Air Canada Bid Upgrade Program
 

A friend of mine mentioned that she received an e-mail stating she can submit a bid (auction?) for an upgrade to business class. The thing is that the URL in the e-mail that she is instructed to go to is not an Air Canada (according to her) domain URL.

Has anyone else heard about this?

I'm not in a position to check it out properly - only on mobile, so no web inspection tools at my disposal for the moment.

Did the email really originate at AC?

I'd be suspicious as I assume that bidding would require a credit card and other personal details.

I do not know. I am on my phone, she's not the most adept at determining these things and I have not had a chance to look at the smtp headers or the URL in the email.

Same.

I call phishing.

Why would AC cheapen the cabin?

A bid process. Great, since everyone's obviously fed up with R Games, might as well do something worse.

I think your friend is confusing something with the email promo.

It say "up to" but it's not bidding, and you have to call in too.

This makes total sense to me! Not surprised one bit and I believe it.

This year with the changes I've been seeing a ton of space in the J cabins while flying. Why not get people to tell you how much they are willing to pay extra to be up there and then decide if you want to take it or not? Great way for some extra revenue that's at your discretion to take or not.

As ffsim pointed out, R games and all.

I dunno! I won't be in a position to properly check out the e-mail and URL for another 10 hours or so - which I why posted here.

Totally makes sense from AC's perspective. J cabins are empty because people board their eupgrade credits, so this is a way for them to get extra revenue -- possibly more than an LMU -- out of those seats. Just sucks for anyone trying to use eupgrade credits.

I'd love to know what the email actually said. How it works, why the URL isn't AC's, etc. Who knows, maybe Sparse is right and OP's friend is confused.

Wow.

From June 14, 2015

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-c...-upgrades.html

It wouldn't surprise me if this were true.

The number of airlines which have implemented a "bidding for upgrade" system has exploded over the last two years. Pretty much much all the airlines use the IT platform developed by Plusgrade:

www.plusgrade.com

I had the opportunity to meet the founders during a conference last week and it's probably one of the most significant innovations in generating ancillary revenue in recent years.

Of course this would be bad news for frequent flyers, but let's see whether the news is true....

Depends. If the eUp system remains in place as-is and bidding simply replaces the LMU system, not necessarily bad news.

Unless bidding is not until T-15m and takes away R space.

Then all bets are off.

Surely, messing with R-space is something they'd neve- I'm sorry, I almost made it through that with a straight face.

Buckle up, buckaroos!

I haven't heard of AC implementing a bidding system for upgrades, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do launch such a program.