Waitlisting for upgrades - your experience?

[aus_flyer]

I am keen to find out what level of success people have had with waitlisted international upgrades.

Thoughts?

 

[oz_mark]

No luck at all at getting these.

Last international flight I took, business class was full of staff from a travel company - I assume they all scored upgrades.

 

[serfty]

There were significant changes to this internationally last week and really the Jury is still out on this.

The only real thing we know is that your Elite status will have a significant effect on your chances.

There's some recent infomation here from another forum: Tips needed to up chances of upgrade ...

 

[NM]

My recent experiences (April/May) before the changes:

LAX-JFK: waitlisted about 3 weeks before the flight. Cleared 2 days before flight. Business to First Class for 8,000 points

LHR-MEL: waitlisted about 3 weeks before the flight. Cleared some time in the few hours before the flight (not cleared when I tried to check in at FRA, was by the time I reached LHR Flight Connections transfer desk). Business to First for 55,000 points. SIN-MEL section was showing F0A0 for several weeks. The f cabin was full for the SIN-MEL sector, 3 or 4 seats free for LHR-SIN sector.

MEL-SYD: Z was available 3 weeks prior when I requested so no waitlist. Business to First for 5000 points. I was the only passenger in the F cabin for that flight.

And from November last year:
SYD-LAX: Waitlisted 7 days before flight. Cleared 5 days before flight. Business to First for 4 x Upgrade Credits.

If my next ticket gets issued today I will be joining the waitlist for SYD-LAX in F for a flight next week. I will let you know if that is successful.

I guess I have been successful on about 80% of my international upgrade waitlists. But I do try to select the flights/dates/times that are more likely to have space in F (ie avoid Friday-Monday flights).