Originally Posted by thomas164

My family (Both OWR) came back from HND on CX549 a few days ago. They faced an interesting situation and I'm not sure if I heard it before. Since I didn't travel with them so I may miss some details.
Background: Y class is overbooked, PEY and J are not full.
What happened is: Most (or all) PEY passengers were op-uped to J. All Y class passengers during my fam's check-in (They had to deal with overweight luggage so it took them a lot of time) were offered a cheap AM upgrade (1k or 2k miles, not sure) to PEY, and most passengers took the offer. They are definitely not OW/MPC silver or above because they are in the Y/PEY check-in counter. However, my family (BA/OWR, but travelled on CX metal mostly) on revenue ticket were not offered anything including an op-up. I understand avios cannot be used for upgrade, but should they be offered an op-up or something ahead of cheap AM upgrade? I don't think I've heard of a cheap upgrade in the past, so is this a new policy? Thanks!