Originally Posted by
CDBMan
AC1 YYZ-HND. The bid range was $850-1900. In total I paid (one direction) $1750 PE + $1928 upgrade = $3678 for J. The average J ticket was $6000 before the T-72 hour last minute spike to $8000+. The price if you book 9+ months in advance is $4500+. Overall I feel that I've got a reasonable deal out of this. If I had caught the instant upgrade originally, I could have saved myself $173 compared to the instant upgrade.
PS now that I have internet again, I had overheard a couple of SE's in the ML lounge as they were joking amongst themselves that they were unlikely to clear any J upgrades on this flight. I suspect the reason being all the upgrade slots were taken by myself and other non-status travelers bidding cash upgrades on leisure travel, especially on a popular leisure route like this.