International Upgrades - the pecking order

[Timtammi]

Hi there all

I know that upgrades are awarded using the following criteria, in this order:

1. status of pax travelling
2. time requested

So that a gold requesting after a bronze would still be ahead in the queue but 2 golds requesting it would go to the first gold who requested.

I also understand that its "supposed" to go on the status of the travelling pax not the pax whose points are paying.

We have 3 people travelling in Y and want to request an upgrade to PE. 2 of the travellers are Gold and one (our daughter) is Bronze. Would the whole request go down the queue because one member is bronze or would having 2 golds outweigh this? Of course, I realise that getting 3 upgrades is pretty hard anyway but was just wondering how this was "supposed" to work.

Cheers

 

[file51]

Aside from status, fare paid is a big one (i.e. Y has more chance of an UG than a Q fare for example).

 

[simongr]

Aside from status, fare paid is a big one (i.e. Y has more chance of an UG than a Q fare for example).

Umm - are you talking about Operational upgrades or points upgrades? Points upgrades are awarded based on status and then time.

 

[Timtammi]

Sorry, I'm talking about points upgrade requests. I'm not silly enough to expect an op-up!

 

[MelUser]

My understanding is that QF do Y-J international points upgrades as follows:

(1) Chairman's Lounge - they start with passenger on highest fare bucket - ie W working their way down through T, then Y, then B etc down to the lowest upgradeable economy class.

(2) They will then work through the platinums in fare bucket order, then Golds in fare bucket order, then silvers down the fare buckets , then bronzes down the fare buckets, then non QFF members down the fare buckets.

(3) If there is a tie at one of the fare buckets - for example two Silver members both with a B class economy seat wishing to upgrade to J (and only one upgradeable seat left), they will give the upgrade to the member who first joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer system - ie the lower of the membership numbers. The date of upgrade request is irrelevant - the upgrade request simply needs to be made between 90 days and 24 hours before the flight leaves its first port.

NOTE:

(1) It is a matter of debate whether status of account from which points are coming is the decider. Qantas says it is not but the evidence as gathered on this site is that it is the status of the member requesting the upgrade. My own personal view based on upgrades on the busy Pacific route and from talking to Qantas staff is that the upgrade is ordered on the status of the requesting account.

Therefore, for the present request if the upgrade request comes out of your account, it will be based on your status (Gold).

I would assume that if while working down the request order Qantas gets to a 3 seat request such as yours and there are only 2 upgradeable seats at that point, they would skip you and move down to the next request.

(2) I note that your question refers to a Y-PE upgrade request but I have no reason to think that principles which QF would apply would be different to a Y-J request - ie QF would work down members' QFF status and fare buckets.

 

[Timtammi]

Dear Meluser

Thank you for taking the time to write that detailed response. I'm interested that you say that time of request means nothing. I made sure I put the request in today as soon as the upgrade request window opened.

Actually, one thing I found out today (which may be common knowledge but I didn't know it) is that the 90 day window opens exactly 90 days before the flight ie it actually goes by the time of the flight. So although 30 September was the day mentioned as when the requests opened they didnt actually open until 12.10pm which was the time the flight is due to depart. I rang QF to ask why the upgrade was not available yet and they explained the above to me. As it was just about 12.00 when I called I tried again 10 mins later and - voila - I could request them.

And yes, the request is coming from my Gold account and the return request will come my DH's Gold account so I guess that is the best we can do. It would be great to be able to try out PE on the A380

Cheers

 

[simongr]

My understanding is that QF do Y-J international points upgrades as follows:
The date of upgrade request is irrelevant - the upgrade request simply needs to be made between 90 days and 24 hours before the flight leaves its first port.

Interesting - this is completely at odds with other information we have regarding this. Do you have a source you can quote/reference. Is this linked to the new heck in system?

 

[serfty]

I did not believe Fare Bucket has anything to do with Upgrade pecking order.

The web site used to indicate Status then time of request within these levels.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

I'm pretty sure it's by status, and the by time of request (and not by fare bucket). I believe that was spelt out in the documents sent when the last set of changes to QFF occured.

In terms of whether you all get the upgrade or not - if you are all on the same booking, then I believe you will all get them or not. If you are on separate bookings, then the QANTAS T&C specifically says that there's no gauarantee you'll get the three seats you're looking for.

 

[Timtammi]

In terms of whether you all get the upgrade or not - if you are all on the same booking, then I believe you will all get them or not. If you are on separate bookings, then the QANTAS T&C specifically says that there's no gauarantee you'll get the three seats you're looking for.

Yes I'm fully aware that its an all or nothing deal as we have booked together. This is the way we want it, its a family holiday and it wouldn't be fair to either parent if one was in J and the other back in Y with the little one.

Having said that my DH is also my business partner and when we travel for business we have been known to book separately and both apply for an upgrade knowing its more likely one of us will get one than 2 of us. Yes, it happened, I got upgraded and he didn't, did I take it?? You BET I did and enjoyed a very nice overnight flight from MEL-NRT. Was he jealous? Yep, but next time it might be him that gets the upgrade not me.

Cheers

 

[MelUser]

Interesting - this is completely at odds with other information we have regarding this. Do you have a source you can quote/reference. Is this linked to the new heck in system?

My source is from within QF and this information was provided to me 3 weeks ago.

 

[v8Statesman]

(2) They will then work through the platinums in fare bucket order, then Golds in fare bucket order, then silvers down the fare buckets , then bronzes down the fare buckets, then non QFF members down the fare buckets.

(3) If there is a tie at one of the fare buckets - for example two Silver members both with a B class economy seat wishing to upgrade to J (and only one upgradeable seat left), they will give the upgrade to the member who first joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer system - ie the lower of the membership numbers. The date of upgrade request is irrelevant - the upgrade request simply needs to be made between 90 days and 24 hours before the flight leaves its first port.

If this is true, Being a WP that joined QFF in 1995 and flys int in the Y bucket. This makes me happy

 

[Mal]

My source is from within QF and this information was provided to me 3 weeks ago.

Indeed you source may be correct, or may be talking about changes to be made in the future. To me, this sounds like an Op-Up type pecking order (in a perfect situation, not always possible in real life due to operational demands), not an Points upgrade type pecking order.

However, if Qantas was to go on the path of changing their *documented* upgrade procedure list as referred to by serfty, without the required level of confirmation to customers, they are opening themselves up to a whole bunch of pain when people can prove that the system is not operating as expected. (BTW, for those who don't think this can be easily proven - it can. Take for example work colleagues travelling together on seperate itins, or family members on different PNR's etc)

 

[oz_mark]

Indeed you source may be correct, or may be talking about changes to be made in the future. To me, this sounds like an Op-Up type pecking order (in a perfect situation, not always possible in real life due to operational demands), not an Points upgrade type pecking order.

However, if Qantas was to go on the path of changing their *documented* upgrade procedure list as referred to by serfty, without the required level of confirmation to customers, they are opening themselves up to a whole bunch of pain when people can prove that the system is not operating as expected. (BTW, for those who don't think this can be easily proven - it can. Take for example work colleagues travelling together on seperate itins, or family members on different PNR's etc)

Does the documented procedure actually state how tie breakers in those of the same status are decided? Does it state by order of request, or by fare bucket, or anything?

 

[Mal]

Does the documented procedure actually state how tie breakers in those of the same status are decided? Does it state by order of request, or by fare bucket, or anything?

Just did some looking around, and all references I can easily find to date priority have gone. Maybe that's my misunderstanding of the original changes, perhap's it's Qantas hiding things, or maybe it was never published.

My quest goes on!

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Dear Meluser

And yes, the request is coming from my Gold account and the return request will come my DH's Gold account so I guess that is the best we can do. It would be great to be able to try out PE on the A380

Going by Meluser's post that length of time of being a QFF member is a criterion, that unless you both joined on the same day you would be better transferring all the points to the one of you that is the longest serving member, and in that member making both requests.

I certainly do not know this,,,,I am just surmising based solely on Meluser's post.

 

[serfty]

I have cached T&C's of April last year and the "Time of request" para is not there either.

"Time of Request" was certainly documented with the May 2005 changes; I'll need to dig up some hard doco on that.

Maybe it has changed. :-| FWIW, my last successful upgrade was from L class. (Although I have had plenty of S and V upgrades prior to that).

 

[Timtammi]

They will then work through the platinums in fare bucket order, then Golds in fare bucket order, then silvers down the fare buckets , then bronzes down the fare buckets, then non QFF members down the fare buckets.

Is there a list somewhere of all the QF fare buckets in order?
I just checked and the flights are in V class which I figure is pretty low down the list? Although its obviously an upgradeable type or I wouldnt have been able to request the upgrade..

 

[serfty]

Expert Flyer returns Qantas Economy buckets in the following orders for the same flight:

QF : B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 X0 E0

All: Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9

These may have some relation to any such pecking order that may exist.

 

[MelUser]

Going by Meluser's post that length of time of being a QFF member is a criterion, that unless you both joined on the same day you would be better transferring all the points to the one of you that is the longest serving member, and in that member making both requests.

I certainly do not know this,,,,I am just surmising based solely on Meluser's post.

This is not what I meant. Time of being a QFF member ONLY is of relevance if while working through the status category and down the fare buckets ie W,T,Y,B etc etc down to lowest upgradeable fare class, there is a tie - For example:

Lets say the computer works through all the Chairmans Lounge upgrade requesters down the fare buckets and then repeats this for the Plats and then in turn for the Golds. Then it starts on the Silvers.

Lets say there is one silver member with a premium economy seat in "T" class - he/she gets an upgrade to J and there is 1 business upgrade seat left. Then for arguments sake the next 2 silver upgrade requests are at the "B" economy bucket. However, there happen to be 2 separate passengers, both in "B" economy seat buckets and both seeking an upgrade to business.

So there are 2 silver members both with "B" class economy seats and only 1 upgradeable seat left - in this instance the upgrade will go to the silver member with the lower QFF number (as they joined before the member with the higher QFF number).

To reiterate, time of joining only becomes relevant if there is a tie at a status level on the same fare bucket. If there is no "tie", time of joining never becomes an issue.