Antibread

Hey all, ltl, FTC. I've been accustomed to very nice BA upgrades and can't figure out how to upgrade myself from premium economy to business on my morning flight from ppt to lax. No options on the internet on desktop or mobile site during checkin and the phone line... is closed right now?? Tahiti and small airlines throw me for a loop. Should I just get to the airport at 530am for my 830am flight? I heard it should cost around €390 a seat to upgrade... help? Not new to getting cheap flights but new to the upgrade game, help.

olivedel

Good morning and welcome to FT!
Upgrade prices are unpredictable, unfortunately.
0530 looks a little early for PPT, 0630 is enough.

carnarvon

Upgrades on AF. So funny.

Rather than going early to the airport, you'd better marry an AF pilot or get elected to some influencial post. This is far more efficient.

ijgordon

That's just silly. Of course AF sells upgrades, there are threads specifically on the topic. You may get an email offer a few days before. If not, you can ask at the airport (where IME it's a bit more expensive than if you get the email offer). Based on what I've read, I would guess that it would be a little bit higher than €390 for PE to J.

SDQBound

Well, on my last CDG-IAD flight upgrades from W to J were not offered before or during check-in. Asked at the airport and they were asking something in the 800s. J was not very full, but right after the "PNC boarding finished" PA message, the Y to J parade started. When the door was closed, J was full. So carnavon's suggestion might be the more plausible

carnarvon

Silly?

How much experience do you have? How many LH flights have you taken? How many times have you witnessed Y pax being led to W or C seats after boarding was completed? How much do you know about the chocolate ceremonium?

Please tell us. Eager to know what makes you think you can use the word "silly". Thank you.

NickB

With due respect, the phrase "Upgrades on AF. So funny." seems to suggest that offers of upgrade on AF are rarer than a solar eclipse and that one would have to be utterly clueless to believe that one might receive such an offer. That simply is not the case.

Saying that upgrade offers are highly unpredictable and that one should not rely on getting one, still less one at a reasonable price, is one thing and this would be, imo, a reasonably accurate statement to make.

OTOH, suggesting that upgrades are barely ever offered on AF because spare seats are always swallowed up by staff and FNFs is, imo, misleading and I do not think that I would blame another FTer for describing such a suggestion as "silly".

carnarvon

Hi Nick. You are exaggerating what my sentence implies. Upgrades on AF is a funny subject. It does not mean that upgrades are rarer than a solar eclipse.

Upgrades are always available at the list price. Simply pay up the fare difference. Upgrades at a lower cost than list price is another matter and we shall all agree that is is very opaque.

Of course! I never said that about the current situation, it used to be the case though.

What I am saying is that AF knowingly or simply out of reflexes coming form the old days, makes upgrade policy purposely murky.

As a result, you have a better chance of being upgraded if you are staff/friend and family than if you are a frequent flyer. Business seats rarely remain empty. On my last flight form BKK, after doors had closed, even though the chief purser had said the flight would be quiet and cabin not full, a ballet started.

New pax coming from behind the curtain started to appear, sitting here then there following the purser's instructions, the mother and son coming, son sent to W cabin then back into C cabin. I smiled at the mother and she thought I was part of the crowd, so she smiled back with a tweak in the eye expressing complicity. C cabin ended up being full. Nothing new.

So indeed, upgrade experience at AF is funny.

NickB

Presonally, this is how I would read such a sentence (and I suspect that ijgordon must have had a similar kind of reading) but fair enough and thanks for clarifying.

brunos

Flying in J, I always witnessed the "Y to J parade after the door closes" on the HKG or BKK route. And that is quite frustrating. I now fly AF rarely, but I have AF friends on both sides of the route, and they "expect" that their family/friends get the parade, whether Y is full or not. Actually they feel that their chances are better if Y/PE is not full (no opup).
I even heard a gossip, and I treat it as such, that unions insist that this perk be built into the IT system by leaving some J seats not filled by paid upgrades.

ranskis

If AF staff buy confirmed AF J tickets with an employee discount (I am pretty sure it exists and it is available to all employees) then these seats should really be considered as "confirmed". Paid upgrades should not result into an overbooked J cabin and get confirmed AF staff downgraded to W or Y.
If the union's idea is to keep available J seats to seat AF staff on leisure standby eco ticket, well, I would not be surprised but that is unacceptable.

But I think for medium haul, they found another technic: they make sure cash upgrades are prohibitively expensive, to keep available J seats for their Y stand by friends

SDQBound

I was once offered an upgrade on a LIS-CDG flight where I could select through the App almost every seat in J for 129 Euros if I'm not mistaken, just a few hours before the flight. There were >9 J seats available and Y was wide open according to Expert Flyer. By the time we departed, J was completely full. Some FTers suggested that these could be employees flying standby or with a discount. To me, this was a first, but lately, and as I indicated in my post above, the friends & family upgrade tradition has been more present than in the past.

ijgordon

Exactly - it read very differently from how the poster clarified/walked back the tone.

There are plenty of data points here, including a whole separate thread, about discounted (i.e., non-fare differential) day-of-departure upgrades (or advance email promotions). My own: on 3 recent long-haul J segments, I got an email offer to upgrade leg #1 to F (at a highly discounted, but still expensive, price), was quoted a somewhat higher price at the airport for that same leg, and then was quoted a discounted price upon request for leg #3 at the airport. I didn't bother to ask about leg #2 .

FWIW, I never noticed the "ballet" into J after door closing, but I wasn't looking for it.

And also FWIW, this idea of employees/friends/family getting upgrades is well understood on US-based carriers, particularly on long-haul routes. This non-revenue travel is a specific benefit for employees. They usually have to pay fees to list for the premium cabin classes, but they will clear into any unsold seats toward the end of boarding. Maybe this is less formalized at AF, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it.

I'm also inclined to think that revenue management withholding award upgrades from clearing to ensure more room for nonrevs is speculative, but I don't know much about FlyingBlue's upgrade scheme.

brunos

Of course, staff can buy confirmed J tickets at a discount, but these are not inexpensive (30% discount from the cheapest revenue fare, R1). On other sites, the various GP tickets ("facilites de transport") R1, R2, RN and ZED are widely discussed; and there are also S, N, C, G. These tickets (number per staff and price) are a major point of discussion
between management and unions (although all AF managers enjoy them). AF management probably find it easier to yield on GP tickets and obtain other concessions. Two big changes in the past decade have been the elimination of R1 High (confirmed tickets sold at a 70% discount) and the elimination/reduction of bartered tickets. But remember that the number of users of this "facilites de transport" is very large. It includes all staff as well as retired staff, their partners, their children, their parents, even their inlaws. Plus there can be staff from other companies.

BTW, I am familiar with CX staff policy. The basic staff tickets (ID) is roughly 10% of the fare and can be bought in Y, PE, J or F. BUT, it is a standby ticket. There are also some expensive confirmed tickets. If you standby with a Y ID ticket, you will not be put in J. There is no practice of moving staff to a higher class when the doors close.

carnarvon

Unnecessarily condescending comment.

​This makes you a rare one of a kind on this forum.

Quite condescending again.

All of us who have witnessed it will appreciate your idea that we were "looking for" it.