sarahjane, welcome to FT, and I'm sorry if some of the answers seem a bit direct. There's a lot of experience and expertise here, and sometimes something as simple as English not being a first language - BA has a lot of customers worldwide who visit us - can mean a response doesn't come across as we'd always hope. But, please don't be put off because you'll find a very large number of exceptionally helpful people in this forum and throughout FT.

Just to address a few points which might be causing confusion:

- what you've been offered is called a POUG (Proactive Online Upgrade). There's a whole thread on these linked from the forum Dashboard which is stickied to the top of the thread list if you want to read in greater depth. These are limited in number and BA will not fill the cabin with them because that doesn't maximise revenue for them. They are also targeted, although perhaps less so these days. Unfortunately BA's IT is notoriously flaky on this, so although they might offer say five upgrades to a particular cabin that offer might be sent to 10 or 15 people to ensure they're taken up - but once they are the remaining people still see the offer even though the inventory has long disappeared. This can take weeks to align- indeed, it may never do so. It's the most likely reason for the issue you're seeing. Equally, closer to departure BA may decide to offer more at the same or a different price to fill the cabin.

- just because you don't see the number of seats decreasing doesn't mean some haven't been sold. Because BA charges for seat selection for those without status, most people wait for check-in when it becomes free. It's quite possible the five people that have taken the upgrade just haven't selected seats yet, so the seatmap won't change. If you're looking at a website such as Expertflyer which shows you how many seats are left for sale, then J9 just means nine or more. If there were 15 seats left and BA sold five of them on POUGs then there are still more than nine left.

- if you can't get the POUG and it doesn't genuinely re-appear, there's also something called an AUP (Airport Upgrade Price). There's also a whole thread on them you'll find in the Dashboard. Essentially you ask at check-in if any are available, and usually they're a similar price to the POUG. Again, these aren't guaranteed even if there's space in the cabin, and they could be offered to someone else but not you because BA will target people.

Essentially all of these offers are to get you to try a higher cabin at a price you find attractive, in the hope that next time you'll pay full price.

As an anti-spam measure we restrict members to five posts on their first day, so you may want to consolidate your responses as you head towards the limit. I'll ask the mods to merge a couple of your posts to give you some headroom.