Upgrades on the day of travel

This, could bode the question - why book UC, why not book PE and chance it (if you are that way inclined)... Personally I find PE a fantastic class to travel in, I would never look to book UC unless on the day there was a deal - but for people sitting on the fence (economically speaking) with a similar view the idea of a bargain could push them to take this route.

That's the problem many of the US legacy carriers have on their domestic routes.

Their high status passengers don't buy business / first class tickets because most of the time they expect to and will get a free upgrade and they get very possessive about it and angry when someone else get's 'their' upgrade.

If they had been a bit stricter rather than filling the cabin for free they would actually have more revenue.

What most European airlines do is expect people to pay (cash or miles or a mix) to be in the cabin they want rather than allocate op-ups for free just because there is space.

VS do do op-ups but only because they want space in Y or PE due to over booking but that's totally different to just filling the cabin because there is space.

That's the problem many of the US legacy carriers have on their domestic routes.

Their high status passengers don't buy business / first class tickets because most of the time they expect to and will get a free upgrade and they get very possessive about it and angry when someone else get's 'their' upgrade.

In my admittedly limited experience, it's not just the domestic routes. I saw exactly this on a flight to SFO where, at the gate, they were going down their list of those with status & flying in Economy and upgrading them to Business class.

There's always hope, as I found out with Mrs Chilled returning from our honeymoon in Cancun. I thought we would have had no chance, but the kind young gentleman behind the check in desk decided that our 'P' buckets in PE (I used 1 Amex voucher between both of us to upgrade from EC), were totaly valid for an upgrade to UC.

The total cost for both of us? 25,000miles and $170!! And UC was pretty full as well, so it wasn't because there was plenty spare. If I'm honest, I think he messed up but we had no intention of arguing!

Good luck on the day.

AC.

Sorry OP - I forgot to say good luck and let us know what happens..!

Always interested to hear about these events - I am sure that many others on here are too..!

THANKS ALL for your responses!

I have several flights in both UC and PE coming up. For the PE flights, some are booked in H (cheapest PE) and some in S. So I will try upgrading on the day each time and report back.

Will be a couple months though to gather any data, and by then VS will of course have changed the rules!