Monday, February 13, 2012

Airline upgrade tricks

After missing to add up my air miles for lot of my past travels some time back on the advice of some of my colleagues I started to collect up air miles. So when I made my last travel I became a Skywards Silver of Emirates Air lines loyalty program.

All my friends kept on insisting that I should ask for a complementary upgrade when checking in. So although its not something that I had tried earlier I decided I am going to give it a try. So I went in smiled at the lady at the counter and inquired "Hi, How you you doing?" and then tried to be casual as possible and popped the question "Do you have complementary upgrades today?". I am sure she has been asked this about 1000 times she smiled and replied "No sir, we do upgrades only when the flights are full"! So I walked away cursing all of those who advised me to do this. Then I arrived at the transit point, the boarding pass had an invite to the business lounge of the air lines at Dubai but I didn't take the trouble to find where it was. I was loitering in the duty free and then went in for boarding. The lady at the desk said, "We have an upgrade for you"! Was a bit confused whether I got this since I asked or not, after doing a bit of fact finding I found out that, following seems to be the best possible way to get an upgrade.

1. Get in to the frequent flyer program and collect up air miles, more the better.
2. Try to get in to a flight which is full. If its a flight which you get wait listed and then get a seat the chances are even more. Specially if you are a Silver or Gold member you would get priority in the waiting list and then also priority in getting complementary air tickets.
3. Then of course I hear some say, be probably dressed. Which I doubt I was in a pair of bata slippers. Probably more than the dress code, be nice to the crew at the check in counter.

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