Any good tricks to try to get a business class upgrade?

My sister and brother-in-law flew with Emirates for their honeymoon. My brother-in-law said it to a flight attendant that it was their honeymoon and I believe that got them champagne and dessert sent to their cattle class seats.

I'm recently back from honeymoon and before we went, SO many people were advising us to mention that fact at any opportunity in the hotels, restaurants, on the plane etc. We thought we might, we didn't really know. A sort of "if it feels right, do it" thing. But once on honeymoon, we didn't mention it once to anyone, we just weren't bothered at all. I know in our hotel, if you look at Tripadvisor, there are countless reviews of people saying that they got champagne and cake sent to their room when they mentioned their birthday/anniversary/honeymoon/whatever so we could have got stuff. We just felt very ambivalent towards the whole practice for some reason. Felt like elaborate, high-end pan-handling to us or something.

But the upshot of my post is that it does appear to be worth mentioning your honeymoon as you may well get some nice treats because of that. Getting bumped to business class might be a bit much to expect though, the treats tend to be things that cost very little in the scheme of things. Maybe paying the €400 or so for the upgrade offer someone upthread mentioned might be worth the money as a one-in-a-lifetime experience?

One tip I will give to try and get extra leg room in cattle class is to beforehand book random cabin seats for the small bit extra and then check in super early. For our honeymoon, we checked in with Aer Lingus more than 2.5 hours before, and because we had booked seats in the cabin to guarantee my lanky husband an aisle seat, when we were checking in we were offered the exit seats for no extra than we paid. Just as our ground crew agent was about to book them for us, another agent snagged them for another passenger but it actually worked out even better for us because we were offered row 1 aisle seats. I have never had so much leg room on a flight before! I definitely think the extra legroom seats are offered preferentially to people who have paid a bit extra to book a seat in the cabin because he asked us if we had booked seats before offering us the ones with extra legroom. So for the €16 or so total that we paid to book specific seats on the plane, we got all the legroom we could have wanted by showing up early. It's worth a shot!

And actually, I'd say your best bet for getting an upgrade to business class would be to mention your honeymoon at check in too, rather than to a flight attendant who is busy with a million other things. You never know. The check in agent can have a scan of the seating to see how full business class is. But again, having paid extra to book specific seats in economy would likely boost your chances for an upgrade too. I'd say the least likely candidates for upgrade are the people who have paid the lowest amount possible.

redcup342 wrote: »

IMO upgrades to Business class are only likely when you travel by yourself, couples getting upgraded is very rare.

I've read that before, that you are much more likely to be upgraded as a solo traveller. Also upgrades tend to happen when economy is overbooked rather than when business has empty seats. I think some empty seats in business class aren't seen as an issue, as there being less people can enhance the experience of the people who have paid to be there.

Eponymous wrote: »

Why?

"Is there a doctor on-board?"

"Yes, there's one in business class, let me get him."

Finds out the passenger isn't a doctor and that might delay finding out if there's another one on board anywhere.

coylemj wrote: »

I seriously doubt the manifest tells the crew that there's someone claiming to be a doctor on board. A passenger who books as Dr. John Smith could have a Ph.D. in botany or whatever i.e. calling yourself a doctor does not imply that you can be of use in a medical emergency.

The 'title' field in a passenger booking has nothing to do with how the crew should address you and whether there are doctors on board, it's to figure out if you are a man or a woman for weight and fuel calculations, that is all.

Hey, I'm not the one who suggested that putting Dr. in the title field would bag someone an upgrade! Someone else did. Dr. doesn't indicate gender so they seemed to be suggesting that the title has cachet or something.

I'd imagine clocking that there is doctor on-board an enclosed, mile high metal tube is always useful information to have though.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yup, grand, getting off topic. This all started with someone advising giving a false title to get an upgrade, might I remind people? A tip which I doubt works and is likely to be of no practical help to the OP.

Stonedpilot wrote: »

You do realize you could have a doctorate in anything, food,music,art,science,electronics etc.


You are thinking of a medical Doctor.

Different thing altogether buddy. :rolleyes:

Er, that's still dishonest? Yes, the Dr. for doctorate thing is common knowledge.

This post has been deleted.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No advantage. If someone has their title on their passport as Dr. then they need to book their tickets under that. Unlikely to be much of an issue but they are still required to put down the right title. I was admonished for not having my passport signed passing through Dublin airport after getting off a flight. I technically was not permitted to fly without do so. Too late at that point but it could have been spotted at the airport I departed from. I was in Iceland recently and they check your passport very carefully there. They inspected both the boarding pass and passport carefully. The two need to match. It's not about benefitting the airline. It's just something that has to be done right. Most of time you'll get away with not having everything correct but not always. If things don't match, there could be questions as to why.