How to get free upgrades in flights? 2


Tips To Get Free Upgrades In Flights

Everyone loves surprises, especially when you are gifted by a flight attendant with a boarding pass with a very low row number, indicating an upgrade. First class upgrades are on most account doled out by a number of metrics, like one handed to the highest-ranking elite flier or the person who cashed in his/her miles.Ā However, there are some hard and soft tactics toĀ get upgraded to first class for free.

Fly on Holidays

If you are booking a flight on a bank holiday when business users are less likely to fly, you are likely to be upgraded in order to fill those vacant first class rows.Sometimes, on a full flight when the airlines are forced to upgrade people to accommodate everybody on the flight, your chances are better than your fellow travelers.

Join Airlineā€™s Loyalty Club

Even if you are not a frequent traveller, you must become a member of an airline frequent-flyer club. Then you will receive upgrade opportunities. Moreover, if airport staff is looking to upgrade passengers on the day of departure, then they will generally prefer passengers who are frequent flyers of the airline. It is a fact, that passengers who have paid more for their tickets have relatively more chance to be upgraded than passengers who have bought a discounted ticket.

Check your emails

Sometimes, airlines send emails on the day of departure offering a cheap (not free) upgrade. So read-through your emails even up to a couple of hours before you fly.

Check your Seat

Before taking a seat, make sure your armrests, recliner, seat belt and tray table are in working condition. If they are broken, inform the flight attendant who will reassign a seat –and it could be to first class.

Be Early

Your flight may only have one or two upgrade places available, so maximize your chances of bagging them by rocking up at check-in ten hours before the scheduled departure Sometimes, you can maximize your potential by being hours before the scheduled departure or take the risk of arriving just in time if the flight is overbooked to get a fair chance of an upgrade.

Dress up

Remember, an upgrade will put you into the posh cabins, so while an old T-shirt and flip-flops might be comfortable, an airline is less likely to put you in with its top-paying customers if you don’t look the part. Leave the tracksuit at home and dress as if youā€™ve just been browsing the FT in the exec lounge ā€“ either full-on formal or business casual does the job.

Special Occasion

If it is your special occasion like birthday, honeymoon or anniversary, let the cabin crew know. You might get an upgrade, if not then you will surely get a free drink.

There is a lot of ifs and buts when patience and luck is on play, like if there is one vacant first class seat and if you are travelling alone, there is a fair chance.If you have had an inconvenience due the airline, you can politely or be ā€œmadā€ to ask for an upgrade. Ā Sometimes a faulty entertainment system or a certain harassment appeal against our neighbor can improve your chances for an upgrade. Sometimes, you can maximize your potentialby being hours before the scheduled departure or take the risk of arriving just in time if the flight is overbooked to get a fair chance of an upgrade. Sometimes, influential travel agents can book their customers into preferred seats and even check for free upgrades.

Try your luck, dress well, be courteous and if youā€™ve got a genuine reasonsuch as being exceptionally tall, pregnant, or even celebrating a honeymoon,Ā a please, might just do it, you never know.


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2 thoughts on “How to get free upgrades in flights?

  • Neville and Claudia Blumrick

    Good day! We are flying to the United States from Cape Town on Turkish Airlines on 7 March and back from Atlanta, Georgia arriving in Cape Town on 7 May. I need help with some things. I read that our laptops need to be packed in our luggage and not taken in our hand luggage. How does this work? Coming from Africa, we never do this!
    We are in Istanbul for 8 hours. We were not thinking of leaving the airport, so do we need to get a Turkish Passport?
    Thank you very much

  • Therese Fernando

    Hi,
    I will be flying to Melbourne on the 2nd of November. After a fall,I developed Vertigo and am taking things slowly. I am planning to request air hostess’.assistance and a wheelchair as I am still not fully recovered
    It will be greatly appreciated if I could have an upgrade due to my ill health
    Thank you
    Therese S Fernando.