AceCobra1

Hi guys,

I can't find the T&Cs on BA's website now but I read a few weeks ago that they are charging £100 or so + avios and handling fee to upgrade? Not sure if I misread though. Or is it still the standard price of £50 fee + avios ?

Also, I am traveling from LHR to HKG and all the availability to upgrade for some reason seems to only be for the earlier flight, BA25 and not the later BA27. Any ideas why ? I am hoping that I can get a cheeky upgrade nearer the time but it doesn't look likely! Might be sitting on WTP after 2 years of CW (4 return legs) I count myself being very lucky though so far.

jerry a. laska

Unless something has changed in the last few days there typically is no change fee when you UuA. You do pay any additional fees and taxes that might be due. The telephone fee might be due unless you are gold.

golfmad

The only costs I'm aware of are the Avios required and any increase in taxes/fees which will be significant when going from WTP to CW but should be zero when going from CW to F. Of course a telephone fee may apply based on status.

AceCobra1

I remember the last few times I upgraded was like £43 all in for each leg... Maybe its just me misreading. There is no availability anyway for now, but I just wanted to be sure how much I am expected to pay because when it is avaialble, I will be on the phone like a shot!

Globaliser

Have you counted the number of CW seats on aircraft operating BA25 and the number of CW seats on the aircraft operating BA27? There's one possible reason right there.

zkzkz

The change in taxes depends enormously on what the route you're upgrading is. I never know what the fee will be until I upgrade, it seems entirely random.

AceCobra1

Thing is, the BA27 is normally pretty dead... Most people take BA25 which is also my preference but with the sale on, the BA25 route cost £983 and BA27 only cost £480 which is why I choose the later... Mind you the BA27 I am going to be taking seems rather busy already which is a bit of a shock to me

KARFA

I have my standard answer for this! It has been deployed for all similar UuA queries recently!

There is an extra cash charge going from WT+ to CW and also WT to WT+, but no charge from CW to F. In all cases there is no change fee to pay.

For a UuA from WT+ to CW you should be paying the difference in carrier surcharge - it isn't a tax difference. The carrier surcharge applicable is route specific, generally though the longer the route the more the surcharge. For example starting from the UK the additional surcharge for CW over WT+ for a return to NYC is around £106 so the cost of doing a UuA for a return should be 20k avios and £106, and 10k avios and £53 for a one way UuA.

For a UuA from CW to F there is no difference in carrier surchage or APD, so it will just cost you the avios required.

Y to WT+ UuA isn't very common, but it is worth mentioning from Y to WT+ there isn't any additional carrier surchage. There may be additional APD in some cases though. For example, the APD for a Y class return from LON-NYC is £69, whereas the APD for a WT+ class return on the same flights is £138. As the APD is payable for leaving the UK and not arriving, the extra APD would only be charged if you did a UuA from Y to WT+ on the outbound from the UK. If you just UuA the inbound from abroad back to the UK there is no extra APD to pay.

Also, in all cases any changes in taxes, charges for customs, immigration, YQ, airport service fee, passenger service charge which have happened since the original booking was made will be taken in to account.

So, one way UuA from WT+ to CW for LHR-HKG should be avios and additional carrier surcharge (around £65 from memory for that route), give or take a few pounds for possible other fee/taxes changes.

gustavmahler

I often have an AA flight on my PNR, so have to call. Almost every time I'm kept on hold for about half an hour while they calculate the charge. It tends to be to ORD so I know what the fee is but they still have to go away and spend ages working it out.

Goagain

Apologies for 'waking up' a reasonably old thread..

Have also had some endless 'need to put you on hold while we calculate the surcharge, sir' calls and quite frankly find this a quite messy and inconsistent process.

Found some disturbing information while making a partial UUA yesterday, following another painfully long conversation with the call center. So - apparently, with a partial UUA, the difference in carrier surcharge is applied not just to the sector you are upgrading, but to the whole fare component..

For example: If your itinerary is SFO(Y)-NYC(T)-LON(T)-HKG vv and you try to UUA only for NYCLON to Club World, they will apply 'carrier surcharge' (or 'fuel' if you like) as if the whole trip SFO-NYC-LON-HKG was flown in Club World.

While most partial UUAs are likely to be made on the longer flight (for example MAN-LON-DFW, and LON-DFW is upgraded), it is unlikely to make any difference, or for the amount to be sufficiently high for anyone to question it. However, in this case the very high additional surcharge I was quoted really didn't make sense so I challenged the amount.

After much ado, I finally had a confirmation that additional YQ should only be charged for the upgraded sector, however 'there is a flaw in the system which applies the charge to the whole fare component and we had to calculate this manually'. So essentially, it seems to be entirely coincidental how they charge this - and inevitably, the difference between 'good and bad' call center agents will govern how correct these surcharges apply. I really had to argue to get them to look at this and finally accept they had misquoted the amount - this shouldn't be necessary.

Anybody else been quoted unreasonably high 'taxes and fees' with partial UUAs? KARFA - perhaps you've had similar experiences? You seem to have plentiful words of wisdom on UUAs!

KARFA

Hi Goagain. There was a thread by someone who ran in to the same issue as you a few weeks ago. Bear in mind I tend to do exUK or exEU travel so I think part of this was me not having any experience of booking two longhauls and trying to UuA just one sector. Here is the link.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-yq-twice.html

So that poster had booked US(somewhere)-LHR-DEL all in WT+ and wanted to UuA one of the longhaul sectors. After some digging it became clear he/she was being quoted an additional YQ for both sectors rather than just the one they wanted to UuA. Anonba who works for BA and is familiar with the system they use noted exactly the same as you have, which is tha the system show an additional YQ for CW for both legs rather than then only the one. Unless you realise it isn't right it and challenge it, it would be unlikely the agent would notice. I think the result was that the poster did manage to get an agent who could manually calculate the correct amount of additional YQ just for the leg which would be UuA'ed, but it wasn't easy.

As you noted, for exUK trips this is never an issue as when booking WT+ or CW, there is no upgrade as such of the domestic legs and there is no additional YQ to pay for those. For exEU trips I think if it is doing it the difference is marginal. I know when you book connetion flight YQ isn't really just the YQ for seach sector added together. However, to give you an idea YQ in Y AMS-LHR is €28 whereas YQ in J for the same flight would be €32. So if you have AMS-LHR-JFK and do UuA the longhaul from WT+ to CW, and BA's system is calculating additional YQ for both flights, realistically the additional YQ for the shorthaul is going to be pretty marginal.

So, it does seem there is an issue for doing a UuA for one leg from WT+ to CW when you have a longhaul connecting to a longhaul, but it does seem that it is possible to get the right price eventually if you persist and explain the issue to the agent. Note that this would not be an issue when doing a UuA from Y (so Y,B,H) to WT+ or CW to F since in both cases there is no additional YQ to pay for that UuA.

JesW

Just for illustration purposes....have an open-jaw ticket for next month, going LHR-IAD, MIA-LHR.

Managed to upgrade WTP-CW last month for the IAD leg, which was 10K avios and £53 for YQ. When I upgraded MIA-LHR this morning, it cost me 12.5K avios and £71 for YQ. I thought it would be the same price for each as a US return but IAD/MIA are in different sectors, apparently.

Goagain

KARFA - thanks for highlighting that thread! (I did my searches but couldn't find it..) - exactly what I was looking for! The issues experienced by carsnoceans in the thread you referred seem to mirror those I mentioned.

So ultimately what I can gather from the information in this thread along with my experience below:

- Additional YQ should only be charged for the upgraded sector if done correctly

- 'The system' used by BA agents to quote 'automatically' (I believe this is called Pegasus - feel free to correct, anyone in the know!) will apply any tax increases for the full fare component (e.g. one whole direction in a return journey) and thus, applies the incorrect YQ tax

- When agents have to 'calculate taxes manually' as appears to often be the case, they will depend on their skills to apply this correctly using their native booking system, Amadeus

Thus - in conclusion - for any partial UUAs with two longhauls (your comment makes sense - it shouldn't be an issue for EU or domestic UK connections) it is an absolute must to be armed with correct applicable tax amounts for example from ITA (thanks Globaliser!) unless you want to pay a higher amount than that due. I am not a fan of having those discussions with any agent - let alone the 'less good ones'..

Appreciate the complexity of fares and tax calculations but it does seem like those designing the Pegasus booking interface (if that is what it is called) has chosen to settle for imperfection on this and accept that they are overcharging.

Yet another reason why UUAs and other changes are so difficult to handle online - and so unlikely to change as BA is happily collecting extra revenue.

KARFA

I can certainly explain the avios difference. MIA is further and in a different avios band so avios will be more which is what you found. IAD, PHL, JFK/EWR, and BOS are the same for avios needed.

IAD, BWI, PHL, JFK/EWR, and BOS are all in band 5 which is less than 4000 miles, whereas MIA is 4425 miles so in band 6. The table for avios redemptions is here, and the amount needed for a one way UuA WT+ to CW is 1/2 the amount listed in the business column for the relevant band.

On YQ I am somewhat less sure why you are seeing a significant difference. I think the YQ you would have originally paid would have been £213.00 looking at itamatrix.

For YQ out in CW to IAD and back in WT+ from MIA the YQ is £266.00 so I would expect you to have paid £53 which checks out.
For YQ out in CW to IAD and back in CW from MIA the YQ is £319.00 I would expect you to have paid a further £53, but you were charged £71.

Is this because the YQ for MIA-LHR is calculated based on US POS? I notice that the one way YQ for MIA-LHR is $229 in WT+ and for CW is $414, so a much bigger difference when using US POS.

Alternatively, in all cases when you do a UuA any changes in taxes, charges for customs, immigration, airport service fee, passenger service charge which have happened since the original booking was made will be taken in to account, so perhaps there are some other changes which have happened in between you UuA'ing the IAD leg and now doing the MIA leg?

KARFA

Yes Goagain, I think that is a very fair summary. It does not seem to be BA policy to charge the additional YQ for both long haul sectors if you are UuA'ing only one, but does seem a big limitation of their system which leads agents to unknowingly do exactly that.

As you say, not ideal and worse for those who don't know of the issue like us since the agent will probably take the incorrect figure presented to them on the screen and assume it is right, and the caller won't know any different to challenge it.