Avianca / LifeMiles - upgrades ?

[juddles]

G'day there anyone reading this.

Probably a long shot to get help in Australia re this neck of the woods, but have not been able to get any advice in South America.

Have started to do a fair bit of flying on Avianca within South America. I recently attained the dizzy heights of "Silver"with their FF program "LifeMiles", one of the perks of which is apparenly "unlimited space available upgrades".

I took the chance of booking an economy (not sale) fare MDE-BOG hoping for an upgrade and got to the airport and no go. I asked if there was space, and yes, there wasn't a single other businees passenger! Asked about the upgrade and the reply was that it is a automatic procedure and staff cannot do anything about it. Ended up paying for J.

Has anyone out there ever been upgraded via Avianca/LifeMiles? All staff can tell me is that it is done automatically but they don't know how/when/why.

Anyone?

Cheers,
Juddles

[JohnK]

I have a funny feeling this airline and FF program are going to be a lot more popular in the not too distant future.