orbitmic

Well it could be either "not everyone" or "not every flight"!!

That said, again in the case of my Dad, there was no "magic button" per se, it was just a matter of scrolling the seat map towards the front and seeing J seats free with the cost of the upgrade indicated.

Good luck with the AF Y seat, not a very pleasant way to spend 10 hours but hope you could at least bag an exit row or something slightly less punishing than a "normal" seat!...

Goldorak

Interesting. Thank you for the tip. I did first check MMB on the web site and did not see the button, so went to the mobile app to do OLCI. But I was not able to access the J seat map on the mobile app.

Thanks. It's not too bad because I have secured a row 65 seat - upper deck 744

orbitmic

Phew!! Much better that way - definitely not a "random seat" indeed, and I would personally put that above paid AF Premium Economy any day!! Enjoy your trip, hopefully somewhere nice!!

355F1

What does MMB mean...???

bodory

Manage My Booking

355F1

Thank you.

Does this paid option to "move" seats only come up during OLCI? Or has it ever popped up before when looking at your itinerary?

355F1

When the UG is offered, is it only a 1-class upgrade?

Meaning, has anyone ever been offered an UG from PE to First? Or is it always only to Business Class?

Goldorak

They are proposing 2-classes upgrades : from Y to J.
I have never been proposed W to P. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist but I think the cost would be prohibitive anyway. Upgrades from J to P have been proposed to me at €2000 or 2300 one-way, so W to P would be something like €4000 one-way. If you're ready to pay that, I believe you don't fly W and buy directly a J ticket.

355F1

Yeah. That's a little out of my price range. Haha!

I'd pay $500 to UG to J though. Totally worth it for a 10hr flight, IMO.

Thanks!

af fp

Data point: I took a TATL flight yesterday which was zeroed out on Expertflyer. It turns out that F was empty and J and W were half empty. Still, I was not offered to purchase an upgrade.

Goldorak

This happens quite often and also the opposite (i.e. a flight showing full (9) availability in all classes and all fare buckets and leaves 100% full). In your case, there could be many reasons. It can be a "group" who missed a connection or change their plans at the last minute. It could also has been a preventive "zeroing out" to re accommodate pax in prevision of a cancellation of another flight for a weather issue that finally did not happen, etc etc.

bodory

Also if the flight is code-shared under block-seat agreement, the partner airline may still have some seats to sell.

Wembleygal

at OLCI -- GIG to CDG -- S to J upgrade - Ł311 -- accepted ! (21 June, 2014)

-- no status - Alaska Airlines number in booking

bodory

OLCI - CDG-HAJ - Y to C (on an Embraer 190...) - 79 EUR from M fare

blaz

Here's my little paid upgrade story.

Booked a return flight JFK-CDG-BUD on Delta, flight was on AF metal. Ticket was in business class US-EU and premium economy on the return EU-US leg. Total cost: $2757.

I really enjoyed my first TATL flight in business class with lay flat seats on an A330. Nothing to complain about.

On the return leg, the BUD-CDG flight was delayed by an hour, which made me miss the CDG-JFK connection (which was on an A380, sigh). I was rebooked on a later CDG-JFK flight, this time on an B777-300. Looking at the seat assignment, it seemed like I was downgraded to an economy seat, and a look at Seat Guru confirmed my suspicion. My initial thought was that perhaps premium economy was fully booked so they had no choice but to downgrade me.

Went to the customer service desk to inquire about the downgrade. The reps initial response was "you were not booked on premium economy". I had to bring out my phone and show her the original itinerary that clearly showed a W fare. After a quick call to Delta she confirmed I was booked on premium economy and issued a new boarding pass. So far so good.

I still had 3 hours to spare until the flight so I started to regret my original decision to not book business both ways. The original business return ticket would have cost me $3400, so about $700 more than my actual ticket. Even three days before the scheduled flight, Delta would let me do a paid upgrade, but would add a $300 change fee for a total of about $1000 to upgrade to business. My thought was that perhaps AF would come up with a more reasonable upgrade fee.

Back to the customer service desk, talking to a different rep. She looked at my booking and said "but you were already upgraded from economy to premium economy". Yet again I had to explain that no, I was not upgraded, they just fixed a rebooking mistake. The rep finally agreed and looked at paid upgrade availability from premium economy to business: a whopping EUR 1200. A complete joke.

Now, based on this price, I again thought that the flight was fully booked. After boarding the plane, here is what I saw: a tiny first class section with 8 seats and perhaps 2 passengers sitting there. A huge business section with around 60 seats. A total of maybe 6 passengers sitting there. A tiny premium economy section with about 30 seats. Half empty, maybe 15 seats occupied. The remaining half of the plane was economy, packed as always.

Now, can please someone explain AF's logic here? Here's a passenger who is willing to pay for a business upgrade. Yet they whip out a price that is completely unreasonable. I would have taken the upgrade if it was say 400-500 EUR (i.e. the original difference between premium economy and business). Yet they wanted to charge me a whopping 1200. So they got nothing and rather flew with a half empty business class section. How does that make sense at all? The way I see it is that the 500 EUR upgrade fee would be free money for AF - I would be on that flight no matter what, they had plenty of empty seats and the difference in food between premium economy and business surely doesn't cost them 500 EUR.

Any idea what the rationale behind the pricing is?