SK

I have an Athens-Paris reservation in a few months, morning departure, and was invited to bid for a business class seat: The minimum bid is EUR 90.

Probably not worth it, especially since I'll be traveling hand-luggage only.

Carpacchio

Some interesting datapoint:
I booked a flight some time ago with them for April. Yesterday I called to upgrade one leg with one of my gold vouchers (was put on waitlist)..
Now - yesterday AND today I get an email whether I want to purchase an upgrade to my flight (haven't received this before).

Was this triggered by my voucher request ?
Funnily enough, it shows the leg which is on the voucher waitlist twice (the original economy plus the waitlisted business). Shouldn't the system somehow realize this ?

East_and_West

Most probably no. Now you get bombarded with these emails before every flight on Economy. Last November I had about 8 segments on A3 Economy so I was receiving such emails daily (some days more than one) at different levels of urgency depending on how far ahead the date of the respective trip was ("Upgrade your experience", "Lets get you upgraded", "Your last chance to upgrade", and so on...)

It's normal. This way you know that your request has been received and you are on the wait list. Don't ask why. As long as I can check the status of my request it's good enough for me:
–Upgrade request not received or not properly filed by the agent--> segment showing normally as Economy
–Wait-listed segment--> showing twice (both as Economy and Business)
–Upgraded segment--> showing as Business

david55

Are the upgrade auctions also offered for domestic flights within Greece? I have a couple ATH-HER flights coming up and wondered if I should be on the look-out for the offer? Thanks.

KLouis

The ATH-HER flights are 35 minutes long, say, one hour from boarding till deplaning. For the extra money you get a) to sit upfront (more legroom) and be driven first to the terminal, b) a free middle seat and c) a better snack. Plus, of course lounge, extra piece of luggage and priority tag if you're not already *G. Worth it? I guess it depends on how much money you... have.

Chr04

I think only international flights
​​are available for an upgrade.

Romanianflyer

I've also put a 60 EUR bid on my OTP-ATH flight. Let's see as another data point almost two years later if this will be accepted or not.

Normally I wouldn't bother really as Y is perfectly acceptable, but given I paid only 35 EUR or so for my flight I thought it would be a nice way to start my holiday. If I saw a 95 EUR business class ticket outright I would have certainly bought it. A few glasses of good wine and mastiha before hopping on an onward (and dry) Saudia flight in ATH makes for another good reason to bid for the upgrade

jerry_greece

Given the fact that your precious 4 coupons have a value for us (and the airline), it makes sense to try the auction iff you have paid a very cheap ticket (e.g. in P). In the end, you might end up paying the same amount that you would pay for a e.g. K fare (and you are still left with the coupons to be used in other cases).

Alexandros Bravos

I found out a couple of days ago that you can take part in the Upgrade Challenge even if you have booked -as it happened with a colleague of mine- an award ticket in economy class (booking class "X") !

Xandrios

Yes I agree. 60 euro is very good value for the upgrade. I've done the flight to OTP one time but it was booked as a RO codeshare..meaning I could not do online check in and I ended up in one of the last rows of economy. That was a harsh awakening after being used to the up front seats...even if only a short flight.

Good point is that A3 serves the same meals and amenities irrelevant of the flight length...so you get the same as somebody who paid for a 150 euro upgrade on the LHR route.

Have you been able to take advantage of the Saudi business sale to Asia? Please do report back how your experiences were. I've been VERY tempted to book Saudi to Malaysia around Easter period. The business fares are unreal - and a single r/t earns so many XP's that it is a huge boost for (re) qualification in Skyteam.

Romanianflyer

That is the exact reason why passing through Athens - and I'm also booked on the ATH-JED-KUL flight with three hours between my A3 flight (which normally is very reliable) and the SV departure it should be an easy self-connection *knocks on wood*

I've been using similar Saudia deals the last two years. Two years ago there were similar great fares from FCO, one year ago from IST, and now its ATH. Makes the difference between AFKL Gold and Platinum for me! I do actually like the on-board product of SV a lot. Great food, great seats on the A320 and B787. Crews can be a mixed bag however (had great and bad ones), and its a pity they don't serve alcohol - but for that there is always the A3 flight and the Goldair lounge at ATH (IMHO the best one by a mile in the ex-Schengen area of ATH).

The ATH flights do arrive/depart from the new terminal now, but the Asian flights for now still depart from the old South Terminal which is horrible (although lounge is OK enough if not staying too long). What I've seen from the new terminal and lounge it should be a drastic improvement and a great facility to connect.

giorginho

While I have been upgraded both times I placed a bid, after having purchased a 'normal' ticket, when I saw the option to bid for an upgrade having purchased an award ticket in economy I thought this would have been the most meaningless thing to do, ever! The difference in miles between the X and the I ticket for most international routes (at least for those above the 'minimum', 'flat' miles required for a redemption) is so worth redeeming the miles for, that it turns redeeming X and then bidding for "I", even at the lowest option into a complete waste of money. (you don't even get any miles for your successful bid). Especially since for "my" routes the minimum bidding went up from 65 Euros to 75 Euros and recently to 85 Euros...

Romanianflyer

Small update: My bid was accepted at T-70 hours.

Not surprising perhaps as the business cabin was empty when I selected seats. And with last-minute tickets in Y still being only 67 EUR I expect a very light load overall.

yurtripper

At first I thought "Nah, not worth it" but then I saw your comment about the onward leg on Saudia and changed my mind

PS I also like the Goldair lounge in the NS section. The last time I was there (Tarom flight to OTP) the staff were super nice and helpful (including walking over to my table to let me know when boarding actually started).

Ed Size

Can I use the lounge if I won this auction? No status with *A. In my case this would be a LH lounge. Paid 90€ for Germany - ATH (not that bad, in my opinion)