Originally Posted by
aster
My question might sound odd, but if you bid the minimum and there are emply seats in biz... are you GUARANTEED to have the bid accepted or could they just decide to fly the empty seat instead?
I'm asking because on each and every flight so far they have announced onboard that upgrades are available... so either there were ZERO bids pending at the minimum amount... or they were ignored in the hope that someone will pay more to upgrade onboard after take-off.
Not sure what to make of all this...
The algorithm is all very mysterious to me as well. In my past 20 LO segments Y+ (long-haul), I have bid 5 times, bid was accepted twice (never with a minimum bid, rather in the $550-600 range), been OPUPed once (in that case, Y was severely oversold ex-WAW due to rerouting via ORD of some impacted by an EWR cancellation). How bids are even processed/accepted is to me a mystery. On the other hand, I try not to lose much sleep thinking about it. Suspect if they are announcing on-board, there are few other takers (including non-revs) for many open seats.
I am not sure I have enough experience with the upgrade-bidding system to have a good handle on how it works. I won't find out too soon, either, as my next couple of trips are back with LH.
Edit: as business fares on the route I typically fly start around USD1000/PLN4000 per segment on a return ticket (and can be had usually for under USD1500/PLN6000), it makes little sense for me to bid more than about USD600/PLN2400 when I have already paid about USD600 for the Y+ segment, so I am not at all sure what kind of suckers LO is after here.