romans

before OLCI offers:

Y to W - 439€ (cash only)

OLCI offers:

CDG-LAX Feb 15 AF0066 / Y to W - 409€ or 45,000 miles (not sure about miles, can't really remember exactly sorry)
CDG-LAX Feb 15 AF0066 / Y to J - 679€ or 85,000 or 95,000 miles

we took 2xJ (cash) because of some health issues of my fiance. Original was cheap economy V class. TBH I expected even higher price for biz class from economy.

flyingjapans

SFO-CDG 16JAN : Y -> W 619 euros or 53500 miles

Goldorak

af fp

Meneer Guggenheimer

AMS NWI AMS 14 Jan was €49 to business. Which I would never take. But I fly a lot between Norwich and Amsterdam and the upgrade is almost always available and €49 euro.

breton1fr

CDG-DXB from J To P: 1075€. Not outrageous but not worth it for 6 hours in a 380.

San Gottardo

I have browsed through the entire thread again and couldn't get a full comprehension of what the various options are. Maybe someone can help me, it's concrete questions:

• Before OLCI opens, I can call the airline and ask to upgrade to the higher class. Two things may happen:
  • They'll apply the normal fare difference in cash
  • If there is award space, they'll ask for a boat-load of miles. But only if there is award space. The number of miles is taken off the award chart, where the number of miles is determined by the zone one is flying to and the classe one is trying to move into. It's independent of the booked fare as long as the fare is eligible for upgrade (but for instance, it doesn't matter whether one is booked in M or Y booking class, miles upgrade to Premium Economy cost the same; D or J booking class, miles upgrade to Premiere cost the same, and so on...)
• Some passengers get an offer to upgrade when they check in online. Offer can be cash or miles or both. But that is only for some (and somehow never me)

Is this correct so far?

Where I am lost now is what my options are if I do not get such an offer, within the time window of OLCI:

• Can I check online for an upgrade, in either cash or miles? How? Where on the site? When I go into my booking I cannot see that option
• If I call the airline, what price would they quote me? The same as if I had called before OLCI opens? Or does dynamic pricing kick in?
• Can I ask at the airport? Where? At the ticket counter, or the check-counter? What price would they quote me? The same as if I had called before OLCI opens? Or does dynamic pricing kick in?
• Are there any other factors that influence availability? Status?
• Are there any other factors that influence price (cash or miles)? Status?

A lot in the past 39 pages have been anecdotes of individual offers and in the beginning of the thread there was a lot of "I think this is how it works". But maybe now that the new system is not so new anymore we could establish some kind of Wiki. That would be really useful (happy to write it, but I just don't have the facts).

Thanks

Goldorak

San Gottardo

Thank you Goldorak, really helpful ^

Just one question remains open to me: if I call AF within the OLCI window, will the price for a miles/cash upgrade be the same as if I had called before the OLCI window? Or will it be a different one, basically based on dynamic pricing (=where their goal is to find the right price to be sufficiently attractive to get rid of the seats but at the same time still not make it too inexpensive)?

I have a somewhat complicated ticket (open jaw between two countries, stopover in Paris on the return, outbound flight does not have Premiere) and I would like my return USA-CDG portion to be in Premiere. Currently in Affaires. There are 3 seats in Premiere for sale and there are 2 award seats as well (both info according to expertflyer). When trying to price the ticket with "up-faring" the USA-CDG portion to Premiere results in almost tripling the fare of the entire ticket (ending up somewhere in the 13,000+ EUR range), which is why I wanted to see whether *upgrade* (=do something during the OLCI window) instead of *up-faring* (paying the fare difference ahead of OLCI window) would be an option. If in any case I'll end up paying the same fare if requesting an upgrade then I can just as well book it now (or rather, not do it at all as even the nice P service on one flight is not worth a price difference between 5,000 and 13,000+).

Goldorak

Milkman

Wife and I are travelling CPH-CDG-MIA tomorrow. Following Expertflyer, the flight has looked drained for passengers for a long time so figured we would get a decent upgrade offer. Well think again. I checked myself in first (we are on different PNRs but both in PE), offered an upgrade to J for 1100 EUR! Declined.
Checked my wife in afterwards, exact same offer came up. Also declined.

1100 EUR for J in 380's old NEV3 or 4. Nah.

I had called an inquired about upgrades on the flight back which is on PTY-CDG-CPH. Funny enough I was told that my wifes ticket in A bucket was not eligible for upgrades. So we would have to try at OLCI or at the counter. I thought all classes could in theory upgrade?

San Gottardo

Klems

Well if you want an even more absurd data point, I recently had a fairly cheap OLCI upgrade offer online . I can't remember why but I had issues completing it online, so I called Air France and they quoted me a price that was 150 euros (if I remember correctly) more expensive than the one I had online.
And yes, I thought that maybe inventory changed while i was on the phone , but checking online a bit later I could still see the original price .
So for what it's worth, there might be differences at literally every entry point.

flyingjapans

The underlined part is not true. The award chart, as of the last time I experienced a miles-based pre-OLCI upgrade which is December, remains what it was the past years: the chart does depend on the original fare class (you will pay less if you are in a high class like Y, and more if you are in a low class like V).

The only instance where the price does not depend on the original fare class is when you are Platinum or Ultimate and try to upgrade from fare class Y or W into Flex Award Space (booking class C) : it will be a flat amount.

I happened to have the chart copied from the Flying Blue website but somehow lost it when the website was updated in April 2018. However I managed to get the prices from a Flying Blue representative for one-way upgrades from Europe to Mainland US 48 (includes the AF European feeder flight if any (but not the hypothetical domestic DL connection) and is independent of whether you fly to the West or East Coast).

Economy to Business

Original Booking Class - Price (Flying Blue Miles)

Y B 15 000

M U 25 000

K H 35 000

L Q 45 000

T E 47 500

N 50 000

R 55 000

All others below 60 000

From my several years experience of trying to upgrade flights with miles prior to OLCI and often encountering problems to do so, the regular upgrade availability can generally be determined based on whether you see award tickets at the lowest available price on your flight. You have to take into account the married segment in case your starting point is an outstation in Europe. This has once been confirmed by a PSL agent, for what it's worth.

Do not trust expertflyer's O availability : I have been told several times by PSL agents that they did not have upgrade availability on flights EF showed as available in Class O.

If there is availability you will be proposed a seat in W/J/P on the check in page. I have sometimes been proposed cash only or cash OR miles - I cannot comment on which situations lead you to be offered a price in either currency.

Generally, there are two charts : one with discounted prices (like 600EUR for CDG-NRT) or higher prices (generally double to triple, several examples have been posted here). If you've benefitted from a discounted offer recently (impossible to determine the purgatory period, n'est-ce pas Goldorak ) you will most likely get the higher price - at least when flying Long Haul.

At the airport check in desk, there is generally nothing new to the prices (if there still is availability) but you will get the option of paying 100% cash or miles, 50% miles/50% cash, 25% cash/75% miles, and vice versa. However the miles amount you will get charged is likely not the same as the amount of miles forecasted by the pre-OLCI award scheme such as the one I posted above. It is instead a direct multiple of the cash price of the upgrade : there has been several posts about that, but for Y->J upgrades the multiplies was somewhere around 140. For example, last year I was quoted, for NRT-CDG Y->J, 600 euros or 84 000 miles. This pricing, however, seems to be independent of the booking class but this is only educated observations : I do not have any confirmation from AF.

Porcepic

CDG-WRO : 349€ or ~26k miles both way.
About 4 times the price of the ticket, I hope that at least the hot Madeleine would be stuffed with gold!

Ended up on the return leg with 2 op-up (not status-based ofc) and a messy boarding as the ground agents did not to bother explaining bip-ped passengers that their seat had changed...