RTW Upgrades

[AviationNZ]

Hi,

I travel for work a couple of times a year on either oneWorld or Global explorer fares, usually heading from Sydney to North America first, then up to the UK and back to Sydney. I am travelling again in October/November and looking at my options for business upgrades on the two long legs.

I have decided to head to SFO instead of LAX because I saw in a few posts people suggested this leg has better chances, but I am a little concerned about the LHR - SYD leg. I will be travelling on this between the 22nd and 25th of November, and would obviously like the best chance of a business upgrade. I see on SeatCounter that most C, D, I & J classes are fairly empty round these dates but wondered if there was any other option such as my heading to SFO on the North American leg???

I am a QC Silver and would appeciate any advice.

Thanks.

 

[GDSman]

In my experience the closest to the SYD-SFO route for upgrade opportunity is flying LON-HKG-SYD and avoiding SIN and BKK. This will vary depending on season and major events etc but I've had reasonable luck there in the past.

 

[NM]

You could consider taking QF6 from FRA. I did that once when it was a 3-class for a better chance for a J->F upgrade (and was successful).

And avoid weekends. Most weekends, all flights from London to Australia are full in business class (and often on economy as well).

 

[Danger]

In May and June of this year I flew on a oneworld explorer fare. I left Australia on 1 May after booking on 31 March. I was successful in obtaining upgrades for all three of my Qantas legs: QF29 MEL-HKG (Tuesday); QF9 SIN-LHR, and; QF12 LAX-SYD. I was obviously flying in a different direction to you but I am also silver status.

 

[Va Bene]

Can someone help me interpret the Seatcounter website info. I have found the class codes for QF through an earlier thread, however I don't understand the relevance of the numbers at Seatcounter.com as there are heaps of 9's so surely this isn't the number of available seats for these fare classes.
I'm looking for the possibility of upgrading from Y to J MEL-LHR on 14/9 QF29.
Thanks.

 

[Danger]

Thanks to someone here on FF previously answering the same question for me, I think I can help. As I understand no airline is willing to show exactly how many empty seats they have available on any one flight. In the case of Qantas, the most number of empty seats they will show is 9, even if in reality there are many more seats available (other airlines may have different maximum numbers that they publish). Again, thanks to other information previously obtained from this forum, the only real way to know how many empty seats are in a particular fare bucket is if the corresponding number is 0 (eg. J0). Note, however, that the numbers can change fairly regularly.

 

[AviationNZ]

Thanks for the help.

The seatcounter information has a maximum of 9 no matter how many seats are available. The best idea is to look at all the relevant classes and if there are 9 in each one, then that generally means there are plenty of seats left.

 

[NM]

Also note that an I seat is probably also available for sale as D and J. So if you see J9 D9 I9 that does not mean 27 seats. The same 9 setas in I are also available for sale as D or J fares. The more seats available in the discounted fare buckets (such as D and I) the better the chances of an upgrade clearing. When J is much higher than D and when I is zero, it is safe to expect that Qantas believe they can sell the remaining J seats for real money so less chance for an upgrade.

 

[serfty]

Here's a very good thread that explains these fare buckets: Understanding Expert Flyer

As for QF29 on September 14th:

MEL-HKG: F4 A3 J9 C9 D1 I0 B9 H9 K3 M0 R0 L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 X0 E0

HKG-LHR: F2 A2 J9 C9 D1 I0 B9 H9 K9 M9 R0 L9 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 X0 E0

MEL-LHR: F2 A2 J9 C8 D2 I0 B9 H9 K9 M0 R0 L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 X0 E0

 

[Evan]

Busy busy ! Looks like that plane is going to be full !
Pretty normal situation in the last 6+ months, very full flights.

In the Straits Times (SIN) today there is an artical about flights in Nov/Dec from SIN/AU being booked out already ! Or only the very expensive seats left. It was refering to SQ/QF as to very busy airlines.

E