When you’re a family of five hopping across the Atlantic like it’s a quick run to Costco, you rack up points fast. We renew our 50K status with Air Canada every year without even trying, which also gifts us that shiny Star Alliance Gold badge. Sounds glamorous, right? Lounge access (cute, but if you’re already flying business or premium economy, it’s included), priority boarding (also usually included), extra luggage allowance (adorable, but we’re carry-on or bust people)…
The real drama starts when it’s time to use the perks, especially those famous eUpgrades.
So picture this: last year, we booked five business-class seats to London using an automatic eUpgrade. We paid for premium economy (the fancy, top-tier version, at top $) and poof, instantly upgraded to business. Saved about $500 per ticket, burned 12 eUpgrade credits each, and felt like we cracked the airline matrix.
Fast-forward to four hours before takeoff: I get a text saying the plane has changed and our business seats have been reassigned. Annoying, but fine. Then… one hour later… another ping: we’ve been downgraded to economy.
Economy.
Why? Because the new aircraft didn’t even have a business cabin. Just premium economy. And guess who gets priority when things go sideways? People who paid the full fare for business or premium economy — not the slightly-too-smart family who paid extra for premium economy specifically to guarantee their upgrade.
Now sprinkle in the fact that this was Thursday night before spring break, every flight was overbooked, and we needed five seats together. You can imagine the chaos. Rebooking only got us premium economy on other flights since “that’s the fare we purchased.” (Yes, the fare we strategically purchased for the confirmed upgrade. Insert deep sigh.)
To be fair, we’ve also booked economy-to-NYC flights on points with zero drama. So it’s not always turbulent.
And because we love to test our luck, we just booked five business-class tickets to Paris for Christmas week, using points only. Full disclosure: the flight is next week. If this turns into a sequel of last year’s saga, trust me… I’ll update this post with popcorn-worthy details.
Zone 1 Boarding 