Originally Posted by
David_Doyle
Unofficial upgrades would be tantamount to a supermarket employee with staff discount buying goods to sell on to a person not entitled to the discount, for example.
Not exactly the same thing though, is it? Using the Economy > Premium Economy upgrade as an example, you are simply giving someone a seat which was going to be empty anyway, and to someone who was probably never going to fork out for that upgrade in the first place.
If anything, this is doing the airline a favour - as a customer will almost certainly think higher of BA if they have an enjoyable flight in comfort, and buy more flights with them in the future - all of this wont have cost the airline a penny.
The comparison would be more like, a supermarket employee giving away a product which they were about to throw in the bin. Nothing wrong with that, surely?