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A deceptively simple question, without a simple answer. For starters, not all upgrades are the same. There are the “unlimited free domestic upgrades” for elites at Continental, but good luck getting them on a popular route, especially if you’re not an ultra top-tier frequent flyer. There are the electronic certificates (e.g., at United Airlines), which improve your chances if you’re a low-rung elite, but you still need to sweat it out, often at the gate. Then there’s the option of using miles. But how successful are travelers at actually GETTING the upgrade?

To really answer the question, we need empirical data, which the airlines are not about to volunteer. A few websites are stepping up to the plate, but they all have a way to go:

UpgradeSuccess.com is building a searchable database of upgrade requests and their successes and failures for the major US airlines. The data are still pretty thin (Northwest has the most data, with just under 1000 flight segments) but the site has an option for sorting the results by elite status. If there were more flights entered into the system, it might be nice to sort by flight route, too.

Looking more globally, WebFlyer maintains an index for both award tickets and upgrades, ranking the airlines in both aggregate and monthly terms. But they don’t tell us how many segments have actually been entered. (n=??) Looking at Webflyer’s May upgrade data, there are only three airlines listed, with Air Canada showing 0% and American showing 100%. I’m pretty sure that Air Canada’s flyers are doing better than that, and American’s are doing worse. The site also collapses domestic and international flights, so you’re comparing domestic U.S. upgrades to first class with, say, trans-Pacific upgrades from coach to business class. (The latter is much more desirable than an upgrade from Chicago to Detroit.)

Both of these sites can only function with your help. So go, enter your segments! Tell them when you tried to upgrade, when you failed, and when you succeeded. Improve the data. It’ll be doing everyone a public service, and maybe in a year or so we can empirically say which airline is best for upgrades. At least for that year.

tags: travel | air travel | upgrades | first class | business class