Flight upgrade bidding - how much!?!

[Griffith4ever]

We are flying Eva air to BKK return on Sunday. I've not use Eva before. Going Premium Economy this time as BC was just too pricey this year at the time of booking (previously BC with Finnair). £3400 for the two of us (I paid that for BC pre-covid!)

Anyhow - got the email this morning amout bidding to upgrade to BC. I'll have a play I though. I'll cuck an extra £500 each way and see if I get away with it. Then I load up the page and see the slider. The min bid is ..... 876 Euros PER PERSON, each way! So that's (assuming they accepted the min bid) 3504 Euro - £3000 - to upgrade - wtf? how is that a "bid". That would make the BC seats £6400 return for the two of us, which is what they were asking for BC in the 1st place lmao!

Never seen one of these before - does the min bid reduce as the flight gets nearer?

Not particularly botherd as its direct 11hr flight and PE can be very comfortable, and we are flying out again in Jan from Athens, BC for £1k each.

[phil-sti]

i've done it with Virgin, never been succeful though. Just bid what your comfortable with but it is much easier to get a cheeky win if you are a single traveller.

[Griffith4ever]

phil-sti said:

i've done it with Virgin, never been succeful though. Just bid what your comfortable with but it is much easier to get a cheeky win if you are a single traveller.

Those numbers were the min bid they'd accept ! :-) (I'd not pay anywhere near that)

[Imasurv]

I did this when flying with Lufthansa last year. Booked premium economy there and back. Travelling out had three legs, two in Europe and one long haul. I tried to do the upgrades to each sector individually and managed to get the two European legs out and both legs on the return upgraded to business. The two euro legs were £50 each, and the long haul and euro leg on the return cost around £500 each in each case I bid one step up (around £10-20) from the minimum. I used expert flyer to check how many business class seats were booked and bid a week or two before flying when I knew they needed to sell them. The outward long haul was pretty much booked and was therefore too expensive, but the other legs were pretty quiet so I knew our low bids were likely to be successful. I quite enjoyed doing it, and with it being our first trip in business was even better.

[StevieBee]

Griffith4ever said:

Never seen one of these before - does the min bid reduce as the flight gets nearer?

Worth another look later in the week. A high min bid price suggests they are expecting a reasonably full BC cabin so why would they entice others with an overly good deal? You can alway ask what the upgrade price is at check-in. If there's any available then you can sometimes grab a decent deal then.

[RacerMike]

I successfully bid £350 for a business upgrade from economy on Etihad from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow. That was a relatively light flight with quite a few seats in business free though, and the bids for the previous leg of my journey (Sydney to Abu Dhabi) were as ridiculous at £1800 (which would have meant paying more than the one way total business fair to Australia at the time!).

Ultimately it will depend on a number of factors relating to how busy the flight is and whether they really want people to upgrade.

Generally, you’re better to try and upgrade with points if you have them, or indeed book a reward seat from the beginning. Or, accept you’re flying the class you booked and see it as a nice little bonus if they offer you a cheap upgrade bid. I’ve only very recently starting taking points seriously and if you do indeed want to fly premium or business, get yourself an Amex or another airline partner card and start collecting.

[smifffymoto]

The days of cheap long haul are definitely over.

[Griffith4ever]

I didn't book cheap long haul I booked premium economy. What I was shocked about is how bad value the min bid is to upgrade again. I assumed it would be to sell surplus BC cap to free up more PE seats to sell. And consequently eco too, but in fact it seems it's to try and max profit from a few remaining BC seats. Understandable, but was surprised.

Long haul has indeed gone up. Used to be £550 return LHR BKK. More like £750 now. Still not to bad though.

Re upgrading with points. I have Avios but BA flights are so stupidly expensive to start with its never worth it! :-)

[RacerMike]

Griffith4ever said:

Re upgrading with points. I have Avios but BA flights are so stupidly expensive to start with its never worth it! :-)

Are you aware of reward flights? They’re much, much better value than using points to upgrade usually. For BA it’s 80,000 points plus £175 ‘taxes’ one way to New York for instance (double obviously for return).

[Griffith4ever]

RacerMike said:

Griffith4ever said:

Re upgrading with points. I have Avios but BA flights are so stupidly expensive to start with its never worth it! :-)

Are you aware of reward flights? They’re much, much better value than using points to upgrade usually. For BA it’s 80,000 points plus £175 ‘taxes’ one way to New York for instance (double obviously for return).

Thanks - I'll look into that - I never really understand how to look atthe reward flights.

[djc206]

RacerMike said:

Griffith4ever said:

Re upgrading with points. I have Avios but BA flights are so stupidly expensive to start with its never worth it! :-)

Are you aware of reward flights? They’re much, much better value than using points to upgrade usually. For BA it’s 80,000 points plus £175 ‘taxes’ one way to New York for instance (double obviously for return).

BA offer different pricing based on how many avios you’re prepared to use as well.

[RacerMike]

djc206 said:

RacerMike said:

Griffith4ever said:

Re upgrading with points. I have Avios but BA flights are so stupidly expensive to start with its never worth it! :-)

Are you aware of reward flights? They’re much, much better value than using points to upgrade usually. For BA it’s 80,000 points plus £175 ‘taxes’ one way to New York for instance (double obviously for return).

BA offer different pricing based on how many avios you’re prepared to use as well.

Yeah. They're a lot better than many, but then to be fair, their business class product isn't as good as much of the competition (although the hard product is a lot better than it was with their 'new' Club Suite).

Griff - Here is a good place to start if you want to see what's available:

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/flightfinder...

[djc206]

RacerMike said:

Yeah. They're a lot better than many, but then to be fair, their business class product isn't as good as much of the competition (although the hard product is a lot better than it was with their 'new' Club Suite).

Griff - Here is a good place to start if you want to see what's available:

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/flightfinder...

The club suite is great, better than most airlines hard products now. We fly BA a lot and I don’t really have any issues with them. They could be better of course but I can’t get worked up about them not having over the top service or chintzy interiors like the Middle Eastern carriers. The biggest issue with them recently has been how crowded the lounges have been at T5. Now the building works have been completed at T5B hopefully that will have improved slightly.

[Griffith4ever]

Got another email today "reminding me" of the offer. The minumum has gone up a little :-)

TBH - I'm looking forward to trying their PE offering, it gets rave reviews.

https://www.evaair.com/en-us/fly-prepare/flying-wi...

And the money "saved" on not upgrading to BC will be spent on bargain BC seats going back over again in Jan :-) (going to hop over from Athens which brings the cost down a chunk, I can get BC to Athens then back to LHR for around £4k for two of us, with one long layover)

[RacerMike]

Griffith4ever said:

Got another email today "reminding me" of the offer. The minumum has gone up a little :-)

TBH - I'm looking forward to trying their PE offering, it gets rave reviews.

https://www.evaair.com/en-us/fly-prepare/flying-wi...

And the money "saved" on not upgrading to BC will be spent on bargain BC seats going back over again in Jan :-) (going to hop over from Athens which brings the cost down a chunk, I can get BC to Athens then back to LHR for around £4k for two of us, with one long layover)

Their cabins look pretty reasonable, and looking online their business class seat (if it's the more modern one) looks pretty reasonable, however you'd be probably better saving the money and splurging on an upgrade with one of the Emirate airlines like Qatar, Etihad or Emirates, or something like Finnair if you ever get a chance to fly any routes they do. Unless you're a regular business traveller, you want the best experience for your money, so hold out for the best products rather than just going business for the sake of it.

As you say, their premium economy product looks more than acceptable.

Edited by RacerMike on Friday 10th November 10:17

[Griffith4ever]

RacerMike said:

Their cabins look pretty reasonable, and looking online their business class seat (if it's the more modern one) looks pretty reasonable, however you'd be probably better saving the money and splurging on an upgrade with one of the Emirate airlines like Qatar, Etihad or Emirates, or something like Finnair if you ever get a chance to fly any routes they do. Unless you're a regular business traveller, you want the best experience for your money, so hold out for the best products rather than just going business for the sake of it.

As you say, their premium economy product looks more than acceptable.

Edited by RacerMike on Friday 10th November 10:17

We did Finnair BC last year ;-) Bloody superb! I'm certainly not splurging on a BC upgrade with Eva for what is only an 11 hour flight with no stops. Not at the prices they are asking.

Finnair:

[RacerMike]

Griffith4ever said:

RacerMike said:

Their cabins look pretty reasonable, and looking online their business class seat (if it's the more modern one) looks pretty reasonable, however you'd be probably better saving the money and splurging on an upgrade with one of the Emirate airlines like Qatar, Etihad or Emirates, or something like Finnair if you ever get a chance to fly any routes they do. Unless you're a regular business traveller, you want the best experience for your money, so hold out for the best products rather than just going business for the sake of it.

As you say, their premium economy product looks more than acceptable.

Edited by RacerMike on Friday 10th November 10:17

We did Finnair BC last year ;-) Bloody superb! I'm certainly not splurging on a BC upgrade with Eva for what is only an 11 hour flight with no stops. Not at the prices they are asking.

Finnair:

One of the ones I'd love to fly on. The seat design is typically scandi with the huge sofa like seat/bed. I'm actually at Heathrow in the Virgin Clubhouse at the moment awaiting my flight today to NY. Very impressed so far, especially given the fact it was a reward flight!

[djc206]

I’m a little torn on the new Finnair business seat having also flown to BKK on it. They’re quite comfortable for lounging but not the best for sleeping and being made of very lightweight materials I found they flexed a lot when heavy footed passengers or crew passed by which disturbed my sleep. Overall though finnair are pretty good and the lounge at Helsinki is quite pleasant with good shower facilities. I reckon I’d fly with them again if they had a decent sale but won’t go out of my way to use them. Next BKK trip is with Qatar, more tier points and cheaper this time.

[Suspicious_user]

djc206 said:

The club suite is great, better than most airlines hard products now. We fly BA a lot and I don’t really have any issues with them. They could be better of course but I can’t get worked up about them not having over the top service or chintzy interiors like the Middle Eastern carriers. The biggest issue with them recently has been how crowded the lounges have been at T5. Now the building works have been completed at T5B hopefully that will have improved slightly.

The BA lounges are quite frankly shocking. The Qatar lounge at T4 is good, but I prefer the Cathay first Lounge at T3.

I can't actually think where there's a BA lounge that isn't surpassed by another oneworld carrier.

[RacerMike]

Won the plane lottery with Virgin and am on the second newest of their A330-900neo’s. Very much would recommend!