The Operational Upgrade Thread

[Kefci2000]

Pity EK looks after QF WP better than QF does.

not had one upgrade in 5 years as WP

and I fly international J (A380) quite a bit

 

[mushez]

And trifecta, three from three, 81K -> 9K

 

[Awesom Andy]

Looks like they upgraded 19 people from Y to J, not a spare seat left in either Y or J, but all F seats remained unfilled.

They might as well operate a budget airline...

 

[mushez]

Pity EK looks after QF WP better than QF does.

not had one upgrade in 5 years as WP

and I fly international J (A380) quite a bit

They might as well operate a budget airline...

My experience with EK that is different to my more limited experience with other carriers is that they will oversell Y with intentions to people to not show and/or upgrade people from Y->J & J->F if needed. And that they tend to oversell more often than not because they refuse to charge a premium for flights at the last minute where other carriers will ramp up rates in the 48 hours prior. They also seem to choose how much they will allow a flight to oversell 14 days out from the flight itself - and manage the available inventory on a daily basis - I often see flights that are sold out for months, always have Y inventory open up again 14 days out.

On my EK432, at check in an hour before it opened was one person whom also didn't have a pre-allocated seat, who had only purchased his QF booked and flight numbered fare 2 hours prior to boarding his JQ flight in Vietnam to SIN the evening prior, claiming his JQ-EK-QF flight was thousands of dollars cheaper than any other option he had including with Qantas on QF51 for his urgent trip from Vietnam to Melbourne. Which to me made perfect sense in my experience, is that EK don't ramp up prices and intentionally oversell Y to upgrade some to J.

EK flights are generally full, as they are a go to for people at the last minute as their is no price gouging from EK at the last minute - another aspect that drew me to fly with them in the first place - and then the overselling risk of Y has very favorable odds of Y->J upgrades. However they fight quite hard to prohibit any upgrades to F if there is no paying PAX in F already on the day. Seeing F empty is something I am quite accustom to.

EK will only upgrade as many people as needed to find the spare oversold Y seats. I have also sat on enough completely full flights in Y with spare if J to know that the times I am upgraded, it is because I looked favorable to the load controllers as the better person to upgrade because they needed my Y seat for someone else because they oversold Y.

So Kefci2000 - Upgrades from J to F on EK happen, but are more rare than a Y-J upgrade - but upgrades on EK happen because they oversell, and more than happy to offer standard rates to PAX to oversell the day prior. This is something QF never allow so the risk is low for QF to oversell. I looked at flying QF129/130 in November, and went from $900 to $2,200 because I left booking it to the last 48 hours. Back to cheapest option which was EK BNE-SIN, then to PVG with MU.

Awesom Andy - While I know your comment is tongue in cheek, EK are far from a budget carrier, they have a clear commercial strategy of running their flights as full as they can by offering competitively priced fares with full service in Y that is both fun and a step above others like with their ICE system for IFE but also to be seen as a luxurious option with their J & F product and attract as many full fare J & F customers as they can - and upgrade Y clients who will blend in with full paying J & F clients and not dilute that experience for them when they oversell Y.

 

[CaptJCool]

Its all about the customer experience

After reading a lot about Altea (an Amadeus product) i went and had a scout around the web.
Improve Airline Customer Satisfaction with Amadeus Customer-centric Solutions

this talks about 'automated' upgrades
In the case of overbooking, onload and upgrade according to value profile
Automated selection of priority customers in the case of overbooking
Automated upgrade to compensate for previous incident (service recovery)

Minimise overbooking costs by selecting the most appropriate customers for transfer or offload so thus not needing to upgrade anyone!A
ward seats and Points upgrades are a form of upselling by Promos, and they reduce the capacity for free OpUps

I did like this quote;Propose a transparent multiple choice of flights and fares to your customers, enabling them to compare options and to choose more often than not the most appropriate one instead of the cheapest

Secure customers' lifetime value (hence Lifetime Silver and Gold)
Introduce favoured availability for your most valuable customers

Provide superior service to high value customers! and that would include the 'free OpUps" - which from looking at one of the white papers are very much about inspiring you to come again Airline Reports, Case Studies & White Papers from Amadeus, Your technology partner especially the one Thinking like a retailer - airline merchandising

So Emirates might actually be offering upgrades to inspire you to rather than purchase codeshare via QF to come fly with us directly... perhaps its an example of service recovery because what would attract you to buy direct with them the next time??

 

[Caversham04]

Op-up on Sunday 15th Feb on VA720, PER-ADL - called while waiting in the lounge. Nice meal (barramundi) and a large dent put into bottles of Chardonnay and Shiraz....... was originally planning on sleeping all the way back in Row 3, but was more than happy to stay awake and sample J hospitality

 

[superpang]

Just checked in online and got bumped to Club World from World Traveller Plus for a LHR - ORD flight tomorrow .......my first upgrade in a very very long time

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Just checked in online and got bumped to Club World from World Traveller Plus for a LHR - ORD flight tomorrow .......my first upgrade in a very very long time

Were you able to get a 'decent' seat in CW ie aisle or window or are you stuck in the middle?

 

[superpang]

Were you able to get a 'decent' seat in CW ie aisle or window or are you stuck in the middle?

All good I got myself a window .....looks like there are plenty of seats left

 

[wandering_fred]

The results of my mid March trip were interesting. Over and above the paid for upgrades on UL (2 pf 4 successful) my transition to CX seems to be "profitable". SIN-BKK and CMB-HKG both found an operational need to move from Y to PEY. You might say that's not a biggie. But on CMB-HKG it's enough to add some extra sleep on the (now direct) red-eye.

And Z class on MH (BKK-KUL-CMB) was cheap enough to not worry about the MH bidding for upgrade and guaranteed a few SCs on QF, allowing for a start to retain QF SG - should I be so inclined.

Happy wandering

Fred

 

[JessicaTam]

I had quietly settled into 4D (737-800) on a recent QF flight when the CSM approached me after take-off. She had seen that I had had a couple of service failures recently and would like to make it up to me. I was ushered forward to 3D with all the benefits associated with J. I also walked off the plane with 2 bottles of wine!

I think that is my third mid-air op-up. I have only ever had one beep at the gate.

 

[clazman]

I dream of a upgrade

 

[Dr_Fliptop]

I dream of a upgrade 

Me too! In 268 flights over 15 years, I have only ever got one op-up. That was a PER-MEL and I was a WP at the time.

 

[wooley]

I received a lovely gesture from Qantas the other day... which I'll (very cleverly) name the "op-down"..

On checking in at ADL, a lovely lady whom had the personality of a 2B pencil, and a smile which could only melt butter on a 48 degree day in Oodnadatta , informed me that due to some operational constraints I'll have to be moved from 7C, that's not so bad I though and I humbly agreed, then it hit me... I'll be seated in 27E, BUT I'll have an entire row to myself. Not so bad...

So, priority check in, one of the first on plane, whole row, world peace, long flight, headphones in, spread out, puppies and kittens, I can manage, beautiful, not a worry in the world.... WRONG! ..after boarding was complete I found myself stuck between two exceptionally large individuals with an odour not to different to that of a 3 days deceased wildebeest rolled in blue cheese.

and the kicker... 7C was empty

Glad my allegiance to Qantas is finally getting me somewhere...

 

[trixydoza]

Struggled to read after the "whom", but just for sheets and goggles:

With supposedly the entire row to yourself, why would you settle for the middle seat? I'd go for for 27D...

Even assuming you could see 7C the whole time, it being empty doesn't preclude "operational constraints".

Or maybe Ms. 2B picked up on your vibe and wanted to spare 7B.

 

[wooley]

Struggled to read after the "whom", but just for sheets and goggles:

With supposedly the entire row to yourself, why would you settle for the middle seat? I'd go for for 27D...

Even assuming you could see 7C the whole time, it being empty doesn't preclude "operational constraints".

Or maybe Ms. 2B picked up on your vibe and wanted to spare 7B.

It was meant to be an entertaining anecdote, let me be...

Although, hindsight is a beautiful thing, I probably should have realised her witchcraft when she put me in the middle seat...

In fact there was a whole lot of empty seats that flight, maybe you're right about sparing 7B, I probably looked horrific after the work function the night before. Good call, trixydoza.

Interesting experience none the less.

 

[Mr_Orange]

It was meant to be an entertaining anecdote, let me be...

Although, hindsight is a beautiful thing, I probably should have realised her witchcraft when she put me in the middle seat...

In fact there was a whole lot of empty seats that flight, maybe you're right about sparing 7B, I probably looked horrific after the work function the night before. Good call, trixydoza.

Interesting experience none the less.

I think I would still be giving feedback to QF. You were 'sold' the seat move on the grounds that you had a whole row to yourself. This was not the case. You were lied to. This is not the first report of QF staff lying about the reasons for a seat change. The seat change in itself is acceptable as QF reserve that right, however the lying by staff is totally unacceptable.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

I think I would still be giving feedback to QF. You were 'sold' the seat move on the grounds that you had a whole row to yourself. This was not the case. You were lied to. This is not the first report of QF staff lying about the reasons for a seat change. The seat change in itself is acceptable as QF reserve that right, however the lying by staff is totally unacceptable.

It's often not lying, but stupidity.

After they have moved the pax to his own row, other staff and the Altea system put other pax beside them. Happens all the time.

 

[docjames]

I had quietly settled into 4D (737-800) on a recent QF flight when the CSM approached me after take-off. She had seen that I had had a couple of service failures recently and would like to make it up to me. I was ushered forward to 3D with all the benefits associated with J. I also walked off the plane with 2 bottles of wine!

I think that is my third mid-air op-up. I have only ever had one beep at the gate.

What were the service failures?

 

[JessicaTam]

What were the service failures?

Let's just say that they were 'catering' related.