Another one for you on ALTEA.
Is the Status upgrade purely based on actual status or is there some other criteria.
eg. is a Plat Partner Gold separate to a Plat
is a 5,000 SC Plat treated more highly than a 1,400SC Plat
is someone who flew QF F SYD-JFK x times higher than someone who has earnt most points with AA/BA
how are other oneworld cards treated eg Qantas Plat v AA Exec Plat.
A WP is a WP and
generally won't matter how many SC you have, same thing with Partner Gold, they would just be the same as any other SG
Edit: Also depending on how many J seats there are and if there are seats together, they will upgrade the single travellers first, then the people travelling with others, as then they would generally complain about no sitting next to each other even though they get a free upgrade and then play the DYKWIA card.
What routes are most-common for massive Y overbooking (eg the 60 example for MEL-HKG). I am guessing the answer is most routes over school holidays where there is lower J/F bookings.
At the moment i've seen alot of MEL-SYD Y overbookings around 1700-1830, only around 20-40 as alot of those move to earlier flights due to flexible fares, and when they depart they generally have around 20 seats free!
SIN-LHR usually has a high oversell rate too due to a high no-show factor
The QF9 mel-sin and QF93 mel-lax have had a few over bookings (around 10-15) but not that many as J, F and W are all generally pretty full. So they would cap the amount of Y seats to oversell.
And lets say that Y is full (not oversold) and J, W is open, they will onload the staff with the upgradable fares into these seats. They won't op-up more Y pax to fit the staff on.
As for F staff travel, the only staff that have this are the Captains and GM's and some managers.