Originally Posted by
bse118
My understanding is that these in-app offers are just buy-ups to the lowest first class cabin fare - the difference in fare between the ticket you purchased and the current front cabin selling price. So essentially no different than someone going to AA.com and buying a F seat.
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
Here I am!
In my experience last November this was not the case. The online upgrade offer was quite a bit more than the difference between (current market price for FC) - (what I paid for Y). I had apparently "overpaid" for Y, which had declined meaningfully since my original booking leaving the fare difference at a quite reasonable $112 for EYW-MIA-JFK (including the second leg on a 772), even if upgrade chances seemed good on MIA-JFK (and if not, PE seats designated as MCE as a good backup). If I had to guess (and I don't have the details now), the online upgrade offer was probably priced as the current fare difference between Y and F.
In any event, I called and asked to up-fare, and that was quoted at the expected price based on the fare difference vs. what I originally paid. Of course this led to all sorts of issues as I was charged a change fee (despite no mention of it) and in the ensuing fight for a refund they canceled the ticket.
