Upgrades on day of departure

Hello-

I have 2 questions regarding upgrades on the day of departure:

(a) At SFO the other day, I enquired if there were any UC seats available for upgrade, so that I could upgrade my PE ("S" fare) ticket. The agent said that "they weren't taking any more people for the upgrade standby list, as there were already 5 Gold members on the list".. I wasn't aware that there was an upgrade wait list, and it sounds like ones FC status, and perhaps your time of arrival at the airport both count toward your chances of getting an upgrade. Anyone have more experience with this?

(b) If a upgrade seat becomes available on the day of departure, can I get on the wait list without being ticketed in an upgradeable fare class, or can I pay the fare difference on the spot, along with miles for the upgrade, if my name comes to the top?

[Pete]

I hadn't heard of a wait-list before either. My experience suggests that if there was a seat available, (and you were buying an upgrade for cash or miles), then they would process those on-demand. I can't think of what circumstances would lead them to hold the seats until all requests were in, unless possibly UC was already full, and the wait-list was for any no-shows in Upper.

Pete

In the past when I have wanted to upgrade on the day, it has simply been the case of asking at either check-in or ticketing if there is availability and what the price is (either miles or cash). I have been able to upgrade tickets from PE K class to an UC Z class ticket with cash on the day for several different routes, including those that were bought in VS fare sales. Luckily the only 'wait list' I had was in Cuba, where US was overbooked apparently and I had to wait for the check-in to close before I could up myself with cash....not sure if that was entirely true or it was part of the usual foreign currency for assistance that the check-in supervisor was after....[:?]

A wait list of sorts DOES operate in respect of Flying Co upgrades, which are on a space available basis. The exact point at which they accept there will be no late J ticket buyers and process the upgrade seems to vary depending on loads, as you might expect. IME, if they suggest waiting until the gate, you don't get it, so you have to be pushy at checkin!

The helpful chap at the ticket counter at MCO who once processed one of these for me referred directly to a "standby list" whilst on the phone, in front of me. He was requesting that my upgrade was "cleared". This was after checking the catering was sufficient.

Not everyone in Virgin is aware of the waitlist or upgrade list, last time I checked in SFO, I was customer no 16 in the waitlist (I was Silver then) and only 1 person got it, who was also Silver. This was an upgrade using miles. It does appear that whoever gets to the airport first gets priority, as this chap was there when they opened.
I also experienced this on a Standby request with united last week, I was first in the list, because I had been at the airport the longest, despite other members with a higher status asking for a standby seat.

If the flight is fairly full, then there is no point in taking too many names when the likelyhood is only 1 seat is available.

It is my experience that the SFO route is very popular. I can't reacall there being a spare seat in PE or UC on any of the last 5 times I flew to and from SF.

Incidentally, I did ask to be put on the upgrade list once, to JNB and was upgraded, and at the time I was a Red member.

Well I upgraded on the day from MCO - I was on a bargain 25k miles mileage economy seat and the ONLY option available to me was a paid upgrade to K. I thought this was strange as I wasn't allowed to up my miles to whatever fare code PE mileage is (It escapes me at the moment) or even to G even though I could clearly see there were 2 G seats available from the check-in agent screen.

Anyway I paid my fee (£249) and go my upgrade to PE - What was also inline with now being K is that I got miles on the return flight so all in all I actually thought that wasn't a bad deal, especially as I also got the PE exit row after sweet talking the FSM.

So my trip to MCO was 25k miles out of my account plus £131
I paid £50 for an econ exit seat on the way out and £249 for a PE seat on the way back and got about 8k miles back.
Net cost: 17k miles, £420 for out in Econ (exit) back in PE (exit)

Paul

I can't speak for VS, but at DL upgrades and seat waitlisting are based on your status and time you get to the airport. That said, I've never heard of a limit, there's already 5 on the list so we can't add you. Sounds more like there was only 5 seats available and they just didn't want to add you to the list because there was "no more seats", but what if you had more status than those already on the list?

Now, at DL the waitlist runs all comp and mileage upgrades. You can walk up and say "I want a seat in J" and buy it, but if you're using mileage or if you're say Platinum and trying your luck at the complimentary upgrade you get, then it goes on the waitlist as your status level and time you arrived at the airport.

Those with the same status are determined by who got there first, and those with higher status' are cleared first.