International Upgrades - Improved Experience

[pshepvic]

My improved experience doesn't appear to be going perfectly just yet.... On QF93 this Friday, in J with request for upgrade to F submitted.

At EXACTLY 48 hours before, the status of the request changed to Declined online. It shows this in both in the booking, and also when clicking the upgrade request link. (Last upgrade request I did, it showed as Declined at around T-44 in the booking, and the separate waitlist booking also showed up for about an hour, but in the upgrade request page it still showed as Requested - this time around it shows Declined in both places).

We called Qantas to check and they said "I don't know why it is showing as declined as in our system it still shows as Requested". I'm not convinced though as she didn't really seem like she knew about the Waitlisting they do etc as she also says "it looks like your booking is waitlisted and I don't know why".

Expert flyer shows the following:




So there are at least 9 seats unsold - I could understand they may not release the seats as upgrades if there were only a few left, but surely if there are that many they would at least be a few upgrades processed. Seeing as we are already at T-41 hours I would have thought they might have released some seats by now. Even if it went to another WP member, and the available number of seats dropped, at least I would be able to see on EF that they were giving some away. Both of us on the booking are WP, on a paid fare not a JASA, so theroretically we would be reasonably high up the upgrade list.

Can anyone shed any light on this - should I be worried, or is there a chance my upgrade still go through?

 

[Princess Fiona]

I had my last upgrade request last month SYD-LAX declined at T-48.
Knew I'd been upgraded at around T-16 when the points disappeared from my account. I couldn't select a seat or see the F cabin or booking online so had to telephone the Platinum desk who transferred me to SYD airport.
So I guess they are still ironing out the IT stuff.
Fingers crossed you get it

 

[simongr]

So there are at least 9 seats unsold - I could understand they may not release the seats as upgrades if there were only a few left, but surely if there are that many they would at least be a few upgrades processed. Seeing as we are already at T-41 hours I would have thought they might have released some seats by now. Even if it went to another WP member, and the available number of seats dropped, at least I would be able to see on EF that they were giving some away. Both of us on the booking are WP, on a paid fare not a JASA, so theroretically we would be reasonably high up the upgrade list.

Can anyone shed any light on this - should I be worried, or is there a chance my upgrade still go through?

9s do not necessarily mean available seats. They might be willing to oversell whY and flow pax forward thus the seats in J can't be given away to upgrades.

 

[opusman]

9s do not necessarily mean available seats. They might be willing to oversell whY and flow pax forward thus the seats in J can't be given away to upgrades.

Probably wouldn't be showing 9s in the discount Y categories then though?

 

[pshepvic]

9s do not necessarily mean available seats. They might be willing to oversell whY and flow pax forward thus the seats in J can't be given away to upgrades.

But there are also 9 available in PE. So they'd need to sell 9 in Y, plus another 9 in Y/PE before they even need to flow forward to business. And even if they oversold J, I think they'd rather upgrade people on points from J to F than flow forward someone from J to F for free!

Edit: Just realised that maybe you thought my upgrade request was for J by your wording, but it's actually a request for F.


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[pshepvic]

So the saga continues. My partner gets a text message saying "upgrade declined due to insufficient points". Now I distinctly remember the request was on my account at the time 1. Because I was the one with enough points and 2. I had to make 2 phone calls as I didn't have enough for the return flight at the time. I was very specific that the requests were on my account. So the person who put the request in was the first to screw up. Second to screw up was the person earlier today who said "I can't see why it would reject". Um hello? Maybe because there were 55,000 too few points?? And this is supposed to be the Platinum line!

Called back and got someone more sensible to put the request through again. Should be a reasonable chance as a friend who is a First FA has confirmed there are actually 10 spare seats in F, and the guy on the phone also said its a pretty good chance. Let's see how quick it happens now!


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[pshepvic]

Called again this morning and they called through to operations to try to get it pushed through. Answer was no, but at 9am there was a call from the Flounge spa to book our appointment as we had been confirmed in F. Some of the process appears to be working! But still no text message. I was able to log in and see it confirmed online and select seats. Still 8 seats free on EF if anyone else is looking for an upgrade!

 

[Red Roo]

Called again this morning and they called through to operations to try to get it pushed through. Answer was no, but at 9am there was a call from the Flounge spa to book our appointment as we had been confirmed in F. Some of the process appears to be working! But still no text message. I was able to log in and see it confirmed online and select seats. Still 8 seats free on EF if anyone else is looking for an upgrade!

Hi pshepvic

Glad to see that your upgrade came through. Enjoy the First Lounge and your flight!

Cheers,
Red Roo

 

[pshepvic]

Hi pshepvic

Glad to see that your upgrade came through. Enjoy the First Lounge and your flight!

Cheers,
Red Roo

Thanks! It appears the issues were a staff issue some months ago when it was first requested, rather than a problem with the new upgrade process.

Gail from the lounge was lovely and I'm looking forward to the trip!


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[MelUser]

I have had problems before with Business (I) Class upgrades to F.

For some reason they have to be entered manually and so sometimes aren't processed automatically and correctly.

Indeed I have had 1 upgrade where the points came out of the sponsor's (requestor's) account and then again out of my account.

My guess is that when the upgrade system was set up it was programmed to not allow Business (I) upgrades to first however a change of heart by Qantas management means that they will do them manually which is where (in my view) the errors come from.

 

[pshepvic]

This was I class so I did have to phone up to request and that's where the error happened. All good now!

By the way - quick question - is wifi still happening on the A380? The trial was starting shortly after my last flight and I didn't know if it had continued on...


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[pshepvic]

Well the lounge was fabulous this morning and the flight in F is fabulous as well - just about to move on to the cheese (8th course in the tasting menu)!

This post brought to you via QF in-flight Wi-Fi (which is working very well mind you).


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[ozmille]

Well the lounge was fabulous this morning and the flight in F is fabulous as well - just about to move on to the cheese (8th course in the tasting menu)!

This post brought to you via QF in-flight Wi-Fi (which is working very well mind you).


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Very nice indeed, enjoy the trip!

 

[Princess Fiona]

Well the lounge was fabulous this morning and the flight in F is fabulous as well - just about to move on to the cheese (8th course in the tasting menu)!

This post brought to you via QF in-flight Wi-Fi (which is working very well mind you).


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Glad it all worked out in the end!
Enjoy

 

[simongr]

Inflight wifi - free in F isn't it? Looking forward to the first full in flight trip report.!

 

[Princess Fiona]

Inflight wifi - free in F isn't it? Looking forward to the first full in flight trip report.!

They might have to juice up the speed a little for that


This is what I got on QF 11 last month

 

[serfty]

They might have to juice up the speed a little for that
...

This is what I got on QF 11 last month

Mirrors my experience back in March.

Ok for emails but it took patience to find out that Essendon lost by a point (the AFL web site home page is full of junk)

 

[simongr]

serfty a couple next to me were having similar issues calling up the AFL site in the F (sort of) lounge in SIN due to poor wifi - I used the mobile site (m.afl.com.au) on the iphone and got the results much more quickly - something to think about in future.

 

[serfty]

serfty a couple next to me were having similar issues calling up the AFL site in the F (sort of) lounge in SIN due to poor wifi - I used the mobile site (m.afl.com.au) on the iphone and got the results much more quickly - something to think about in future.

Oh, I get around it with FireFox using adblock and "Element Hiding Helper".

It's really good at eliminating much of the rubbish, especially the bigpond bxb creature ...

 

[GCC]

Having my first taste of the improved upgrade experience, WP with QF 11 to LAX tomorrow booked in Y+ and an upgrade to J requested last week. QF website shows "upgrade to business requested" and my points balance is still intact.

I have requested at least one points upgrade to J each year with QF since 2007- in the last two years with Mrs G and baby G - and have always received them. I've been able to see the request come through somewhere between T-12 and T-5.

I thought the new system sounded good, but with nothing at T- 48 and now nothing at T -24, I cant really see much advantage. perhaps something will happen at T-12?