QF to Confirm Points Upgrade Requests as late as at the gate when boarding

[extracta]

For airlines to allow seats to be flown empty when there are people who are willing to pay for an upgrade with either cash or points at check-in is madness.

Most other businesses would be actively trying to get there customers to upgrade their level of service so as they could extract some more cash from them.

You not only increase your revenue but you also keep your customers happy by providing the ones that want the upgrade, the upgrade.

 

[samh004]

Would be good if it was op-ups as well as points. I look at it two ways, as filling a J/F cabin with those that haven’t paid to be there, just with points, isn’t a great business model, just because it happens in the US. But never sharing the love is also a bit slack, there should be a nice balance.

 

[ozmille]

I don't know when I last saw a non-full J cabin domestically.

I was amazed on Saturday that both my SYD-MEL and MEL-SYD on 767 had full J cabins.

 

[SteveJohnson]

Qantas trials last-minute ‘at the gate’ upgrades for frequent flyers

From AusBT today: Qantas trials last-minute 'at the gate' upgrades for frequent flyers

Qantas has begun trialling last-minute ‘at the gate’ upgrades to make it easier for passengers to snare a seat at the pointy end of the plane. The program is being tested on selected international flights from this week, ahead of a mid-June launch for all international flights.

Passengers will still need to request an upgrade in advance with frequent flyer points. Qantas hopes the new system will help fill every empty seat in premium economy, business class and the A380’s high-style first class cabin.

As a result, frequent flyers will likely see fewer free upgrades and will instead be encouraged to put their points towards formal upgrade requests as part of their booking.

A story on the same 'at the gate' upgrade processing is at The Australian today: Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian although this didn't seem to make it clear at all that these are upgrades with points, I started off thinking "well of course you get a beep at the gate when you get upgraded, so they are now going to give away more upgrades? Brilliant!".

 

[chonetsao.co.uk]

Re: Qantas trials last-minute ‘at the gate’ upgrades for frequent flyers

Interesting.

But I never use QFF points to upgrade. I try to use them for ASAs or CSA...So I will never expect an upgrade from Qantas then.

 

[JohnK]

Re: Qantas trials last-minute ‘at the gate’ upgrades for frequent flyers

So what is going to happen when economy is oversold and a person wants to check-in that minute? Op-up someone or wait for someone else to request a points upgrade?

Some things just do not make sense....

 

[Timba-Jet]

If you have placed an upgrade request, checked in to Y, have forgone the lounge (as you don't have status), are steeled for the whY experience, and don't want to "waste" your points without obtaining the full benefit of the class of travel (lounge access, baggage allowance etc.), then you should be able to cancel your upgrade request at that point. Should solve the problem of being advised at the gate of an upgrade that you don't want anymore (and you will thereby improve the chances of those who want the seat an onboard service).

Though I may be in the minority, this is how I would feel. I have prep myself for a ride in Y, and would ask at check-in to be removed from the eligible gate upgrade list, unless gate upgrade was discounted in points required (at least 25%).

I think this is a win-win for both QF and customers (most), so hats of to QF.

On a lighter side, imagine gate agent has put through all points upgrade request and still empty seats in J/F. Calls yield mang't/ops to ask, how low can I go to auction off remaining seats - what can't I go any lower....

 

[bodog]

Re: Qantas trials last-minute ‘at the gate’ upgrades for frequent flyers

Existing thread on this already @ open-discussion/qantas-to-offer-gate-upgrades

 

[farstar]

Though I may be in the minority, this is how I would feel. I have prep myself for a ride in Y, and would ask at check-in to be removed from the eligible gate upgrade list, unless gate upgrade was discounted in points required (at least 25%).

I think this is a win-win for both QF and customers (most), so hats of to QF.

On a lighter side, imagine gate agent has put through all points upgrade request and still empty seats in J/F. Calls yield mang't/ops to ask, how low can I go to auction off remaining seats - what can't I go any lower....

I think it should be just a published points cost,if becomes like an auction where they keep lowering the points until all the seats are gone the it would waste a lot of time.

 

[dfcatch]

So what is going to happen when economy is oversold and a person wants to check-in that minute? Op-up someone or wait for someone else to request a points upgrade?

Some things just do not make sense....

I think there is a lot of confusion here - and misreporting.

At the moment - if your upgrade is not processed successfully at T-5 ( or whatever the current cutoff is), then you miss out - period - end of story.

It matters not whether someone no shows, or they fail to sell the remaining J seats - you miss out, and you may walk past empty seats and get pissed off that your upgrade wasn't processed despite there being empty seats.

(as an aside - opups are irrelevant here, as opups would only exist in an oversold situation PLUS there being empty J seats.

With the new process, they will run a further upgrade clearing process at the last minute, so in the event of no shows, or failing to sell the remaining seats, they can go ahead and still process outstanding upgrade requests rather than having the seats going empty.

It really is quite a simple concept and I struggle to understand why people are having such a hard time to grasp it. Maybe it's just me.



And I do not believe this will have any substantial effect on opups despite many here expressing concern about it.

Why? Simple really...

1/ To get an opup, you need to have an oversold Y cabin, available seat in J, and be lucky enough to be the selected person to be opupped. (not always done in status order).

2/ Under the current system, if they are oversold in Y, then they are unlikely to hold back any upgrade requests at T-5 if there are in fact spare J seats as they have the opportunity to "sell" the upgrade rather than give it away. Therefore if opups are occurring under the current system, then it is a fair assumption to make that all available requests were in fact processed.

3/ Under the new system, they would still be processing upgrade requests in preference to opups in an oversold situation, but in the event of a no show - then yes, IF there were still unsuccessful outstanding upgrade requests in the system, then that requestee would trump a WP who chose to play the 1 in a million lotto.
I truly believe this is a minuscule percentage of situations. But no doubt, anytime a WP misses out on an opup - it will be blamed on the new system.

4/ Moral to the story? If you want to sit in business class - lodge an upgrade request (same as current system).

 

[Austman]

Do CL/WP1/WPs get the same allowance irrespective of class of travel?

My upcoming MEL-SIN flight in J as WP:

Your Flights

[TABLE="class: full"]
[TR]
[TH] Flight Out: [/TH]
[TH="colspan: 2"]From[/TH]
[TH="colspan: 2"]To[/TH]
[TH]Flight[/TH]
[TH]Departure
Terminal[/TH]
[TH]Fare
Conditions[/TH]
[TH]Check-in
Closes[/TH]
[TH] Checked
Baggage[/TH]
[TH]Seats[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR="class: tr_first"]
[TD][/TD]
[TD] 15:30[/TD]
[TD]Melbourne[/TD]
[TD] 21:25[/TD]
[TD]Singapore[/TD]
[TD] Qantas flight

QF009[/TD]
[TD="class: aligncenter"] 2[/TD]
[TD] Business Saver[/TD]
[TD="class: checkin"] 90 minutes
before departure[/TD]
[TD="class: baggage"] Included:
4 pieces[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[SteveJohnson]

I think there is a lot of confusion here - and misreporting. At the moment - if your upgrade is not processed successfully at T-5 ( or whatever the current cutoff is), then you miss out - period - end of story. With the new process, they will run a further upgrade clearing process at the last minute, so in the event of no shows, or failing to sell the remaining seats, they can go ahead and still process outstanding upgrade requests rather than having the seats going empty. It really is quite a simple concept and I struggle to understand why people are having such a hard time to grasp it.

Sounds straight forward to me also, dfcatch, and I also agree that this is a change for the better. Except for some WPs who as you will say will whinge because they didn't get an op-up and blame the new system, a system which - shock, horror, gasp - is supposed to help QF make money from empty seats instead of giving them away.

Now, what I would like to see them do to get rid of any remaining seats, if for example they process the point upgrades and still have seats left, would be to call frequent flyers to the checkin desk or the lounge desk, based on their status, and say "Hello Mr Platinum, we see you are travelling in economy today, we've been advised that we have one business class seat vacant on your flight and we are authorised to offer it to you for 20,000 points" or however many points it would cost. Bang, deduct them straight from my account and I have my upgrade and Qantas has another seat filled.

 

[dfcatch]

Sounds straight forward to me also, dfcatch, and I also agree that this is a change for the better. Except for some WPs who as you will say will whinge because they didn't get an op-up and blame the new system, a system which - shock, horror, gasp - is supposed to help QF make money from empty seats instead of giving them away.

Now, what I would like to see them do to get rid of any remaining seats, if for example they process the point upgrades and still have seats left, would be to call frequent flyers to the checkin desk or the lounge desk, based on their status, and say "Hello Mr Platinum, we see you are travelling in economy today, we've been advised that we have one business class seat vacant on your flight and we are authorised to offer it to you for 20,000 points" or however many points it would cost. Bang, deduct them straight from my account and I have my upgrade and Qantas has another seat filled.

The problem with going down this path is that it devalues the premium cabin.

Points upgrades are a legitimate currency (just like cash). Upgrade Credits under the old system were also a legitimate currency.

But I don't think bargain-basement auctions are the way to go.


I think the key point people need to understand is that this new system is not replacing opups. It's replacing empty seats that were never going to be op-upped.

 

[Hvr]

Imagine if you're an SG and have applied for the J to F upgrade? You sit in the business lounge and then walk to the gate and get an upgrade to F.

Wouldn't you feel really annoyed that you've missed out on an integral part of the F experience, the special check in and the luxurious F lounge?

Maybe these people should get an F lounge invitation for their next international trip?

 

[TiredOldFlyer]

Think I'll book economy from now on as F will be full of J upgrades, J will be full of premium economy upgrades, Premium economy
will be full of economy upgrades and I'll be by myself in an empty economy cabin where many would say that I deserve to be !

 

[simongr]

Imagine if you're an SG and have applied for the J to F upgrade? You sit in the business lounge and then walk to the gate and get an upgrade to F.

Wouldn't you feel really annoyed that you've missed out on an integral part of the F experience, the special check in and the luxurious F lounge?

Maybe these people should get an F lounge invitation for their next international trip?

Again they ate targeting the most frequent flyers not SG...

 

[Deleted member]

This could be interesting. I am in J on the 26th July BNE-AKL. Mrs GPH decided to tag along and has booked in Y. Due to a number of factors she hadn't asked for a points upgrade (the biggest factor is we have blown all of our points on other bookings) so I wonder if she might ( space available get a gate up?) we are both SG and I am on the cusp of WP. ...... I will report in July. Mind you I am sure there will be other reports before then

 

[dfcatch]

This could be interesting. I am in J on the 26th July BNE-AKL. Mrs GPH decided to tag along and has booked in Y. Due to a number of factors she hadn't asked for a points upgrade (the biggest factor is we have blown all of our points on other bookings) so I wonder if she might ( space available get a gate up?) we are both SG and I am on the cusp of WP. ...... I will report in July. Mind you I am sure there will be other reports before then

Easy answer - no. Not unless she had an upgrade request in.


Opups are very unlikely on this route, and would likely to go to a higher status flyer in the unlikely event that one occurred.

 

[Deleted member]

Easy answer - no. Not unless she had an upgrade request in.


Opups are very unlikely on this route, and would likely to go to a higher status flyer in the unlikely event that one occurred.

Admittedly there are usually not too many empty seats.

 

[Hvr]

Admittedly there are usually not too many empty seats.

When I travelled LAX-SYD on my recent FASA there was a vacant seat and another pax had already been given an op up (so he said and I believed him).