upgrading L -> G, SFO -> LHR, August 2010

Greetings, all.

I'm about to book 2 round-trip seats between LHR and SFO for August 2010. On the return leg, I intend to book seats in L (upgradeable Economy), hoping to upgrade to G (Upper).

There's no G inventory at the moment. I of course would like to avoid wasting the extra fare on L if no G inventory opens up before we travel.

From past experience, would anyone care to express an opinion on whether it's likely that 2 G seats will most likely open up between now and August?

Finally, is there any way for me to be notified when G inventory is released? Before switching to Gold on Virgin, I was 1K on United, and I find it rather shocking that Virgin offers no mechanism for requesting an upgrade when no inventory is yet available, and having the upgrade *automatically* clear should inventory later become available.

Thanks very much,
Brad

[Neil]

Welcome to V-Flyer.

It it so difficult to answer that question accurately, predicting how revenue management decided to release reward fares is near on impossible. I guess it is up to you to decided if you want to run this risk of buying a L fare that you might not be able to upgrade.

There is no way of getting the system to automatically advise you if any G fares become available, the only thing to do is to keep trying to do dummy reward bookings on the VS site or to call FC and check.

Neil

[preiffer]

You can always by *any* ticket now, and pay to move it to an L in future, should inventory appear.

While it could work out a little more in future, it could save you should the seats not free up...



And personally, I'm glad VS *don't* do the upgrades the same way as NA Airlines do. For a start, you were 1K number 1,458,329,573 on the 'upgrade list', I'm guessing. [;)] and secondly, it then becomes a 'who's got a bigger willy competition' in terms of who gets the upgrade first - it's NOT the first to request it, it goes by inflated so-called 'status'. I like the good old-fashioned way of first-come, first-served... [:w]

Thanks. I did think about buying M (lowest available right now) and paying the difference to L later (only when G inventory appears).

About the way upgrades clear on Virgin vs. on United: my complaint is that I must manually check G inventory (in principle, best to do so every single day) on Virgin, whereas I could join a waiting list and have my request filled automatically once inventory was released on United.

preiffer says he prefers 'first-come, first-served,' and that he doesn't like the prioritization by ticket fare basis and frequent flyer tier on United's upgrade waiting lists.

Note that what we are saying is not mutually exclusive. I wish Virgin had an automatic waiting list for upgrades, *and* that G inventory were released to people on the waiting list in strict first-come, first-served order. That is, Virgin could continue strict first-come, first-served allocation of G seats just as it does now, but offer Flying Club members the convenience of not needing to check the web site for G inventory every day. Not having an automated waiting list is pure inconvenience for Flying Club members, and having one wouldn't somehow force Virgin to begin ranking people on the waiting list unequally.

Best,
Brad

Don't forget that UA have more planes and seats to fill than VS so availabilty for upgrades / rewards etc will be greater.

I have just done a dummy booking for August from LHR - SFO. There is G availability on 7 dates in August outbound but NOTHING on the return.

Doing the SFO - LHR trip in August there is NO availabilty in either direction.

August is prime travel time in both our countries so rewards are going to be minimal especially if an airline can sell the seats for hard cash.

I bet there is only limited availabilty (if any) for a reqwrds seat on UA for the same journey.

I might be being a bit dense here, but what is the best way of checking for G ? Do I try a dummy miles only booking or miles+money booking?

(Interested in G for May to SFO)

Crispin

[Neil]

quote:Originally posted by crispin
I might be being a bit dense here, but what is the best way of checking for G ? Do I try a dummy miles only booking or miles+money booking?

(Interested in G for May to SFO)

Crispin


Do a dummy miles only booking on the VS site, this will show if there is availability on the dates you want, if there isn't you should get a calendar showing what dates there is this availability.

MPM fares are treated differently to straight rewards.

Neil - thanks that what I thought, but wanted to check as they seem to have a bug where if you actually use that calendar having searched for upper class it randomly chooses other classes instead of upper class!

Crispin

Question - why visit SF in August - potentially the worst month to be here, do you have some flexibility?

quote:Originally posted by napamatt
Question - why visit SF in August - potentially the worst month to be here, do you have some flexibility?


[:D]