LATAM status match $80USD

[kangarooflyer88]

How far out did they notify you of upgrade?
I’ve got LATAM Black but it’s really a nothing program for me as the upgrade system seems too much of a gamble. No way am I flying in Y for that length so if the upgrade doesn’t process I’d need to make sure I can cancel my ticket and have adequate back up plans

You can request the upgrade on flights starting at 48 hours prior to departure with notifications being sent out at 12 hours prior to departure at the earliest. Upgrade priority is based on the following order:

1. Black Signature
2. Black
3. UPG Biding
4. Platinum
5. Gold Plus/Gold

Note: UPG biding means the bid for upgrade program where you name your own price and see if the upgrade clears. So holding Black status puts you ahead of them. Additionally, when there is a tie on status they use the following factors to break the tie:

Elite Status, Having a LATAM Branded Credit Card and When You Placed Your Bid Upgrade Request.

You can see your progress in the queue once you place the upgrade request:


So far I've got three flights with LATAM: Melbourne to Santiago, Santiago to São Paulo and São Paulo to Florianopolis for myself and my partner. LATAM allowed me to request an upgrade for myself and partners from their website. So long as someone is on the same LATAM flight as you, you can request an upgrade for them using your coupons. In terms of what cleared Melbourne and Santiago and São Paulo to Florianopolis both cleared. Oh and by the way that Santiago to São Paulo upgrade wasn't a huge deal for the simple reason that it's on a narrow body aircraft and you have Euro business style seats. So nothing truly to write home about. LATAM business on the 787 on the other hand, is a whole other story.

To your last point, yes upgrades are completely a roll of the dice. If you want to be guaranteed business you need to book it. However, there are ways to load the dice so that it ends up rolling in your favour such as researching dates where it is less likely that the business class cabin will be full. Additionally, it should be noted that even if you lose out on the bid upgrade, you still get your choice of any Economy seat on LATAM so that's still better than some other airlines if you must fly economy. And yes there are huge differences between economy seats you select. Additionally, you'd still have access to things like lounge access in Santiago. For me that was also a nice to have. The LATAM Signature lounge is very nice and even has private rooms with beds where you can catch a snooze.

-RooFlyer88

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Just thought I'd provide another data point on upgrades using the 8 included upgrade coupons that come with LATAM Black status. My partner and I were flying from Brazil to Montreal with LATAM, connecting in São Paulo and JFK. Requested upgrades on the flight to São Paulo and the flight from São Paulo to JFK. The flight to São Paulo didn't clear as there were only 3 seats available, 2 of which were snagged presumably by someone using the instant upgrade process (it was a $29 USD instant upgrade per person) and a LATAM Black Signature member with a LATAM credit card (i.e. the highest upgrade priority in the program). No big deal for me since we're talking about a Euro business on a 1 hour flight up to São Paulo, so really nothing to write home about. Certainly not worth the $29 upgrade fee either!

However, for the flight to JFK, it was down to the wire whether we would get upgraded. LATAM was showing we were #2 and #3 in line for upgrades with 3 business class seats available until the very end. Ultimately we both did get upgraded:

Business class on this sector was significantly better with seats in the now industry standard 1-2-1 configuration (no doubt because São Paulo to New York is a highly competitive business route with the likes of AA, Delta and United all offering service there):



One added benefit of the upgrade was we had access to the new Delta One business class lounge that recently opened in JFK (since we were connecting from that LATAM business flight). The lounge looks very nice, certainly on part with United's Polaris lounge and dare I say it the Qantas First lounge (easily one of the best domestic First class lounges offered by Qantas):

So overall, I would say yes it was worth it for me to have spent the $80 USD on the status match. For that small price I got the following benefits:

• Upgrades for myself and my partner on two long haul international flights (MEL > SCL and GRU > JFK)
• Upgrades for myself and partner on one regional flight in South America to Premium Economy (GRU > FLN)
• Access to the excellent LATAM lounges at SCL and GRU
• Premium seat selection on JFK > YUL, SCL > GRU and PFB > GRU
• Extra checked baggage allowance for MEL > FLN route

I was pleased by how the upgrade process works as it seems that yes if you do have sufficiently high status you do get upgrades using those coupons and they happen quite frequently. Contrast that with the likes of United, where even if you are Global Services that may not be enough to secure an upgrade using your coupons simply because there are way too many elites vying for the limited amount of upgrade space. Going forward I am tempted to actually earn LATAM Black status (yes there are inexpensive ways to do so if you do your homework)

-RooFlyer88

 

[Gold Member]

Thanks for the insights @kangarooflyer88

Your feedback has given me some food for thought! While I’ve got LATAM Black status, I may as well use it since I haven’t been to South America and I’m unlikely to visit again. I’ve booked Qantas Business awards to and from SCL as the preferred long haul option. But I’m now thinking about booking fully refundable one-ways with LATAM for the same dates and trying my luck with their coupon upgrade lottery. I’d book their fully refundable ticket (creatively named ‘full”) which can be cancelled up until departure so I could quite literally wait until a couple of hours prior to even heading to the airport to see if the upgrade clears. If it clears, I pay a small Qantas award cancellation fee.

The 787-9 currently serving MEL is configured in the old 2x2x2 which doesn’t appeal. But, for roughly $1,700 AUD fully ticketed I’m willing to forgo some creature comforts and retain the Qantas points (and surcharges) which are arguably worth a lot more than $1,700.

What do you think about this approach? Any advice?

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Your feedback has given me some food for thought! While I’ve got LATAM Black status, I may as well use it since I haven’t been to South America and I’m unlikely to visit again. I’ve booked Qantas Business awards to and from SCL as the preferred long haul option.

A colleague of mine recently flew Sydney to Santiago in Qantas Business (also booked as a classic award) and wasn't too impressed. They mentioned that the service wasn't good and they ran out of food.

But I’m now thinking about booking fully refundable one-ways with LATAM for the same dates and trying my luck with their coupon upgrade lottery. I’d book their fully refundable ticket (creatively named ‘full”) which can be cancelled up until departure so I could quite literally wait until a couple of hours prior to even heading to the airport to see if the upgrade clears. If it clears, I pay a small Qantas award cancellation fee.

The one thing I don't have experience with is how easy it is to get a refund from LATAM for flights. I haven't had to do it, and the concern would be making a cancellation at such short notice would be quite stressful. For flights to Santiago there would clear about 12 hours prior to departure (give or take). In my case it cleared 11 hours and 53 minutes before hand. Also realize that if it doesn't clear at the 12 hour mark it could clear any time up to the gate. Indeed, in Brazil our JFK upgrade cleared at the lounge about an hour prior to departure.

The 787-9 currently serving MEL is configured in the old 2x2x2 which doesn’t appeal. But, for roughly $1,700 AUD fully ticketed I’m willing to forgo some creature comforts and retain the Qantas points (and surcharges) which are arguably worth a lot more than $1,700.

There is also the Sydney to Santiago service with LATAM (LA800). Checking SeatGuru, the seat layout is similar to that of my JFK flight (i.e. 1-2-1 layout):


The reason I chose MEL > SCL instead of SYD > SCL (which would make more sense by the way since I am based in Sydney) is for several reasons. First, and foremost there is less competition on this route than SYD > SCL. Second, the MEL > SCL service is nonstop whereas SYD > SCL has a stop in AKL. Consequently, if you have to faff about with transferring at AKL and also it means your LATAM flight gets in too late during the day to catch onwards connections with LATAM to Brazil. However, the downside (it would seem) is they use the 787 with the 2-2-2 layout versus the 1-2-1 layout. Now LATAM will be reintroducing nonstop service between SYD and SCL later this year (I think in October).

What do you think about this approach? Any advice?

From my experience, your biggest hurdle against snagging a seat isn't other elites or people upgrading. Rather it simply comes down to if there are a couple of business class seats are available. In the flights I have booked with LATAM, I was either #1 or #2 on the upgrade list as LATAM Black. So literally, so long as there was a couple business class seats available I'd get that. There are times of the week where it would seem there are more spare business class seats (from my experience that was Tuesday to Thursday departure on LATAM). There are also routes that are less popular than others (again MEL > SCL seems less popular as SYD > SCL which also picks up passengers in NZ). You'll want to do your homework on ExpertFlyer.

Supposing the $1700 AUD you quoted was return, then this comes down to a value judgement. If I believe a business classic award is 108,400 points per passenger each way to/from SCL on QF. So you would stand to save 216,800 QF points if you book this and the upgrades clear each way. So the question is now whether you value 216,800 QFF points as much as ($1700-$x) AUD where x is the taxes and fees Qantas charges for such a booking?

Some other points - you won't have access to the Qantas First lounge if you fly on LATAM as a Black (even if you hold Platinum status), I verified that at the QF Flounge in MEL. You would have access to the QF Business lounge as Black, and you'd also have access to the quite nice LATAM VIP lounge in SCL. If your upgrade doesn't clear you'd still have the best seats in coach, since LATAM, unlike Qantas, lets you choose whatever seat you want in coach as Black, including the coveted extra legrooms.

The point I guess I should make is this whole thing is a gamble, it is not 100% certain, that's how upgrades are. If you are comfortable with the (low in my experience) prospect of being seated in coach, and are willing to do the homework to stack the odds in your favour (i.e. using ExpertFlyer to determine which dates have more J availability), it can be worth your while. One note on ExpertFlyer for LATAM: the highest inventory level for each fare code is 7. So if you see J7 that means there are 7 or more seats available. The LATAM business class fare codes are J, C, D, I, and Z. If you see something like J7, C7, D7, Z7, I7, that generally means the business class cabin is relatively empty. The other point I'll mention is that the value really kicks in when you are travelling with others since you can apply upgrade requests for yourself and anyone travelling with you (or on that flight for that matter). So for me the value here was huge since it wasn't just 2 long haul flights. It was 2 long hauls for 2 passengers.

-RooFlyer88

 

[kangarooflyer88]

One other point @Gold Member I forgot about. Yes I could have taken Qantas to SCL in business as a classic award and this would even let me connect through to Brazil in time since it arrives early enough to do so. But if it did that in the best case scenario only two of my three long haul would be business (SYD > SCL and GRU > JFK). However because I rolled the dice with LATAM and the upgrades cleared, the points I saved on booking the QF classic business award from SYD to SCL was used to book an AA classic business award from SFO to SYD (via LAX) meaning all three of my partner and my long haul flights are in business.

I would also point out that ultimately this comes to risk tolerance. Your QF classic award is about as close to a guarantee as you get that you’ll be flying in business. The LA flights it is a gamble. Whether it’s 50/50 or more like 80/20 odds I cannot say. But there is a chance you do get stuck in coach. So it really comes down to how important snagging a business class seat is and also your Qantas points balance I suppose. I mean if you’re laying on a stack of points, then an argument could be made that you should use them up on classic flight awards when you find a chance. In my case I had a paltry 230,000. Just enough for a single one way trip in business class for my partner and I from the Americas to Australia.

-RooFlyer88