Originally Posted by
irishguy28
By checking in Flying Blue whether there is a business-class seat available for redemption at the lowest-possible price for the specific flight you are interested in.
If you are not offered a seat for outright redemption at the lowest-possible mileage price when doing a dummy Award booking, then there is no "O" award/upgrade space on the flight.
Although that's what I believed up until now, I have a counter experience from no later than yesterday: I inquired the Platinum Line about the upgrade availability on a PEK-CDG-ZRH flight on which the married flights showed up at 90.000 miles in Award Business which is the lowest price on that route. However the agent told me she could see no upgrade availability on that day.
Sorry to make things even more complicated, but it seems that the only way to know for sure is to call the PSL or Flying Blue if you are not Platinum (PSL agents can handle Flying Blue awards and upgrades while regular Elite service agents cannot), and to ask on a case by case basis.
Originally Posted by bodory
There seems to be a recurring issue with ExpertFlyer and FB, leading to discrepancies between what EF shows and the real availability, specially since the dynamic award scheme is in place. At least one cause of the issue is the married segment logic also applying to awards and that EF cannot handle properly.
Yes, do not trust EF at all especially since O has recently become a revenue bucket on Medium Haul too, which can interfere with O award when a MH segment is married with an LH one
Originally Posted by sbams
It's not answering your question, which irishguy28 did perfectly already but just to give extra info: general consensus is that upgrades (except maybe for special offers at check-in) are not usually the best or necessarily the cheapest way to sit in a higher cabin. Often a direct redemption or purchase to the cabin in which you want to end up in is either easier or even better value, all things taken in to consideration (miles earned, benefits, certainty etc).
Of course there can be a bunch of reasons why you would want to upgrade later on after purchasing economy, but it's something to bear in mind for the future
I agree on the general statement but there are a few cases on which it can be interesting.
For example, if you buy Discounted Premium Economy (A), which is often sold for ca. 1000-1200 euros from outstations, you can upgrade to O for:
- 30k miles OW to America, be it west or east coast (so obviously West Coast has a better value)
- 52k miles OW to the Far East (I find it good on a flight to HND, for example: the return in Award Business would be 180 000 + 600 euros in taxes at the lowest, so paying 1000 euros + 104 000 miles seems a fair deal to me, considering you would earn XPs on that flight)