I've seen it range from $180-200 but had it be $165 at check in (or $180 on the second flight). Cabin was only half full at departure (and 3 booked prior to T-24)

J ranges I was seeing were higher, but since it was a lie flat it went out far more full both ways.

Has anyone had any luck recently in getting a refund for an accepted upgrade request? I realize that the rules state pretty explicitly that there are no refunds, but I'm wondering if they are showing some leniency given COVID. My $345 upgrade YYZ-YVR was accepted, and then a few hours later due to reasons outside of my control I had to cancel the trip. The ticket was purchased for me by others, and they were able to get a full credit for the base ticket price as per the flexible cancellation rules. But I bid on the upgrade myself using my credit card.

I am totally fine if they say no - I accepted the risk when I placed the bid (although I wasn't expecting to cancel the trip so last minute). But if there are any strategies or "magic words to say" to get a refund (or credit voucher) I figured I would check.

Was successful with a 350 CHF bid (absolute minimum) on GVA-YUL to upgrade to J from PE. Cleared 96 hours prior to departure.

To reply to my own post - I wrote into the refunds department to request a refund with some details explaining the circumstances. As expected, they rejected the refund, however the reply made it clear that my email was read and replied to personally and not just someone pushing a button for a canned reply.

As a remedy they did though give me a 25% base-fare discount code good for 18 months, which I think is fair since they were not obliged to do anything - and assuming travel picks up again next year I’ll get approximately equal value from that if not more. So thumbs up to AC from me on their handling of this one.

One of the legs of an upcoming trip of ours is YEG-YYZ on the redeye (leaving shortly after midnight on Dec 26) that seems very empty per expertflyer. I was hoping to upgrade mom and the girl for that leg only, while bambino Jr and I slum it in the back (the entire trip is YEG - PLS and back connecting via YYZ).

Two issues:

1. The AC Bid Upgrade appears to only allows bids for all 4 passengers. Is there a workaround to place a bid for only 2 of them?
2. The points upgrade bid starts at a suggested, but still with just a modest chance, 43K per passenger, and the slider does not go below 36K, meaning that's the lowest bid they would let me make. I can book that flight on its own in Business for only 21K points plus thirty-odd dollars in fees. Where is the logic in that?

I would appreciate any suggestions as to what may be a way to accomplish this - let lil&big princess have some comfort and rest on that first redeye segment, while keeping the rest of the trip as is, in one of the lower Economy classes (K, I think). I do not have status.

Booking the YEG - YYZ in Business on its own for two of them (and checking in on that ticket) would screw up/invalidate the other three segments, right? Or is it even possible to make a duplicate booking?

You would need to call and divide the PNR, so you'd end up with 2 reservations, each for 2 people.

That sounds like there's I-space, which is why redemptions are so low.

Bid upgrades are generally priced to be a bit less than the fare difference between Y and J.

It's just different pricing models.

Don't make a duplicate booking though. That could cause problems.

Thank you!

What is the correlation between the points/cash bids, if any, value-wise. Is there any benefit to bidding one over the other?

It's hard to track on the sliding scale, but looks like as you go up on the scale (where you reach the "even better" and "really good" points , it's basically $0.01. Lower on the scale (the grey low/modest) it's less than a penny per mile. So basically it looks like this as the slider enters the following "chance" ranges:

Cash: Modest: $330 Pretty Good: $410 Even Better: $490 Really Good: $600 Max: $700
Points: Modest: 40K Pretty Good: 45K Even Better: 49K Really Good: 60K Max: 70K

Quite a variance in marginal cost between modest and pretty good for $/points, almost 1:2

Any bidding strategy advice based on that? Bid 41K points that corresponds to $410 (pretty good) on a $.01 valuation? Wait a week or so - is there a rule of thumb for timing?

I recently completed two successful AC bid upgrades (in late December 2020) and was pleasantly surprised to see that the charge posted to my CC (Amex Aeroplan Reserve) as a charge from Air Canada. I can confirm that the bid upgrade charges earned 3 points / $ as an Air Canada purchase.

In contrast, past AC bid upgrade charges have been processed by Plusgrade and did not result in any bonus Aeroplan points.

(I thought about not posting this, but decided it appeared more likely to be a deliberate change by Air Canada in how these transactions are handled.)

Hopefully this means less declined transactions as well.

My mom will be travelling from HKG to YVR. She has already bought the ticket from AC. Is it possible for me to bid an upgrade on her behalf?

If you have her PNR, yes.

YYZ-YVR next week min. bid is $240 (or 30435 points) with 787 J cabin wide open. AC must be desperate.

If you're short on points, AC will happily sell them to you for $910.35...

YUL-YVR, L fare basis, min bid $370, I bid $500.
A330 service.

Let's see if I get it LOL.

What fare brand?