The Two Words That Guarantee You a Flight Upgrade, According to a Frequent Flier

Getting a flight upgrade is the holy grail in travel, with flight attendants, travel bloggers and experts all weighing in on the best ways to guarantee a bump up to first class.

Sadly it seems as though there is no sure-fire way to get that First Class seat, well, aside from actually paying for it, but there are numerous tricks you can try to blag your way there anyway.

The latest comes from a frequent flier who insists that the use of two special words are likely to aid her ambitions for a comfier ride: revenue management.

Frequent flier and author Tilly Bagshawe told Bloomberg that there's a unique phrase she uses to ask about flight upgrades with her usual airline, Virgin Atlantic.

Tilly explains that those working in revenue management have to make sure the flight is profitable and will be the ones telling the reservation agents what they can and can't do.

Her advice is to call reservations and ask: '"Have revenue management released any first-class seats for miles upgrades yet?"

'When they say no', she says, 'ask them to check or just be put through to revenue management so you can ask when they will release some, as well as how many seats are left.

Then, 'politely respond like this: "You have 20 seats unsold? Why aren't you releasing them?"' Tilly claims that using this method she has been 100% successful in landing an upgrade.

That's got to be worth a shot if you've got the guts, right?