I recently had two successful upgrade bids on QF, PE to J, on JNB-SYD return. I’m not a FF of QF (I took the OW points on BA) so I wasn’t asked to contribute any points, just cold cash.
I received an email a week before departure inviting me to bid. In both instances, the minimum acceptable bid was $590. So I bid $600 for both legs (in case someone else bid the bare minimum). For JNB-SYD, I received an email a few minutes after OLCI opened, saying the bid was successful. But for SYD-JNB, the email only arrived about 16 hours before departure. (Those were nervous hours.)
The outbound flight was maybe 70% full, but inbound was packed. I suspected they would have to do op-ups anyway, but I wasn’t going to take the chance, the flight is over 14 hours. Besides, it seemed like great value to me – a few weeks earlier, they quoted me over $1000 outbound and $1200 inbound to upgrade.
I’d actually heard QF PE is the best in the sky, and I was quite looking forward to trying it, but I had a wander all the way to the back and, although PE obviously looked much more pleasant than Y, I have no regrets about making it into J
I’ve been lurking on FT for years and flying much better as a result. I thought maybe it’s time I said something.