Upgrading KQ Flight
 

I'm about 30 days away from a flight from New York to Nairobi on Kenya Airways. I booked the economy tickets for my wife and I a while back. It's a Saturday afternoon departure. Thinking about bidding on an upgrade from economy to business class. When I research the current ticket price and availability on Kenya Airways, the website tells me the combined ticket price for Economy one-way is about $1,500. The combined ticket price for business class one-way is $16,777! Also says there are "only 4 seats left" in business class. Typical rule of thumb I hear for bidding is to do about 1/3 of the price difference between business and economy, which would be a bid price of about $5,000 to upgrade that one leg, which is WAY too much for me. Am I sunk, or can I really rely on this info from the Kenya Airways website?

No personal datapoint on this specific flight. But got upgraded NBO - GVA with an offer 5$ higher than the lowest possible bid (but JFK-NBO has certainly more success in J). But with 30 days to go, high are the chances the J cabin will be full. I would offer what you can offer, and cross fingers.

Why not just bid an amount that you can afford and that you would be comfortable to pay, and see what happens?

I don't know where you got that "rule of thumb" but it certainly wasn't from the KQ website!

Received my email invitation to bid on an upgrade from economy to business. Just to upgrade the JFK to NBO outbound leg of the trip, the minimum bid is $1,100pp and the odds meter indicates my chances don't get to "average" until about $2,500pp. That's insane. My deadline isn't until Thursday so I guess I'll wait a couple of days to bid, just to see out of curiosity whether the minimum bid or meter changes.

$1'100 would be decent considering the flight time. I was systematically upgraded when bidding minimum amount on KQ, but to/from CDG, AMS or DXB, not JFK. Unlikely for the min. bid to change. They may offer upgrade at the check-in counter, but usually above online bidding rate.

The minimum bid is already more than I had hoped to bid, but I'm still giving it a shot. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Hopefully there aren't very many coach-fare people as crazy as me to spend over $1000 a seat just for 14 hours of comfort.

My $1,200 offer was accepted. That's significantly more than the $800 I wanted to bid, but KQ set the minimum bid at $1,100. I guess I was right - there aren't that many coach-fare passengers crazy enough to spend that kind of money for some extra comfort on one 14hr flight. Well, this is going to be a fun surprise for my wife, so I'm pleased, but I also suspect KQ overpriced the minimum bid and there's going to be several vacancies in business class. It does go to show that the "odds meter" is pure sales bunk. It said I had a poor chance of winning.

considering the price between coach and business when you actually pay the ticket, it is quite cheap “all things considered”. Do hope you enjoyed the flight! Also check your mileage accrual, KQ is known to actually accrue business XP/Miles when you upgrade to business. If that’s the case for you, consider it an additional perk of flying upgraded ;)