Originally Posted by
irishguy28
However, my advice is: do not use FB miles for upgrades*. It is an incredibly poor use of miles. Your apparent strategy - of first choosing which flight to pick, in order to buy a ticket which then you want to upgrade - is also the worst possible way about going about upgrading.
But here is a handy rule of thumb: Unless you are going to buy a fully flex Y ticket, the upgrade price (if an upgrade is ever possible once you have settled on any particular flight) is likely to be as much as, or considerably more than, the "starting from" price offered to redeem outright into J on that same route Yes, it really is an exceptionally awful use of miles.
You'd be surprised how often KL senior pursers walk to my seat after boarding and fully settling down, luggage stored etc., proudly presenting their iPad showing an upgrade offer saying "you have more than enough miles Sir, and we have empty seats in J - would you like an upgrade for 90.000 miles?" They expect a yes or no, all I usually say is: I've already paid 900 euros for this ticket, you have to spend between 14k (plat) to 25k (explorer) euro (some 3.5 - 7 miles per euro spent if you consider the full ticket price), so after 32 paid flights I can upgrade one leg, after boarding. You can book a round-trip biz promo reward flight for that amount of miles, which includes the whole biz shebang incl. luggage allowance.
They usually don't wait for my 'yes' or 'no' to their offer.