Originally Posted by
jakpot
Here is the update for ICN-AUH segment.
Today Etihad wanted 260K for the airport upgrade, online fixed price upgrade was never offered as an option in manage my booking, only the online bidding option. By the way, the 260K offered already includes the 25% platinum discount, so the upgrade is over 300K points!! The check-in staff mentioned that they've also noticed how expensive the points upgrade have become.
So it's clear that the average FF would have to save for years just be able to afford an upgrade at these rates. For this flight, I will earn 4K-5K points and upgrade offer was 260K so something is definitely out of line with Etihad Guest earning and redemption rates.
Etihad no longer an option for me, the points seem worthless and collecting on Etihad Guest is now a complete waste of time.
As I posted before, that 260k is a paid upgrade of 1,820 USD converted into miles. This is because they have no GuestSeat availability on that flight.
Looking on SeatSpy, then if you were to try and upgrade a ICN-AUH flight on the 15th March, then it should be around 40k Miles as there is a GuestSeat Available (currently)
The cause of all this is they have significantly reduced the number of GuestSeats available, and do not release empty seats as GuestSeats at any point. So once they are booked, they're gone. (Unless cancelled)