flying_kate

Looking to book two tickets IAD to GVA (September 2010 departure) and because it is overnight, would like to upgrade to BC. We have reward points but not enough to get an upgrade. Which airline generally charges the least to upgrade to BC or requires the least number of reward points? Thanks to all.

Gardyloo

Which airline are your points with? In general you can only use miles to upgrade on flights operated by the airline that issued the miles, not any partner carriers.

Airlines have totally different rules on upgrading with miles. Some allow you to upgrade off any coach fare, provided you use miles and a hefty "co-pay"; others don't charge a co-pay but require you buy a more expensive "underlying" coach fare.

J62

I've only tried a few times, but I've generally found it very difficult to upgrade to BC on international flights even though I had a lot of miles.

I read somewhere that airlines are loathe to make it easy for mileage holders to upgrade, lest sales for actual BC seats goes down. There are billions of accrued FF miles floating around out there.

MLTimes

This doesn't help your routing (because in the *A network you'd be on United), but US has GoEnvoy, which is $400-700 per seat/per direction to upgrade from coach to Envoy, done 24 hours prior to departure. US also has a miles + money Envoy upgrade option that can be done any time after booking.

I'm also going to give some unsolicited general advice:

As you are reading and asking questions on tihs board and others, make sure you are looking at posts that talk about upgrading to "C" or "J", which are Business Class fare buckets and how many frequent fliers refer to these seats. Fare buckets are also important because, different airlines refer to their product differently (eg, "Envoy" not "business class" on US).

Also, understanding the different fare buckets and their limitations and rules is crucial. It's not just refundable/non-refundable. Some coach buckets aren't upgradeable at all, and some don't even accrue miles at 100%.

mztery

US is in the *A unless they JUST jumped ship.

But the larger main point is true - the "points" are usually with an airline or an airline alliance. So which alliance are you using?
UA just started a points plus cash upgrade system so you might check that out.

MLTimes

What I was trying to convey is that among the *A, the OP would probably fly UA, not US, because UA has a direct routing and US would require 2 stops.

Also, to reiterate what Gardyloo said, within an alliance like *A, you can't use miles banked in one carrier's program for upgrades on another carrier (eg, you cant use US miles to upgrade on BA, CO or UA; you can only use US miles to "buy up" to Envoy). Points aren't usually with an alliance but with a particular carrier within the alliance.

mztery

You can now get starA upgrade awards but they are on the higher fares.