mclachlan4321

Why do BA prevent you upgrading cabin by cabin using Avios?

darthlemsip

Presumably for the same reasons you can't upgrade discounted economy - they don't want people flying in the premium cabins for pittance.

stifle

By that logic there would be no full redemptions into F!

mumblemumble

I thought this too, but... you can do a straight redemption for any cabin including F, so BA have already opened the door to (relatively) low-cost travel in F. You even have multiple PAPC options to effectively do something similar to a multi-cabin upgrade, except for the fact that you do not earn any base avios/TP. I guess you could build logic that allowed you to upgrade multiple cabins that reflected normal redemption pricing. Obviously you would need to pay the YQ difference.

For example: I can redeem Avios for one-way F LHR-JFK for 60K + �YQ1, or 30K + �360 + �YQ1. Say I had a WT+ ticket already purchased for (say) �700 + �YQ2. It would make sense to offer an upgrade to F from WT+ for 30K + �(YQ1-YQ2), plus perhaps some admin charge. This would still be revenue positive from a BA point of view over a normal redemption.

The only reason I can think of not offering it is that they want to protect availability of upgrades into F for their CW business customer segment, and there are too few straight leisure redemptions into F to be a factor.

paulwuk

Yet you can upgrade sale T fares, putting you in CW for about �600 return and enough miles as a silver on an east-coast flight to pay for the upgrade

darthlemsip

I think you're pretty much right here - was replying on my phone so didn't do a fuller answer. You have to have a lot of miles to do a full redemption into F - you'll get the Tesco shopper, or the credit card churner and the like, who saves their points to do this, but I very much doubt it's a widespread thing as you say. If you're able to upgrade from more than one cabin, it won't cost that many miles and restricting upgrades to one level means BA are guaranteeing a certain amount of income.

And? You're still only going up one cabin, and that's still more money in BA's coffers than if you had been able to buy deep discount Y and upgrade that to CW. Granted it's nowhere near the revenue they would get from just selling the CW seat, but everyone knows that WT+ UuA'd to CW, especially with a sale fare, is by far the best value use of Avios.

Maybe that's why these sort of redemption's are getting harder and harder to find unless you book them 11 months out, when a limited number of seats are released, or two days beforehand when they seemingly open up what's left in the cabin?

paulwuk

True, but it contradicts your statement

Upgrading YBH->CW will net BA more (both in avios and cash) than upgrading T->CW, but it isn't allowed. A Y fare will be somewhere in the region of 1.5 - 2x that of T (especially a sale fare)

Flying CW for T+a few quid+a few avios is a pittance.

You can't upgrade a non YBH fare (which themselves can still be nearly as much as T) to WTP, let alone CW.

Upgrades of I/R/T/E (and giving full tier points for them) seems to be an anomaly to me when M/N/S/etc don't get them.

darthlemsip

TBF, I did quantify it in my later post. The WTP to CW, especially with a sale fare, is an anomaly to my mind. If T was excluded from being able to upgrade, same as non YBH, it would probably be fairer - but would cause outrage on here.

Ignoring this particular scenario, I'm sure the reason you can't do it is to stop people on the cheap Y tickets getting into CW and F, and people on the cheap W tickets getting into F

kanderson1965

One reason that E and T fares are upgradable is the relatively limited number of WT+ seats available on a flight, if BA can persuade someone to upgrade from WT+ to CW it can re-sell the WT+ seat, probably easier than a CW seat. Upgrading a WT seat in the lower buckets leaves a relatively less lucrative WT seat to sell.

paulwuk

It would allow these additional choices for LHR-JFK in F:

1) Y + UUA, 80k avios + �1515 + APD + YQ 6p/avios
2) T + UUA, 60k avios + �873 + YQ -- 8.8p/avios
3) E + UUA, 60k avios + �1073 + YQ -- 8.5p/avios
4) W + UUA, 60k avios + �2270 + YQ -- 6.5p/avios

You already have
5) I + UUA, 40k avios + �2505 + YQ -- 9.2p/avios
6) Redemption, 120k + �532 -- 14p/avios
7) A = �6211

As options

The I + UUA is barely more than the W option in cash, and obviously costs fewer avios. The Y option is a terrible use of avios (compared with a straight redemption or an upgrade from I). Perhaps full fare fares (Y and W) should be able to upgrade twice?