Interesting to read the thread about hotel upgrades. But how do you get an upgrade from Cattle Class to Club/Business/First?

Going from Good Probability to the Highly unlikely...

1) Use miles to upgrade your ticket - depending on airline
2) Use an upgrade instrument (certificate) - again depending on airline
3) Elite Status gets you to the front of the queue when economy is overbooked
4) Date/marry an airline employee
5) If the whole flight is over booked offer to be bumped in exchange for an upgrade on the next flight + cash!
6) Let the airline know in advance of a special occasion (honeymoon for example)
7) Check-in last - if economy is then full now's your chance
8) Ask at check-in - although they will probably want cash.

pc has a pretty good list. If you're asking about upgrades for free, those are essentially nonexistant. If the airlines did that on a consistent basis, they'd severely undercut their ability to sell those high-priced seats in the front.

The ONLY time I've seen those in recent memory was on international flights when economy was still oversold once everyone got on board, and the airline elected to upgrade a few people to the front (although it was very difficult to tell what criteria was used).

Twenty eyars ago, we were upgraded on a flight back from Portugal. We still don't know why, although we suspect it was because were were among the few passengers who didn't seem to be carrying small dogs.

I was upgraded once on Cathay Pacific from Bangkok to Singapore simply because I was a single traveler and economy was filled with a very large school group. They upgraded everyone they else to business class, which I thought was a classy move. I doubt that would happen today; this was in 2003.

The single best thing you can do is get elite status with an airline. This will:

1) Provide you with some means of space-available upgrades within the domestic US (US programs only).
2) Sometimes (depending upon the program), provide you with some upgrade certificates of varying flexibility.
3) Put you at the front of the line for an upgrade in an oversold situation.
4) Give you access to poor-man's business class, i.e. preferred seating.

For example, the wife and I are Platinum elite on Delta/NW. We travel mostly internationally. Last year, we used certificates to upgrade one trans-Atlantic trip, we were upgraded due to an oversold situation in coach on 2 other trips, we received complimentary domestic/Mexico upgrades on 2 other trips, and sat in exit rows with unlimited seat pitch and 2-abreast seating for the other trips.

We try to travel on the same airline whenever we fly which allows us to accumulate miles with them. We like to upgrade on our way over on our vacations. It makes the flight more relaxing and gets the vacation started on a good tone. We've been able to do this twice in the past and had to wait until the day before for the airline to release the first class seats for mile upgrades. This year we called about a month in advance and were able to get a one way upgrade for miles. I wonder if the economy has made people not want to use miles for upgrades.