SAA Paying For Last Minute Premium Class Upgrade
 

Is there a set price for last minute premium class upgrades on SAA? I paid for an upgrade on a flight from MNC-JNB once and it cost EUR1,000. I'm wondering if its roughly the same price at other airports (adjusted for currency) and/or if this is something they offer at all everywhere.

SAA upgrades
 

they don't. I am Gold with SAA and tried several times when I was commuting between the US and JNB across 06/early 07 before moving to SA in April last year.

That's what I thought as well. I have never heard of SAA doing paid upgrades at check-in (unless you want to officially up-fare).

Well, I definitely paid for an upgrade on an SAA flight from Munich to Johannesburg and the price was EUR1,000. I paid for the upgrade at Munich airport, at the ticketing desk by the gate past security.

Can anyone shed any light on this seeming discrepancy? One factor might have been that my original flight ticket was booked on Swiss (economy class) though we were placed on an SAA flight because our Swiss flight was cancelled due to weather.

PS: I also notice on the SAA website, that the "Select" (K fare) economy class fare does say that it is upgradeable to next fare...

That's correct, Y M B and K fares are upgradable.

Yes, with Voyager miles......

Hmm. Maybe Swiss rebooked you on an expensive economy fare, and you paid the difference to the business fare? The YOW fare is €3,082, the COW fare €3,909, for example.

It seems odd though that the upgrade cost was precisely EUR1,000. If I were just paying the fare difference, I would think that it would most likely not be such a round number...

The ticketing agent I dealt with was Lufthansa... perhaps they just applied Lufthansa rules to an SAA flight?

I know that other Star Alliance carriers also offer paid last minute business class upgrades. I've done so on Swiss and United before and on United they even offered it on the electronic check-in terminal. Price: GBP450 for an LHR-SFO flight.

Checked this thread before my trip in class W this week, and tried my luck. We ended up paying 990€ each pax for an upgrade from W to C on a trip from MUC-JNB. Searching expertflyer for seats before departure, no "available" status, but 9 was "Blocked by airline". 3h before departure, though, we upgraded 4 people with success - for that one leg. So it seems like a fixed price policy.

This thread is a bit dusty so I wanted to follow up.

Has anyone had any luck recently (this year?) with day-of-the-flight or over the counter upgrades? Are the fares reasonable?

I've got a flight with them coming up soon and when I called their call center they gave me a very reasonable quote for upgrading a Y fare to J. I wonder if they've changed their policy and if seats go unsold until the day of the flight they would make "promotions".

Cheers.

It's not long haul, but there was a sign up at check-in at Windhoek a few weeks back offering paid upgrades to business class.