Originally Posted by
mladww
Poor value for money? Hmm. About 4 yrs yrs ago I was flying LAX-LHR in CW, with my son & his partner at the back of coach. There were empty seats alongside me so I asked for a price (I think I was quoted £500 apiece) and agreed to buy them. CC went to find the student princes and brought them forward. By now take-off was imminent so CSD said he'd collect after take-off. Later when I tried to pay the CSD declined. Needless to say the upgradees loved CW and now, having graduated from student princes to yuppies, fly everywhere on BA in CW or F. From a purely commercial viewpoint, those two freebie upgrades were a cracking investment for BA.
So free upgrades for everyone? Doesn't sound like business sense to me. On here when onboard upgrades were being removed the discussion was that there were lots of situations where people would buy a cheaper W fare in order to pay a lower amount which effectively gave no reason for selling flexible J tickets. BA isn't built on the american model of selling every seat at whatever cost. Revenue management attaches value to the seat in J over and above it being a flat bed. Your sons might have flown later in J but many will have the attitude that hey they can always pay a little more onboard to get a cheap upgrade.
What you have talked about will have been considered by BA when they made their decision.I don't see them changing it any time soon. Catering is already a challenge if you see the posts here about that, and unlike an op-up, you can't leave someone til last just because they paid for it onboard.