What is the $$$ value of 6 e-upgrade points?
 

So the whole upgrade world starts anew tomm with e-upgrades.

I have an upcoming trip to Europe next week. i am a new SE.

I can buy a Tango fare and upgrade OW with 14 E-upgrade points. When looking online I can buy an M fare for $400 more and upgrade on the same flight with 8 e-upgrade points.

Both are within 7 day window.

What are people's thoughts? Is this worth it? Is 6-eupgrade points worth $400 or is it better to try and upgrade from the lowest fare possible...

is it $400 for round trip or 1 way?

And is R available right now?

Obviously it depends on how many e-credits you have, how any credits you expect to need, what kind of routes you fly.

I mainly do TATL roundtrips or long-haul flights within NA and have come to the following conclusion for my flying pattern:

1) I´m willing to pay up to $500-$600 for a o/w upgrade on a T+ fare, alternatively I need 14 upgrade credits => about $40/credit

2) I´m willing to pay about $300 for a o/w upgrade on a T+ for a long-haul flight within NA (e.g. YYZ-YVR) which costs 10 credits => $30/credit

3) Exec. First usually is $500 more expensive than a Lat fare on the routes I fly, considering the Exec. First would also earn a COS bonus the value of the 1 credit would be about $60

So most of the time I use a valuation of about $40/credit, this works well for my int´l flights, but if you mainly flew Lat fares within NA this calculations would be very much flawed

Somebody was trying to sell the upgrades for $50 per unit a few days ago - good baseline to form the "ask" price.

Small detail: the OP means Tango Plus obviously, not Tango.

As far as pricing for the eCredits is concerned, this is an interesting point. However, surely the difference between lower fares and M will vary a good deal. First, depending upon which low fare is available at the moment of purchase. But also, on the route.

My first impression is that in the case cited, a $400 difference is probably in the lower range?

Anyway, bottom line will be that it's worth going to M if the difference is small but not in case the difference is larger. Some experimentation/more data points would help.

Then there is the situation of people who book way earlier than the upgrade window. Which afgain is a game changer.

I did a bunch of fare comparisons when they put the eUpgrade stuff online looking at the difference between lowest-fare T+ and M class. I came up with about $45/credit as I recall. But, as Jasper2009 points out, it will depend on how many you have, your routes, etc. I think someone with 16 credits looking at R9 and a YYZ-SYD flight would pay more than $45 for one more credit.

It is $400 one way...

And yes there is R space avail..

So if we estimate even $50 for a point...6 points savings is worth about $300 and not worth it then to use the M fare? Am I thinking about this correctly?

The cost for extra points (or is that a value?) may be slightly higher for domestic, but in the same range. I had just booked YOW-YWG in Latitude for around $900 and upgraded with ONE eupgrade. Changed my mind and switched to T+ at about $500, upgraded with SIX points. So the value 5 eupgrades were roughly $400 or $80/eupgrade minus Latitude benefits.

As another point of comparison, on March 1st the credits are worth precisely $0.

That's coming again soon.

Another way of looking at it is how important to you is sitting in J?

If most of your travel is medium/long haul (where J is perhaps more important), you will eventually run out of eUpgrades if you are buying lowest T+ fare (and don't buy a lot of passes) and end up sitting in Y.

By buying the more expensive M fares, as an SE you will likely be able to sit in J (as long as space is available) on most/all of your medium/long hauls.

(This may vary somewhat depending on your travel patterns)

I doubt OP waited around for a whole year to get an answer! I (hence the do not revive old threads part of the t&c)

I usually upgrade on international J and assign a $/h value to the upgrade. I then take into account modifiers such as direction of travel, outbound vs inbound, and night time vs day time, and what I need to to on arrival.

I will not divulge the range of hourly rate: even though "AC Top Tier" may not frequently post here, I am sure flyertalk is frequently monitored , only to increase the bottom line for AC based on the consumer opinions posted here. I think sometimes people in this forum forget that.

The value of 6 credits can be very high when you live in a city (usually in the U.S) where AC has a large price difference between Lat-B and Z fare for TATL, and you're E or SE.

If your travel date is somewhat flexible, Lat-B with 6 credits gives you confirmed upgrades at purchase with available R space (when you do it far in advance there's usually some R space). Since Lat-B is fully refundable, it has more flexibility than a Z fare - and you *can* buy it far in advance with the peace of mind that you can always get a refund.