Originally Posted by
bassmomma
I am simply referring to the fact that we want to purchase Traveller's Plus tickets (with money) and upgrade to Club World with miles. The price has escalated dramatically to the point that it is more expensive to do this than to purchase CW tickets outright. I have seen other threads stating this also. However, yesterday, I discovered that to purchase CW tickets outright has gone up approx. $5000 in two weeks. Surely, this cannot be right.
I think that it could in theory be entirely right.
You have to buy a World Traveller Plus ticket and then upgrade to Club. But the most expensive WT+ tickets can be more expensive than the cheapest Club tickets. So if you are upgrading from WT+ to Club with miles and the cash element is being priced on the basis of the most expensive WT+ ticket, in theory you could well be paying more cash than you would pay for a Club ticket.
So, for an illustration, PHX-LHR-BCN and return in February is about $2,100 on the cheapest WT+ ticket, $5,500 on the most expensive WT+ ticket, and $3,300 on the cheapest Club ticket.
So if you were to upgrade with miles from the $5,500 WT+ ticket, you would be paying much more than you'd pay for the cheapest Club ticket. But you would be getting a much more flexible ticket than the cheapest Club ticket.
I can't reconcile these numbers to the ones you give, because you should be able to upgrade with BA Miles from the $2,100 ticket. You'll pay fractionally more than that, plus the miles. So I don't know where your $4,448 figure comes from, nor your $11,079 figure. No WT+ should cost as much as $11,079, even if you are upgrading it with miles. Something is wrong there.
As others say, if the BA website is returning a ticket price is based on the most expensive WT+ fare when you know that there is availability for the lowest WT+ fare, then it's a ba.com bug. Simple solution: just book your ticket on the phone if the agents can see the availability at the lower price.