Miles upgrade on the day

[fozzyo]

Yesterday we flew on VS45 to JFK for my Mum's 60th. Dean and I were in Upper, parents in Premium and my brother in Economy, but he managed the rather impressive feat of taking a flight in all three classes! The flight was amazing, will do a TR later about it and why we are nominating the FSM for a Hero's award - it is certainly a flight my Mum won't forget.

But back to the question, at the CH (we bought a VH pass for my brother), we asked about a miles upgrade for my folks to Upper. They were on restricted Premium tickets. We know that the rules prevent upgrades any earlier so waited to be at the CH. At checkin they were offered a revenue upgrade for £500 each.

At the CH the Supervisor wasn't sure, made a few calls and was given authorisation to do it. She had also explained Dean was "a gold member who is a regular flyer". We were in 8A & K and she said parents would be put in rows 18 and 19K I think. We went off to have breakfast. A few minutes later Dean was called over to be told that the system had prevented the upgrade taking place.

We were more dissappointed about the fact that we had been told it was possible and had agreed seats then to be told it wasn't. We weren't really expecting to get that far!

When Dean flew back from SFO on his last flight he did the same upgrade with his brother without problem and we've done it before.

The CH Supervisor told us that Flying Club are really clamping down on this as they don't like it happening. Has there been a recent change in policy to prevent them?

Mat xxx

[preiffer]

I think, in general, they're now enforcing the "buy up to the right ticket type" thing in order to upgrade with miles.

Therefore, tickets booked through VH (where it's an H instead of a K) are even more complicated and restricted when it comes to mileage upgrades.

Every time I have tried to upgrade on VH issued tickets not a chance(treated like leper tickets:D),bit silly really if there is space at the last minute,the miles must be some form of currency.
Rules are rules and in future I would never buy restricted tickets if I was going to try for a miles upgrade.

[Nottingham Nick]

I think Paul and JP have summed it up.

I suppose the more stories that are posted on here, and other boards, about how the rules are being bent to favour the customer the less inclined people will be to buy expensive tickets.

It is great to read about non flex tickets being changed because of the circumstances of the passengers or points upgrades being allowed on tickets that don't qualify for them - unless you have just paid a lot of money to have exactly that flexibility built into the ticket.

Nick

I think though that sometimes it all depends on VS loading and what offers they have - for example:

In March when we flew to MIA they were offering all Y passengers an upgrade to PE for £250 and all PE passengers and upgrade to UCS for £580 - regardless of what ticket you had purchased - so if you were on a VH ticket then this was a reasonable deal - not so good if you were on a full PE or Y ticket.

[preiffer]

That was the same scenario as it seems was offered to fozzyo, Mark - £500 revenue upgrade at checkin.

The problem is purely with miles upgrades.

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by preiffer
That was the same scenario as it seems was offered to fozzyo, Mark - £500 revenue upgrade at checkin.

The problem is purely with miles upgrades.

Yeah. The tickets were booked direct with VS in our case. For us to change the tickets to upgradeable ones would have cost £200ish per ticket.

The impression I got from the CH supervisor was that Flying Club are getting annoyed with people using it as a work around to getting cheap upgrades.

We weren't annoyed with the fact we couldn't get the upgrade - we didn't expect it as we knew about the ticket restrictions. If they have made this decision then that needs to be communicated down to the staff as we were told that the upgrade had been authorised.

Mat xxx