Why does Jet Airways staff not process upgrades?

I usually do not prefer using my upgrade certificates from Jet Airways on domestic flights, however, sometimes I do like to take it easy and get myself on the list for a two hour long flight as well.

Last weekend, me and my brother were flying on them to Delhi to meet the family. And I’d called in a few days in advance to put the both of us on the upgrade list. Like is the usual, I was told, that there were no upgrade seats available at the moment, and we would be put on the upgrade waitlist for this flight.

The upgrade waitlist on 9W is never to be seen by passengers, unlike the American legacy airlines who put it out on the boards for you to see your chances for upgrade as a passenger.

We never heard back on the confirmation of our upgrades, and on the day of travel, I thought I’d see if Jet Airways asks me about the upgrade vouchers or not. Jet Airways was not allowing me to check-in on the flight because they had two passengers of the same name on the flight (me in economy and me in business/waitlisted).

However, I waited and waited and waited while the check-in procedure went through, and the check-in staff did not even bring it up.

See, the flight load was light, and this was a great opportunity for them to have 2 vouchers burnt up on short-haul domestic travel, something I can use on a long-haul as well. However, they never took the initiative, and it now makes me wonder why do they act like we don’t know if we were on the list or not and go about their business like nothing happened. And this is something I notice so fairly often at Mumbai that it has stopped being funny anymore.

Anybody else had a similar experience with Jet Airways recently?

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Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Hi Sumit / AJ,

    There is a way of getting Premier class upgrade vouchers. I have my agent who sells it to me. I have been a Platinum guest for a while and I can understand the pain of this. Hence I simply buy the Upgrade vouchers from my agent and no matter what the scenario is, fly business class. Atleast i get to skip their staff’s continuous talking…

  2. Yeah,am a platinum member and it happens a lot to me as well. It’s terribly irritating and they actually make you wait till you are ready for boarding. Shameful really.

  3. Cross-posting here also, but:

    Jet seriously wouldn’t upgrade you with your vouchers ex-BOM??

    Just goes to show you that Jet doesn’t care about it’s elites any longer…

    Seriously – what is the benefit of being Plat then?

    I am just flying Star Alliance anyway now – Jet’s flights to EWR are overpriced or when you get a ticket, they only count it as one flight segment! ::mad::

  4. As a platinum, I get 5 upgrade vouchers a year.
    till last year I used to get many more vouchers thanks to the CITIBANK JET Credit Card.
    Q1. Apart from the 5 vouchers I get on getting status annually, is there is any other way of getting upgrade vouchers?
    Q2. in the last year or 2, I have not got automatically upgraded (without voucher) despite being a Platinum and seats being available. is that the norm?
    Q3. what sense does it make for Jet to have seats vacant in Premiere….

    • @Sumit

      Q1 There is no other way of getting vouchers. you can obviously ask friends and family to transfer theirs to you
      Q2 9W only upgrades if the flight is oversold in Economy (without vouchers that is)
      Q3 Jet does not have a policy of complimentary upgrades like the american airlines

  5. Well for me it always has been exactly the opposite. They’ve cocked up other things a ttimes. But upgrades have always been fine. May be it’s just luck that whom you come across on the check-in desk.

    • @Vaibhav JetPrivilege sends out vouchers to members on attainment of various tier levels every year. 1-silver, 3-gold and 5-platinum

  6. Never had a problem. Most of my travel from Bom is with 9W. If the flight is light they have always been acknowledged and offered me a upgrade against vouchers. May be holding Elite FFP status makes a difference.

  7. I have had the exact same experience on multiple flights on the MAA-del and reverse sectors. It’s inexplicable. J class goes empty but they refuse to upgrade before the flight and also during check in and at the boarding gates. Can’t see how this is cost cutting.

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