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UuA confusion with domestic sector upgrade on NCL/SAN flights

UuA confusion with domestic sector upgrade on NCL/SAN flights

Old Jul 23, 2017, 1:53 pm
  #1  
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: UK
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UuA confusion with domestic sector upgrade on NCL/SAN flights

Would be grateful for some guidance and clarification please for multi NCL/SAN trips using UuA.

My wife and I (both Silver) bought return WT+ tickets to SAN and UuA to CW both ways for both March and June 2018 but have been given seats in Euro Traveller for both domestic sectors for both trips.

However for September and December 2017 trips, we booked exactly the same flights in the same way i.e. WT+ then UuA and have seats in Club Europe on both domestic sectors.

Two different answers from BAEC who tell me that since April 2015 and/or the introduction of Club Europe on the NCL/LHR/NCL sectors, pax upgrading using UuAs on transatlantic sectors, no longer have the domestic sector included in any upgrade.

But they cannot explain why the calculations for September and December 2017 bookings are different from March and June 2018. What is the relevance of April 2015 for future bookings this year and next?

Ba.com today continues to show quite clearly on the Reward Flight calculator, the UuA Cost is identical whether the start point is NCL or LHR (deducting the WT+ cost from the CW cost = 30,000 non-peak or 25,000 peak). Even the cost of taxes in CW is only 1.05 different but on WT+ the taxes are 42 higher from LHR than they are from NCL - both are today's calculation!

So in theory, they should upgrade the domestic sectors to Club Europe but they say we should be seated in Euro Traveller and need to use more Avios 3,750 pp and pay 13 taxes pp each way to upgrade the domestic sectors to Club Europe for each of the March and June 2018 trips!

I am more than happy to accept that I have got this completely wrong but would like to know why and how so that I don't repeat the mistake.

Grateful for any help to suggest the best way to tackle and correct it, if by some chance I am right.
flusters is offline  
Old Jul 23, 2017, 2:06 pm
  #2  
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Gloucestershire
Programs: BA Gold (ex-GGL, maybe future Silver), Hilton Diamond
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In April 2015, avios pricing changed - WTP became 2x the price of WT, CW became 3x, First became 4x (instead of 1.5/2/3). That has nothing to do with domestic pricing, however.

Before the introduction of domestic CE, there was a "business" product that meant that, although the add-on to long-haul was free, customers travelling long haul on business, whether booked with avios or not, had lounge access and priority security at the departure airport. (Effectively they had the same hard experience, apart from seat selection, that a silver card holder would have had). The on-board product was identical to economy.

Since the introduction of CE in domestic, I imagine that it follows the same rules as from elsewhere in Europe - different flight legs need to be upgraded separately.

However, as domestic bookings are 'free' when connecting then I can understand the counter logic - i.e., that domestic bookings should be an exception, because you pay the avios difference for the whole route and if you booked the whole route in CW vs WTP, you'd only pay the equivalent difference in avios for the long-haul. This is probably also the reason why the avios calculator is giving you the anomalous result. I'd suggest that, given the overall policy and the way in which avios upgrade costs are calculated, plus the information given on the calculator, you have some basis for argument - but the opposite policy isn't really unreasonable.

As for the difference in taxes: the actual tax won't be the issue. When you upgrade using avios, you pay the difference in avios plus the difference in taxes, fees, and surcharges (TFC). Here, the actual tax is the same (WTP or CW pay the same APD) but the fuel surcharge can be different between CW and WTP. When booking from London, you will be using a different fare basis, in each cabin, than you would be when booking from Newcastle. As such, the difference in TFC could be larger or smaller from either airport. There is no rhyme or reason - it's just a question of the fare basis used for the comparison on the day.
Cymro is offline  
Old Jul 23, 2017, 2:07 pm
  #3  
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Since April 2017 this year WT+ no longer books in to J selling class and therefore any WT+ trip booked with domestic connections will include those connections in ET. Prior to the introduction of CE on domestics a WT+ used to book with J selling class in the domestic flights which was Business UK but not a separate cabin.

If you book a WT+ trip now and wish to upgrade the domestic flight as well as the long haul you would require reward availability in CE for the domestic and have to pay the extra avios and tax.
KARFA is offline  
Old Jul 23, 2017, 2:08 pm
  #4  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
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When did you book your Sept and Dec flights?

What I suspect is that your original WT+ fares for your Sept and Dec flights actually booked you into Y or J class, which was then economy, but since the introduction of Club Europe, you have automatically been put into CE on those flights - this is irrespective of your long-haul upgrade.

The agent is right that if you want to upgrade to CE on domestic, the extra 3,750/4,500 (off-peak/peak) is chargeable because each upgrade sector is charged individually. This is different to full reward bookings where domestic connections are thrown in for free.
Ldnn1 is online now  
Old Jul 24, 2017, 7:08 am
  #5  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 44
Cymro, KARFA and Ldnn1 thank you all for your enlightening and patient replies.

Yes, our June, Sept and Dec 2017 flights were all booked prior to April 2017 and clearly, the flights for March and June 2018 were booked after that date.

My wife is disabled and sitting nearer the front of the aircraft is less stressful. Therefore while I have no desire to upgrade the domestic sectors, in the many years of the pre-Club Europe era and of course for June, September and December 2017, we have continued to have seating assignments near the front. It was for that reason that I wanted to check out the reasoning behind the switch in seating arrangements for 2018 onwards.

I understand now that UuAs are per flight and since the introduction of CE on domestics in April 2017, the situation has changed. Stupidly, I read the following in Part 3 of Reward Flights section in the Guide to Spending Avios 2017 (which I realise now applies to full redemptions only but I applied it to suit my argument with UuAs!):

When pricing long haul redemptions, domestic connections within the UK and Mainland Spain are included in the fare. Taxes, fees, and surcharges associated with these domestic sectors are added to the overall fare however. In the case of redemptions to/from UK regional airports, the domestic sectors will be booked into Euro Traveller when World Traveller and World Traveller Plus is selected or booked into Club Europe when Club World and First is selected.


Thanks to your collective help, I am wiser now.

Last edited by flusters; Jul 24, 2017 at 9:22 am Reason: Name typo
flusters is offline  

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