Free flight upgrades discussion

Former_MSE_Lawrence

This is the place to discuss

Free flight upgrades

as part of the

How to get a flight upgrade guide

Please read the article first, and then come back here to leave feedback. Thanks

Linked Discussions

Buying Flight Upgrades
Frequent Flyer Schemes
How to get an upgrade article

amf

Oh god - not this again! Well, I did get an upgrade on a LHR-GLA flight last week....I used one of my free upgrade vouchers bmi gave me as a Gold Card holder. On second thoughts, this may not be completely accurate - I might have used one of the (not free) upgrade vouchers I bought from E-bay.

Now I'm confused......need to sit down!!!!!!

MSE_Martin

An Important note to help this discussion

As it says in the Flight Upgrades guide.

If you want to guarantee an upgrade, then just jump straight to buying cheap upgrades, as...

Free or 'operational' upgrades do happen, but it's rare; if you're lucky enough to get one, consider it a privilege.

The tips can boost your chance of a free upgrade from miniscule to just unlikely, and as most are neither arduous or difficult, why not give it a go?

________________________________

So please, there's no need for posters to continually and repetitively post about the extremely slim chance of getting an upgrade. That's a given. This is a discussion about tips on how to improve those extremely slim chances to just very slim. If people continue to take this off topic, the posts will be deleted.

Thanks in advance

Martin

richardw

The article says

"However, there are a host of hot tips to boost your chance of a free upgrade from minuscule to just unlikely, and as most are neither arduous or difficult, why not give it a go?"

Is unlikey double the chances of minuscule or nearer minuscule I wonder.

MSE_Martin

Thanks for the spelling notes - we made some late changes to get in under the wire. The guide is due a full proofing first thing tomorrow morning.

richardw

"The cheapest way to get a guaranteed upgrade is by using frequent flyer points, so it's well worth joining a scheme (See frequent flyers section, below). Even if you don't build up enough points to pay for the upgrade outright, most airlines will let you supplement the points with cash to arrive at the full amount."

The downside is that you sometimes already need to have booked an upgradeable economy ticket (MFU compatible) first and some of these are flexible tickets which can sometimes be more expensive than a discounted premium economy ticket. It is very complicated https://www.flyertalk.com is a great website for all of this. Also your insurance may not cover you for the value of a miles enhanced return ticket.

Little_Ettchy

I've had more upgrades than my wife's had compliments! The last was an upgrade from economy to Upper Class on a Virgin flight to Los Angeles in July. We travel to the USA quite often and, if we have to change flights, the odds are, even if we didn't get an upgrade in England, we'd get one for the connecting flight in the US.

How? Quite simple. When you book your flights, use "Sir" or "Lord" as your title. One particular web booking agency even highlights your 'title' on the booking form. Once your 'title' is seen - especially in the US - the complimentaries come rolling in.

Yes, it's cheeky, some might say dishonest. But when it works the first time, the second, third, fourth etc just comes naturally. In March, when we flew to Las Vegas with a particular American Airline, booking through the usual web booking agency - we were upgraded to business class on the flight, had our room upgraded to a suite at the Venecian and were given a complimentary $1000 in gambling chips. On our departure, we had a complimentary limo for the ride to the airport, checked in and were immediately upgraded for the flight home.

So if you've got the gumption, go for it.

hammy_the_hammer

Little_Ettchy wrote: »

I've had more upgrades than my wife's had compliments! The last was an upgrade from economy to Upper Class on a Virgin flight to Los Angeles in July. We travel to the USA quite often and, if we have to change flights, the odds are, even if we didn't get an upgrade in England, we'd get one for the connecting flight in the US.

How? Quite simple. When you book your flights, use "Sir" or "Lord" as your title. One particular web booking agency even highlights your 'title' on the booking form. Once your 'title' is seen - especially in the US - the complimentaries come rolling in.

Yes, it's cheeky, some might say dishonest. But when it works the first time, the second, third, fourth etc just comes naturally. In March, when we flew to Las Vegas with a particular American Airline, booking through the usual web booking agency - we were upgraded to business class on the flight, had our room upgraded to a suite at the Venecian and were given a complimentary $1000 in gambling chips. On our departure, we had a complimentary limo for the ride to the airport, checked in and were immediately upgraded for the flight home.

So if you've got the gumption, go for it.

brings back memories of a great song .............
dream , dream, dream

Sam_Bee

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Flight Upgrades I have deleted your post.

This is a new thread based on a new article, if you'd like to make a point about upgrades either positive or negative, that's fine.

Yet the article is one that's highly demanded with many people asking questions. We provide a balanced detailed researched article - if you think that's an april fools joke - then you've obviously come to the wrong site.

Regards

Martin

Yes, thank you, i've made many contributions, both positive and negative to the numerous threads that are started on a regular basis about Flight Upgrades. The last 5 you've started have started attracted negative comments because it's comparative to finding the 'golden ticket', in many cases it's equivilent to MSE promoting the purchasing of lottery tickets as a get rich scheme as the chances of getting an upgrade are often just as low.

Yet official thread titles from yourself or a.n.other at MSE, and newsletter titles amongst the lines of 'This is a brand new step-by-step guide to bagging upgrades for free' or 'Flight Upgrades: Try for free' are deceptive because completely free upgrades do not exist. They are headline grabbers.

With upgrades on scheduled airlines long haul in business costing anywhere up to £5000 (rarely below £1500) you are actually giving people hope where none exists. I doubt in any other board or topic would you so frequently promote the promise of something of such high value that is not going to happen.

If you're going to continually alienate the many people who do give a lot of time, expertise and support to this particular forum, then yes I have obviously have come to the wrong site. I'd be more than happy for someone at MSE to delete my account so I can get on with my own work as opposed to looking out for someone I can provide genuine help for.

Tojo_Ralph

Sam_Bee wrote: »

You are actually giving people hope where none exists. I doubt in any other board or topic would you so frequently promote the promise of something of such high value that is not going to happen.

And that is exactly the issue I have with these regurgitated, rehashed, misleading and very poorly researched articles and threads and why I feel Martin needs to rethink his efforts to be a Jack of All trades and simply stick to what he knows...... IMHO.

vanessatillett

We flew (my husband and I and 2 children under 10) in April to America with Virgin, the agent reserved our seats for us at the time of booking and I tried to check us in on line 24hrs before but couldn't so telephoned Virgin and was told that only the adults could check in online, so I left it. When we got to the airport we were unable to self check and machine said there was a problem. When we went to the desk we were told because we hadn't checked in online our reserved seats had been released and there were no seats even in blocks of 2 that we could have. Obviously the children heard this and started to get nervous and they took ages on the phone but eventually we were upgraded to Premuim Economy. We heard on the flight that PE was full and so others from PE had been moved to 1st class! How luck were they from our misfortune!

Then a week later we flew from New York to Florida with Continetial and the flight was overbooked and they asked for volunteers and as the flight was arriving before we could check in for our accommodation we decided to go for it. We ended up flying 1st class down to Florida, given 800$ to use for another flight, had lunch paid for and even able to use their phone for a long call back home!

On our return flight home from Florida, we were'nt upgrade although we did ask!

But it make for a fab holiday!