One of the tropes you\u2019ll find brandished in the mainstream media is that dressing nice, letting the gate agent know that you\u2019re on a honeymoon, or uttering the words \u201crevenue management<\/a>\u201d will score you a free upgrade. Of course you probably know that\u2019s all a bunch of crap. Airline upgrades don\u2019t work that way and gate agents who play those kinds of shenanigans are disciplined and may end up losing their job.<\/p>\n At a hotel you can usually use the $20 trick<\/a> for a an upgrade, but trying that at the gate just won\u2019t work. Trust me. So how do you get an edge? Spoiler alert, there is an airline equivalent to the $20 trick that doesn\u2019t involve a crooked gate agent. Let\u2019s call it the \u201cjump-the-bucket\u201d trick. Catchy right? Right? Ok, I know it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n All major US airlines with a first class cabin onboard have some sort of upgrade program for their elite flyers, and there\u2019s a well defined order to which elites are upgraded to the big seat upfront and with what priority. Just because it\u2019s well defined doesn\u2019t mean that airlines publish specific terms and conditions though. Rather, airlines speak about priorities in generalities and as a result it can be a trick to suss out how it really works. To compound the complexity, each airline has slightly different policies and sometimes upgrade instruments get into the mix too.<\/p>\n The major US carriers do share one thing in common for elite upgrades: different ticket fare buckets<\/em> have different upgrade priorities, and you can hack your way into a higher upgrade priority with the \u201cjump-the-bucket\u201d trick.<\/p>\n Ok, so fare buckets matter for upgrades, but WTF is a fare bucket? The boring definition is that each bucket is a letter (like S<\/em>, or J<\/em>) or pair of letters (like OW<\/em>) that corresponds with a given fare on file in their systems. There isn\u2019t a standard for buckets on all airlines, but they do share a lot in common. First class fare buckets are often Z<\/em> or F<\/em>, and economy buckets are often S<\/em>, L<\/em>,<\/span><\/span> Y<\/em>, and B<\/em> for example. Typically there are around 20 fare buckets per airline.<\/p>\n Fare buckets also have a hierarchy. F<\/em> > Z<\/em>, and Y<\/em> > B<\/em> > M<\/em>. See the pattern? Nah, me neither. That\u2019s ok though. You don\u2019t need to memorize the hierarchy, just know that it exists and how to find it.<\/p>\n And now my friends, you\u2019ve got enough background to understand how to game the upgrade lottery. When airlines process upgrades, one of the universal tie breakers is your segment\u2019s fare bucket. To win that battle you just have to make sure you\u2019re in a higher bucket than the other guy. Unfortunately that\u2019s not free, but it\u2019s usually less than $20 or so to jump to the next bucket when you book a ticket. Even better, it\u2019s almost a certainty that no elites on your plane have booked into anything other than the cheapest bucket that was available when they bought their ticket. (There\u2019s a small wrench here, sometimes government contracts and big business contracts will book into high buckets per the specific terms of their agreement with the airline. That usually doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re not going to or from DC though, especially during peak leisure travel.)<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s talk about how to jump-the-bucket with ITA Matrix:<\/p>\n 1. Search ITA Matrix<\/a> for your desired flight Example: I searched for a Delta direct flight between Los Angeles (LAX) and Chicago O\u2019Hare (ORD) on Sept 10, and picked the cheapest flight that wasn\u2019t basic economy since those fares aren\u2019t upgrade eligible. In this case, it was an economy flight in fare bucket V<\/em>, which you can see in my example ITA Matrix search at the end of the line in parentheses after the word \u201cEconomy\u201d:<\/p>\n Now I need to find which bucket has a higher priority than V<\/em>. On Delta, that would be X<\/em>. (See the next section for priorities. I don\u2019t memorize this and I bet you don\u2019t want to either.) So, to continue with the prior steps:<\/p>\n 4. Determine the next higher fare bucket (see next section) \u2014 in my case X<\/em> Side tip<\/em>: Remember how I glossed over searching for a flight that wasn\u2019t basic economy in my example? Well, basic economy on Delta is fare bucket E<\/em>, and you can enter \u201cf ~bc=E<\/em>\u201d to tell ITA matrix to ignore any fares in the E bucket. The tilde means \u201cnot\u201d.<\/p>\n In this particular example, an X<\/em> bucket fare was $145.20 which is exactly $13 more than the V<\/em> bucket. If I book this itinerary, I\u2019ll be ahead of similar leveled elites that booked the cheapest fare they could, which is probably all of them provided the bucket was available when they booked.<\/p>\n Cool eh? Cheaper than the $20 trick, and personally I\u2019ve had great success with this technique in the past.<\/p>\n One last gotcha: Sometimes different segments each have their own fare bucket. That\u2019s ok too, just use the Multi-city tab on ITA Matrix and enter fare codes segment-by-segment and you\u2019ll get what you\u2019re after. <\/p>\nElite Upgrades in the US<\/h3>\n
Fare Buckets<\/h3>\n
Jumping-the-Bucket<\/h3>\n
2. Pick your desired itinerary
3. Look at which fare buckets the itinerary has<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-3-1024x282.png\")
5. Return to the main ITA Matrix<\/a> booking page
6. Enter your desired cities and dates again
7. Click \u201cAdvanced controls\u201d to turn them on if they\u2019re not already on
8. Tell ITA Matrix that you want a specific fare bucket (booking code) by entering \u201cf bc=X\u201d<\/em> in the \u201cOutbound extension codes\u201d and \u201cReturn extension codes\u201d. Replace X<\/em> with the appropriate fare bucket as needed.
9. Click through to find your itinerary
10. Cut and paste your itinerary into bookwithmatrix.com<\/a> to book<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-4-1024x282.png\")
Airline Fare Bucket Priorities<\/h3>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/bucket.png\")