intuition

It happens that new availability is released to the public, but it is rare. When people here talk about new seats being released it is done "on demand", like jmmi talks about. AY+ cc sends a message to "another department" (likely rev. mgmnt.) and if they decide they can "afford" to release another seat for that member they will do so.

This was thought to only happen for top tier members, but lately I've seen some reports of AY+Golds getting the same treatment.

deissi

Also happened to me as an AY+ Silver.

zhaobao

Data point - they were selling upgrades for AY69 to HKG at the gate for EUR890 on May 6. Don't think anybody who bid for upgrades online would have got through given that the range available to bid was EUR298 to somewhere below EUR600.

WilcoRoger

Just amazing. That would be 1800€ for a return upgrade. Somehow I feel there were not too many takers.

NoWindowSeat

In way amazing, true, but on the other hand I like the fact they are not making upgrading too cheap/easy as that would be a hit on the face to all those who pay for J to begin with.

miikka

I partially disagree. Upgrading is available only when they know that they cannot sell those seats, and as long as we are not talking about 100 EUR upgrades but something higher then AY would make nice additional revenue.

And J passengers still have one extra feature with their fee, they get guaranteed J service while people trusting on upgrades trust also on their luck (plus compared to people upgrading at the gate, J passengers have received J benefits from the moment they have arrived to the airport).

The real question is where should the balance be - I think the 890 EUR starts to be too high considering what you receive with that (e.g., no additional points like BA AUP). So as long as they don't really upgrade your class influencing the points then I would say that 890 EUR is too high. I personally calculate it basically from the idea that this is equivalent for 50k points - so how much is the 50k overall valued to yourself (I have my trigger point which I have decided based on that and I will not go over that in my bids).

NoWindowSeat

Miikka, yes, I agree that 890 is very steep with no extra points. 500eur is the league I tend to value 50k points so anything in that region is ok for me for oneway upgrade.

BA just "asked" me for 990 pounds for swithcing from 747 seat 62K to the pointy end..I thought that was very steep, too...didn't even consider..

Jainzar

Given the fact that HKG in J is e.g. currently on sale for under 1900 rt from HEL I personally deem the price way too high.

miikka

I am considering similar levels. And for me 990 pounds for BA Business upgrade was also too steep but then 269 pounds for World Traveller Plus was worth the extra comfort.

intuition

These upgrades, just like the bid for an upgrade, are not aimed at us or any demographic we can relate to. They are aimed at someone who has the money but didn't think about using it for business class travel and thus are not aware of the market price.

I am slightly torn on the pricing. Or rather, I am worried of what it represents. This is yet another way of monetizing unsold space in J cabin. We already have op-ups, bid for upgrade, mail/text solicited upgrades and now this. It disturbs me because if there is space in J cabin to be sold, they should sell it as J space. All these methods are a way of not realising some of their pricing are not marketable. If you fail to sell the right volume of your product, you should work on that problem. (Kotler et.al: Price, Product, Place, Promotion)

So I think all these upgrade paths are a way to avoid working on that and instead trying to find a new target group for J seats.

miikka

How about people who need to choose Economy class due to the Corporate travel policies but would be personally willing to upgrade themselves for the comfort?

Ed Size

It s a tricky question, but I would say upgrades in the range of 850€+ region won t sell well at the gate, since anyone who want to travel in J and can fork out another 1700€-2000€ for the rt flight would book J from the start. Maybe attractive for people with travel restrictions and a high income.

I did a lot of upgrades with TG in the past, when they had a fixed price of 26000THB and the rate was good, but nowadays that won t make sense at all

Ed Size

Some rules are even say that you are not allowed to sit in a higher class then Y (OK most of the times say don t want you in F for image reasons).

intuition

There might be such a group - but perhaps the bidding/fixed price upgrades before check-in seems more suitable for them. You would want to now before going to airport which class of travel you will have.

If I were an airline working with corporations with Y only travel policy, I would try to make a deal at the corporate level, getting them back in J cabin. Such a revenue stream is much more stable than the fickle money from upgraders.

miikka

One possibility is that the gate offers are for people arriving outside of AY hubs or traveling with tickets which aren't issued by AY originally and thus might not be eligible for bidding/fixed upgrades before check-in.

Similar to what BA AUP is - I was positively surprised that I was eligible for that even when I was traveling with AY ticket with AY flight number. Maybe AY is trying to build similar or are they restricting the gate upgrades to AY ticket passengers only?