My ex girlfriend worked and still does work for BA, this was my point of reference.

[Alfred 26]

I got upgraded on Emirates from Dubai to BKK.

 

Wasn’t expecting it, got on the plane and another guy had my seat, same number on boarding card, was an absolute prick about it with both me and the crew members kept saying he was a frequent flyer with Emirates etc and I could go to hell etc, another woman was also complaining about her seat so I said to the flight attendant I would wait by the galley as I'm sure things would work out once they had everyone settled as I could see they were flat out with people still boarding.

 

Waited about 5 mins then got taken to a business class seat, turned out the other guy who had my seat was in there frequent flyer club and had been upgraded but wasn’t aware of it or been told at the Gates but as he was such an arshole about it I got the seat .

[MC_Ldop 40]

Most "free" upgrades are considered operational upgrades (op-ups). There are numerous reasons for this. Here's a post from flyertalk from a gate agent. It's pretty lengthy, but it explains it well.

 

====================

 

OPERATIONAL UPGRADES--WANTING IT

 

1. The Schmooze and the Reaction.

 

The truth is there really aren't a whole lot of "tricks" and "secrets"

to share in how to get them. For one, frequent fliers should (and often

do) understand that you generally don't "get" them; you have them given

to you, by a gate agent. But it's not as personal or arbitrary as you

may think. I blame this common misconception on how "free" upgrades are

given out on the travel media. FTers and travel reporters often think

that what it takes is to dress your best, approach the podium with a

smile and a compliment, then slip in some barely veiled request for a

freebie upgrade. It's amazing how many people try this. It's as though it

does not occur to them that the agent knows what they're up to. While

some of my former co-workers were kinda dim, the majority of them were at

least bright enough to recognize this tactic and see right through it.

When people have tried this "trick" with me, I thought to myself, "have

you no shame?" People often went further and literally would grovel

sometimes--and it was embarassing. If you're one of those people, all you

are doing is making an ... of yourself. You might say, "well it's just

a gate agent I'll never see again so I don't care what he/she thinks of

me" but personally I think I would have more dignity than come with

some story hoping that the agent will have pity on him or her and give

them an upgrade because we like the customer. Agents are generally smart

enough to know when customers aren't being sincere but rather, just

trying to butter them up with a nice smile and smooth clothing. It's not

going to work. Other airlines may have more liberal policies in giving

gate agents authority to upgrade; United doesn't. But there are

exceptions.

 

When does it happen? Pretty much only when the customer's u/g request

is genuine. I once did it on a domestic 757 for an elderly and

handicapped lady who never asked. I don't remember why but it helped me out too.

I also recall giving it to one guy who did schmooze me (I think it was

IAD-MUC). I politely rejected his polite "free" upgrade request. I told

him it wasn't going to happen that day since we were only oversold by a

few seats, but he stuck around and quickly gave up all hope of

upgrading (as he should have). We began a conversation and he actually talked

at length about aviation and engaged me in a real conversation. The

flight was full, but I wasn't particularly busy (the only reason why I

engaged the conversation) as things were running smoothly. About 15 minutes

before departure time, when the flight was about 80-90% boarded and we

were primed for an on-time departure, I had a surprise situation where

one Y passenger who showed misconnect in the computer popped up at my

gate (she must have taken another airline), so I was suddenly precisely

1 seat in the hole. Guess who got it? "Mr. Aviation Conversation" had

just said goodbye to me and was in the back of the boarding line of

20-30 people, so I called him over and gave it to him. Why him? In a word,

convenience. He was a Premier Exec so I may have bypassed a 1K (maybe

not--many are already pre-upgraded), but he had the status and he was on

a B fare, so I didn't feel bad. But the convenience was getting the

seat I needed and a potentially bad situation resolved quickly so the

flight could depart on time. Since the flight was near close-out, I risked

a delay if I researched it and went on the plane to move any possible

1Ks up, when I was supposed to be at the podium finalizing flight

status, paperwork, etc. This is an example of a unique situation where it

would be OK to bypass a higher-ranking customer, but it is rare. This guy

got lucky because time was running out for me. Knowing his status and

his proximity to me (and his lucky decision not to pre-board as a 1P)

were the factors. But again, it is rare and he was lucky.

 

My conclusion for this section is to not bother with the song & dance

and the schmooze or the nice threads. Save your energy and spare

yourself the disappointment. Don't try to suck up to the agent and get a free

upgrade you can't support through authorized means. It's a waste of

time.

 

 

OPERATIONAL UPGRADES--GETTING IT

 

2. Why? Oversales.

 

You should understand that "operational upgrades" (free), in gneral,

are to be done only when there is "an operational need" to do so. For the

uninitiated, what that generally means is when we have overbooked the

plane and more economy passengers have checked in than there are seats

in the cabin. Hypothetical situation: Let's suppose we are flying today

on UA837 SFO-NRT. There is a 747-400 assigned to the route and the

configuration is 14-73-260. Let's say it is booked at 9 in F, 61 in C and

293 in Y. It should be fairly obvious that if more than 260 people show

for Y seats with Y bookings, something will have to be done. Is that

possible? Well, of course it is, with 293 booked. And what does the

airline gate agent do? He or she takes some of those people in Y and gives

them an upgrade to C. That's what an operational upgrade is.

 

3. The Scenario.

 

You're the gate agent--so who do you choose to reward with a free seat

in Business Class? Do you take the slick salesman with a nice smile

wearing an Armani suit, who has just has just told you how nice your hair

is and how great of gate agent you are and how you handle the stress of

the job so superbly? As I mentioned above, many travel reporters say

that is exactly who gets the upgrades more often than not. But at United

(and probably many other airlines), it's highly unlikely. United has a

policy that governs this process and it not only prevents agents from

picking favorties (adding to the stress) but also rewards the people who

deserve it. In spite of leading United to staggering losses since 2000,

United management is not altogether completely stupid! They have a

policy intended to give those necessary free upgrades to the top

fliers--the people who--frankly--deserve it.

 

Operational Upgrades are given on the basis of status and fare paid!

Not personal discretion. On the rare occasion when a Global Services

(UA's top-tier) passenger was planning to fly trans-pac in Y and didn't

already upgrade, we would go look at our elite list in the computer and

find a GS member is Y+. Bam! The GS passenger has been moved to C. That's

62 expected in C (up from 61 booked), presuming all C passengers show

up.

 

4. The Scenario Progresses.

 

You're still the gate agent . . . and it is 75 minutes before

departure. Check-in doesn't close for another 30 minutes and Economy has just

checked in to 257 out of 260 seats . . . and counting. That's 36 to go to

reach 293, or 35 to go to 292 now that you've done one upgrade. Well,

with 30 minutes left, it is becoming pretty obvious to you that more

than 260 people will check into the Economy seats they've booked and you

will be "in the hole." 4 more people check in and you're there. It won't

take much time. Sure, you won't see all 292, but you'll easily see 4 or

more in the next 30 minutes. So after you and your colleagues behind

the podium take care of some more people in the line, asking questions

that don't need to be asked, you find some time to look at the elite list

in Economy only--since that's the cabin you have to be worried about.

The only GS guy in Y has already been moved up so you now see there are

7 1Ks at the top of the list among elites seated in Economy. 2 of them

are on the upgrade waiting list already, willing to use miles to move

up. You soon realize after a handful more people check in, you're going

to be more than 7 in the hole, so all the 1Ks in Y are going to C

today. Some agents will process the 1Ks willing to pay miles through the

upgrade list and take their miles or certs, etc. Others, like me, are not

so inclined to take the "that's money for the company" view and instead

be rational: delete them from the paid upgrade waitlist and give *all*

1Ks in Y complimentary upgrades since they would get it anyway. So

you're not charging the ones who were un-cheap enough to put themselves on

the list and willing to spend miles or certs. It's fair and it's a nice

surprise for them--they didn't beg or grovel and they were willing to

pay the freight for C. Might as well give them the break they deserve

and not charge them since they were going to get it for free anyway, if

they weren't on the list. So you move all 7 1Ks up and with the 1 GS

already up there, you are now at 69 people in the C cabin, assuming all

those booked in C show up. You're down to as many as 285 possible

expected for Y.

 

Did you wait for the 1Ks to come to you with a smile and assess whether

or not their clothes are nice enough to warrant the business class

upgrade? Hell no. You paged them up by name, repeatedly if you had to,

until he or she responded and collected the business class boarding pass.

Most of those 1Ks were nice enough to thank you for that and usually you

smile and say "you're welcome" but let's be honest, you didn't do that

1K a favor really, you upgraded that 1K because you had to upgrade

someone and it makes perfect business sense to choose the best passengers.

Not only is it a company directive, but to my mind, that's the fairest

way to go.

 

5. The Balancing Act.

 

52 minutes before departure. In 7 minutes you will be able to close

check-in and bring the flight "under gate control" which means all

functions will be handled at that time by you, the gate agent at the gate, not

the ticket counter. But here is where you have to start paying

attention to balancing the appropriate amount of upgrades--don't do too many

and don't do to few. And most of all, for heaven's sake--be especially

sure you don't do any upgrades too late and jeopardize an on-time

departure!

 

So . . . after handling a few more quick tasks, you check to see that

Economy is now checked in to 267--even AFTER you have done 8

complimentary operational upgrades. DAMN! Where did all those people come from?

And so fast! You're 7 in the hole! Even after doing 8 upgrades! Grrrr.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel--you take gate control in 6

minutes, 43 seconds. At that point there will no longer be any more

check-in surprises. You know you're going to need to do more upgrades,

but you're 7 in the hole and you only have 4 Business Class seats to

use. Remember? You went from 61 to 69 seats in C after your 8 operational

upgrades. Hmmmmm. So 3 of your Economy people are in limbo.

 

Now that GS & 1Ks have been cleared from the 'elites in Y' list, 1Ps,

the Premier Executives rise to the top of the list. There are 15 of them

still sitting in Y. Well, you decide in the next 6 minutes to fill the

C cabin--you put 4 1Ps in to C class seats. How do you choose which 4

of this 15? It's easy, the computer has sorted that too, generally by

booking code. A 1P on a Y fare goes higher than a 1P on a B fare, M, H,

Q, W, V, etc. You have 4 1Ps on Ys, Bs & Ms, so they go to C with just a

few keystrokes. Now you have filled C to 73 passengers, assuming all

those booked in C show up. Only 1Ps on H fares and lower remain in

Economy.

 

You thought that makes you only 3 in the hole, as opposed to 7, since

you moved 4 more up. But you'd be wrong. It's now exactly 46 minutes

before departure and you discover that 5 *more* people checked in to

Economy in those last few minutes. So your 263 in Y turns into 268. UGH! You

piss and moan for 60 seconds and take care of a customer issue. It's

now 45 minutes 'til departure: Time to take "gate control." Fortunately

for you, you notice that in spite of upgrading 12 people people to take

your C cabin from 61 booked to a presumed count of 73 (full), in fact,

C shows it is checked in to only 67. You're thinking "that's cool, but

why?" Well, 6 C class customers have not shown up. That's not uncommon

because they have fully flexible tickets and no penalty to change dates,

so they just don't show up. The people in Chicago who authorize

overbooking depend on this type of thing. Now, for those 6 people who have not

shown up for their C class seats, they lose their seat assignments at

45 mins til departure, but not their reservation (and C booking) until

30 minutes before departure. Most of those 6 won't show up in the next

15 minutes, but one or two might. So you decide to take the next 3 1Ps

on the list in Economy (all H-fares) and bring the C cabin up to 70,

holding back a few more upgrades.

 

6. Getting Tricky.

 

You're now at 70 in C & 265 in Y. You see that if you are later able to

upgrade 3 more, you will be full in C, but then you'll be down to 262

checked in in Y, or 2 more people in Y still without seats! OK, so

you're short of 2 seats, but of course, your ace in the hole is the F cabin.

But you can not double upgrade anyone of those 2 from Y to F. Policy.

So, 10 minutes later you are at 35 mins til departure and no more C

bookings have checked in. So you take 2 more 1Ps and move them to C. Your

70 & 265 passenger count in C & F turns into 72 & 263. You wisely decide

to hold one C seat back for 5 more minutes until the cut-off, which is

a good thing because a few minutes later, just 32 minutes before

departure--SURPRISE! A 1K comes running up to your podium sweating like a pig

and breathing heavily at you across the podium (his breath stinks of

course) because he is wheezing from all the running! He is your last

pre-booked C cabin passenger. Why isn't he checked in and how did he get

through security without a boarding pass? He flew in to SFO on Alaska

Airlines--they couldn't give him a boarding pass so he had to check in

at the gate. Of course his AS flight was late so he barely gets to the

gate in time--just 2 minutes to spare. He checks into not the C seat he

was pre-assigned (he lost that at the :45 mark), but the last C seat

you have--a middle. But oh well.

 

So now your numbers are 73 & 263. You now have *3* people in Y without

a seat BUT . . . remember that F cabin with a 14 capacity and only 9

bookings? Well, the good news is . . . 8 of your 9 F bookings have

checked in, so 6 seats are open in F! You need 3 more seats in Y--and in

order to get them, you don't upgrade the last 3 1Ps from Y to F; rather,

you go in and pull up the elite list already holding tickets in the C

cabin--meaning they are in C without upgrading. Global Services passengers are at the top of the list of course, and there are 5 of them. However, 3 are upgrades--only 2 are full fare C tickets. You move *only* those two up to F. Your numbers are now at 10

& 71 & 263. Next on the 'elites in C' list are the 1Ks. You take the

first 1K who is on a C ticket (meaning not an upgrade) and move him/her to

F. That's 11 & 70 & 263. You then have 3 seats in C open to move another

3 1Ps from Y, which frees those last 3 seats in Y and you assign them

to the last 3 people waiting for their seats in Y. That puts you at 11 &

73 & 260. You're done . . . with the seat management part anyway, there

are other issues but that's another post.

 

. . . . That's how operational upgrades work.

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

7. When "On-time" Is Jeopardized.

 

"On time zero" is the God to which all United management prays and

therefore, the obsession with on-time departures spreads throughout the

operation and the company in general, naturally, it is the thing that

determines if a gate agent does a good job or not. Most gate agents have

enough pride to at least try hard to meet on-time objectives when working

flights. A good gate agent gets a flight out on time in the face of

multiple challenges, such as:

 

* oversales

* misconnections,

* long standby lists

* understaffing

* too much attempted cary-on baggage

* customers draining the time resources of the agent with both petty

and valid complaints, etc.

 

8. Keep In Mind.

 

Sometimes an agent has to cut corners to make it all happen, especially

when more challenges than usual arise. Oversales mean customers who are

confirmed on flights check in and don't hold seats--something the gate

agent has to deal with--a further demand on time resources. On

occasion, circumstances beyond the agent's control conspire to make it

virtually impossible to get the flight out on time if the agent works the

flight "by the book." Perhaps the confirmed customers without seats have had

to wait a long time for their seat assignment and by the time the agent

has a chance to "onload" those customers to their seat assignments, the

cabin they booked (usually Y) is full. Doing it by the book means you

take the elite fliers from their seats in Y (they may have boarded),

move them up a cabin and get the waiting Y passengers in Y seats. But if

on-time would be blown by taking the time to do that, sometimes a few of

those customers (usually known as BP2s) get put in C or even F at the

last minute to get them on quickly and prevent a delay. Quite often,

good planning by the agent will prevent that, but there are times when no

amount of planning can prevent it. You never know what last minute

surprises will come upon a gate agent.

 

It's supposed to be very scientific and done by *status* and *fare

paid*, not by smiling, making compliments or wearing nice clothes. It

almost always works this way. And to me, that is an area where UA has got

the policy right. However, there are exceptions. I remember a few years

ago working IAD-CDG on a 777 that had capacity of 12-49-197 and was

booked something like 2-13-241. Hahha! That's very rare so it was more of a

free-for-all and few Premiers or above were even on the flight. So lots

of people without status got a Christmas treat. That's a VERY rare

exception.

 

To use a baseball analogy, every once in a while, the gate agent sees a

curve ball that breaks over the plate hard enough that he/she can not

hit the ball and still get the flight out on time. So the agent must

ad-lib, close the book or do whatever to fill the seats any way he or she

can in order to go on time. It's not the way it's supposed to be done,

but sometimes you've gotta bend the rules a little to make the God of

"on-time-zero" happy!

 

So nothing is 100% in this process and I would guess some of you may

have received UGs in circumstances different to the policy and of course,

agents are human and every once in a while, an agent will like a

passenger who gets an upgrade ahead of a more deserving or loyal 1K, but I do believe those situations are extremely rare, as they should be.

 

I guess my advice to people who want free upgrades is not to waste your

energy on asking for one--those seats are that are worth a lot and

agents are not empowered during normal situations to give them out

arbitrarily. And don't go looking to create an abnormal situation. It has to be

for a good reason and the agent usually knows when to make exceptions

and when no to. The best thing to do if you want to avoid the monotony

of normal coach seating is just spend the cash ($79 on internationals

last I knew) to get into Economy Plus for more legroom until you earn

enough status (Premier at the 25k level) to be entitled to it for no extra

charge. And of course you can always work on earning the miles it takes

to get to business class. Commercial airline tavel sucks. I say you

just gotta deal with it.

 

Well that just about wraps it up. I've put a lot into this post and my

fingers are tired! I hope some Fters will have been entertained by

this post and perhaps feel they understand the process better.

 

====================

[jacko 8,813]

It's pretty lengthy

That's a fact!

[MM 6,562]

Good post from flyertalk. It explains a lot that seemed to be arbitrary before.