Quite a lot of airlines will do at check-in upgrades for a few hundred bucks. Some airlines will even do it on board with a credit card swipe!

Singapore Airlines definitely isn't one of them though.

The SIN - KL flight was fantastic! You could buy a 'first class' ticket for about $20 more than the economy fare which allowed you to drink your own body weight in Krug in the Silver Kris lounge. Sadly I think they sell it as business now and no longer have Krug in the first class lounge.

Frequent flyers with the airline get upgraded first basically - the chances of an ordinary punter getting one are more or less zilch. If they do get to that point, they will take couples or singles that look the part also [forget it if you have kids].

I've managed two; one was at an Arab airport where the station manager for BA knew the company I worked for very well, the other was in Jamaica on the way back after mentioning to the hotel manager how bad the service was on the outbound flight [it turned out the hotel/resort owner also owned the airline].

20 odd years ago I paid extra to fly Concorde to London from the Middle East and promptly met a friend I knew who had been bumped from the normal BA flight to Concorde due to overbooking ! Now THAT is an upgrade.

Try checking in just before check in closes. If economy is overbooked and there's a spare seat in business they might just bump you up. It's happened to me and few times but granted, I have had platinum freq flyer with the airline.

I was bumped up once flying BA from Aus to the UK. Somebody with the same name as me was also the flight. I checked in, he tried to check in and was told that he had already checked in, he disputed that so they gave him another boarding card.

The flight from Aus to Singapore wasn't full so he sat behind me. It was only on the Singapore - UK leg there were problems so they stuck me in business.

So there you go, try to find someone else with the same name

Same here.

Queue up last and you never know your luck although this only happened to me coming to Australia and not the other way round.

Singapore air treated me badly as a PAYING business passenger.

In the days of business class being split up and downstairs they wanted me to sit in the downstairs section despite there being seats in the rather more lovely upper section.

I put it down to my appearance at the time, leaving qld mid summer ,clothes suitable for 36 degree heat and hair freaked out by the rampant humidity I guess I did look jon bon jovi mid concert in 1970.

I got my seat up top, but they still stuck me in the back corner away from the suited people

Qantas on the other hand often upgrade me, its happened 3 times. Last month the entire plane was stuck in a hotel overnight after being hit by lightning, diverted to canberra, then onward flight cancelled. At the hotel a few had to go to premier suites not rooms and we got pulled out for the upgrade, total luxury

>> Last month the entire plane was stuck in a hotel overnight<<

Problem navigating the taxiways?

You know qantas



Seriously it was a crazy experience.

Left melb for bris via sydney FF points. Board melbourne, pilot says smooth flight to sunny sydney, erm right, almost 2 hours later we feel like weve been going in circles for ages, should have landed half hour ago, huge storm has hit sydney. Another hour later we get off the plane.

We assume we have missed connecting flight, except that plane was hit by lightning and diverted to canberra but coming back to sydney to get us, fast forward 3 hours and its obviously not coming back anytime soon

Qantas staff?? erm nope, finally they arrive and a angry stampede of passengers hit the qantas counter, most of them shouting

200+ passeners told to dial qantas to rebook, number busy of course

Finally we get to a hotel, after a dash for a bus thats overbooked...

Hotel gives us a glass of tap water, warm and we wait an hour.

Hotel discovers not enough rooms, time somewhere between midnight and 1 am now, people shouting and ranting..

We were quite calm, were in no rush to get back to vegas anyway, I then act all ladylike and give up our room to a couple with a baby and screaming toddler, just to stop the noise really

Gone 1am we land the premier suite and breakfast. 2 of our seats the next day were business class.

It would have been quicker to drive from melb to brisbane

Let it not be said your overall Australian experience is a bad one. I won't hear it!..

My folks managed an upgrade to Business on Emirates on one occassion.

But only after heir departure from Brisbane was delayed by 24 hours (they werent informed until they got to check in) and then they took and unscheduled deour through Jakarta to pick up some stranded passengers on the way to Singapore.

They were bumped to business from Dubai to London - in all the journey took close to 40 hours (once it actually started) - but they didnt complain.

There were plenty of other passengers caught in the same dilema - but obviously only a lucky few got the upgrade. (This was Jan '04? I think)

thanks for the laugh, I will wallow in economy then. Hopefully it wont be full. Have booked mid aisle seat and the other side was gone with 2 free in middle, hoping now one will book it.

Jo

Whenever the plane's been full all we've been offered is to be bumped off not upgraded!

Had an upgrade with EK a few times only because of knowing someone who knew someone and on SIA using Krisflyer points - saved for years but it was worth it and only on the SIN-MEL section. Also used them on the PER-SIN but that was a waste as it was on a 777 and back then biz was more like premium economy. The 747 was brilliant but sadly it will be many years before I get the points again!

However, I like SIA economy out of all the airlines so reasonably happy to sit at the back although I did like the 747-400's as you used to get those 4 rows of just two seats at the back which meant I only had to climb over hubs to go to the loo (I like a window seat). A380 always is booked out so have to go downstairs in the 3 seats.

The other thing you could do is to have really, really swollen ankles before boarding and ask then. We attended the Singapore Airshow years ago and a colleague couldn't cope with the heat all week and really was suffering, they rang the airline and she got an upgrade as she had to keep her legs stretched out but I think she may have had a doctors note. However, that didn't work on BA the time I got bitten on my legs by something evil in the Caribbean and they made me sit in economy and had to spend the whole flight with legs stretched out over hubbys legs.

Anyway, if you don't get an upgrade do let the crew know you are a nervous flyer and they will take care of you.

KK

Downside of this is they could take a look and suggest that perhaps you are not fit to fly and insist you see a doctor. If the doctor says you need to stretch out they might refuse to let you on board at all!

I had an earache on a SIA flight and they wanted me to get checked out for swine flu

I know what would happen to me if I checked in last, I would get the middle seat between two biggest loser contestants