HIDDY

There's a couple of Silver card holders who never have much of a problem upgrading their heavily discounted JER-IAD WT+ tickets into CW using Avios. In fact they find it so easy they do it twice a year.

Some routes are easier than others.

Cap'n Benj

Don't worry all frequent flyers, even the very top of the pileare treated the same way.

The BAEC simply does not work in the way you hope/ think it should, I'd suggest that you do indeed fly with Lufthansa/ Swiss if you prefer M&Ms functions

GavT_london

i think the OP has summed it up in his original post.

"One reason for loyalty is the possibility of getting upgrades" - e.g. its not a god given right, a promise or even a high probability - there is a possibility, if you're flexible, if you book early or if you keep an eye out for seats opening as your flight date approaches

SteveF

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, and there is nothing that the "India office" can do about releasing Avios reward or upgrade (UuA) seats irrespective of how many seats have been sold on a particular flight. There is no way that the "India office" can "entertain upgrade requests" even when they think they have sold enough tickets in CW, although it is possible that cash upgrades will be available on MMB sometime between now and the date of your flights or at the airport on the day.

Reward and UuA availability is released centrally by BA at sometime between T-355 days and T-24 hours, but there is no guarantee that any seats will be released on any given flight in any given class even if the cabin is almost empty at T-24 hours.

Your best option is to keep checking online on a daily basis; phoning and waiting in a queue is a waste of time.

paulwuk

Quite easy to hit 3k+ when travelling WTP.

Doing in in discount economy is the tough one.

Globaliser

Seventeen WT+ round-trips a year, or one every three weeks (if you use simple out-and-backs). Obviously very possible, but I'm not sure that even I would describe that as "quite easy"!

Discount Y would require almost one round-trip a week.

Goagain

Agree with this completely. BA is a business like any other airline and while I too sometimes find it frustrating to not be able to cherry pick my awards/upgrades, it is a reality I would subscribe to that it is better for a business (and its shareholders) to obtain cash for a seat if this is possible. Award availability is simply the airlines reflection of trying to optimize the sale of as many seats as possible at the highest amount possible, as well as avoiding the formation of attitudes that 'any unsold seats will be released as award space' as is the case in the US where virtually nobody pays for point-to-point premium travel anymore for this reason.

I consider myself reasonably satisfied with my UUA/award history - while I could also be even happier with this, I understand that they prefer cash to my pitiful miles

To the OP, as someone else suggested, keep looking and you might get lucky - and I would also avoid getting emotional with staff at the call centers as they have little or no impact on what they can or cannot sell. It is however the case that there is a huge variety of skill-sets within call centre staff and that some are more able to help you than others simply based on their skill set, ability and commitment to customer service, e.g. interest in your needs. It isn't always that straight-forward to navigate airline booking systems..

IcHot

Thes best advice I can give the OP is to simply decide to play it one way or the other. Either cut your costs or understand that there are no clear rules to the game and that it is a complete gamble of your time and money.

Perhaps it makes sense to save the money spent on the higher fare ticket and use that savings to buy the seat you want when the fare is the right price.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to quit giving loyalty to businesses and give it to yourself. You can see how sad it can be when people accept being taken advantage of by a business they have a peculiar loyalty to.

HIDDY

I suspect the only people here who are actually loyal to any airline/hotel brand are those who are pleased with the benefits they have received in return.

The OP seems to have stuck with BA despite him receiving nothing but bad service....that's a strange one.

FlyingB1975

Or they are a captive audience. I do 100+ segments a year in a mixture of short and long haul. There is no chance on Earth I would entertain the thought of connecting flights (and getting this up to 200+ segments a year). Being based in London means I am damned to loyalty to BA.

HIDDY

Yes, plus those who have no say in the matter. They tend to be the grumpy ones.

flyer0123

I agree. Unfortunately OP has an expectation based on past experiences on another airline. OP needs to understand that Airlines keep changing the rules for reward redemptions, upgrades etc including devaluing the miles/points and many airlines including BA, SQ etc do not upgrade passengers to fill the plane. They rather keep them empty to maintain the level of exclusivity to those cabins.

If OP has to use his avios I suggest looking at other options like different routing, flying out from a different airport in India etc

LTN Phobia

I do pretty well out of BAEC through planning in advance and having rather a lot of benefits to throw around, i.e. a fair number of Avios, Jokers, GUFs etc. But my expectations are very realistic. Possibly even pessimistic at times.

Now as for M&M, I have yet to spend anything from it, as I cannot find an upgrade seat (J to F), and I'm a SEN. Oh dear. Not that I'm particularly worried about it to be honest, though.

flyer0123

I think with all airlines/Hotels the service levels received is always YMMV. The staff are also human and they have their own mood swings

The other reason to be loyal to airline or hotel could be that the other available options are worse, so you start with the best at that point in time. I started with BA because it was preferred airline to travel from US to Europe for my work and my alternative was US based airlines. Few years down the road things change but now that you have tasted the upgrades, premium service, lounges etc and with a huge miles/points balance and status you continue to be loyal even if you think you should switch

I am not sure what OP calls rude and I guess with out knowing details it is hard to say one way or other.

My experience with BA is all staff (inflight, lounge staff, check-in staff, phone staff etc) are usually professional and friendly except that the lounge guardians are usually professional but very unfriendly and sometimes sound rude as well

Purim

To the OP, may be consider the numbers to see where your loyalty fits in the greater picture of BAEC? What are there? 70,000 GCH? Silver is not to be sniffed at, but while you may be the only silver on your street, it is not an uncommon status generally. If the folks here who are CCR's don't testify to special treatment (and as a GCH I can't either), I think you get the picture.

BAEC is like living here in Los Angeles. It doesn't matter how much $$$ (avios) you have, someone always has more.......