Originally Posted by
irishguy28
Only for K/H/L/Q ticket holders. For Y holders, they are expected to pay (substantially) more, while B/M/U holders are charged the same.
If the table produced above is correct, then:
Europe 1 2 & 3: the price given matches that for B/M/U holders. Y holders pay more (2.5k), others less.
Middle East: the price given matches that for B/M/U holders. Y holders pay more (5k), others less.
Africa 1 & India: the price given matches that for B/M/U holders. Y holders pay more (7.5k), others less.
Africa 2: the price given matches that for B/M/U holders. Y holders pay more (8k), others less.
North America: the price given matches that for B/M/U holders. Y holders pay more (10k), others less.
Central America, Latin America 1 & 2 and Asia 1 &2: the price given matches that for B/M/U holders. Y holders pay more (16k), others less.
It is also a general improvement over the past onboard upgrade prices though (which were higher and already 'same amount for all buckets' until 9 September).
Good summary about who wins/loses by waiting to upgrade onboard though, and indeed, having differentiated prices in advance and unique price onboard is bound to create some discrepancies, but I would argue that this is a slight improvement overall on KLM's part. I guess the idea is that Y pax could upgrade in advance while K/H/L/Q ticket holders who are happy to 'chance' it could get the upgrade at the same price as BMU if they are willing to wait till the last minute to say if it is still available.
That said, still some things I'm unsure about here such as how the purser chooses who to approach, whether this would not be best handled at the gate rather than onboard (with the same principle) to avoid passengers moving forward with bags etc and getting strange looks as reported, and so on.