rmac86

Hi All,

In September of last year I decided to treat myself to a weeks’ vacation in Los Angeles as I got a relatively cheap economy flight + hotel + car from BA. Route taken was DUB-LHR-LAX, flying economy all the way. On arrival in Dublin airport I was feeling lucky and cheekily asked if there were any cabin upgrades available on account of it being my birthday. The check in attendant explained that it doesn’t happen like that and that even my BAEC tier status (blue at the time) wasn’t high enough to enable an upgrade as they tended to be offered to the gold and silver tiers first before any other passengers.

After an uneventful flight from Dublin to London I was ecstatic about visiting LA and possibly even more excited about my first time on an A380 (I’m a real geek). My enjoyment was soon tainted when I discovered that the view from my pre-selected window seat (24A) was almost completely obscured by the up-bending of the massive A380 wing. Ok, so I’ll watch a few movies to pass the time, of course shortly after take-off the IFE failed in almost all economy seats and was down for several hours while the crew re-booted the system. Sitting in a 3-4-3 arrangement, my neighbour would scowl at me every time I wanted out to go to the toilet and the guy in front of me had his seat reclined pretty much from the moment we were airborne, making most any kind of movement almost impossible. Basically, this was the worst 11 hours of my life, with around another hour where we had to remain seated after landing on account of a medical emergency on the upper deck.

For the return flight from LAX-LHR I had already resigned myself to the fact it was going to be a terrible 10 ½ hours so I decided to bite the bullet and change my seat from 24K to 71K (upper deck 2-4-2 economy arrangement) to enable a bit more flexibility. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I inspected my boarding pass which said my seat was 61A – World Traveller Plus! Not only was this a bulkhead seat with great legroom, there was an IFE that actually worked and a business class meal with real cutlery! Plus there was no one in front of me to recline and ruin everything! All this made the return journey a whole lot smoother and pretty much changed my view on the cost of premium eco cabins, which I used to think was far too high and now believe to be justified. After this flight, premium economy pretty much became the standard for all my long haul flights with BA. I honestly can’t see myself flying for more than 5/6 hours in anything but premium (cost permitting) from now on. I am flying in WT+ on my upcoming flight from LHR to HKG and looking forward to spending 11/12 hours in the upper deck of the A380.

I suppose I will never know what caused me to be upgraded, but I imagine it was something to do with being a single traveller on what I believe to be quite a busy route - maybe all economy seats were oversold and there was one free premium seat? Nowadays I fly in WT+ in the vain hope I might just be upgraded to Club World from WT+ although it seems there’s even less chance of this happening now.

Does anyone have similar stories?



Thanks,

R.

thejohn

Glad to read about your Upgrade good fortune, and you enjoyed it especially after the outbound sounding dreadful due to surly pax and inconsiderate recliner . But now your hooked like us and the thought of any flight over 4hrs in Y send shivers down my spine.
John

paul4040

And that is why Blues get upgraded.

It's not a reward scheme; it's a scheme to increase individual spend.

jp-mco

I always used to take the view that premium cabin travel wasn't worth the money for the time you spend in it. The first time I ever travelled out of economy was in premium economy on Virgin. I have to say that I didn't really think it was much better. The flight that changed my mind was Club World to the Maldives. After that we've never flown anything lower than business and I'm very fortunate that all my work travel is now in First. I do think that once you've travelled in a premium cabin it's very hard to revert to economy again.

SCSA

Over the past few years I decided I simply couldn't do long haul in Y any longer. I used to be satisfied with the exit row, but after a couple of flights with people congregating right in front me while waiting for the toilet even that wasn't sufficient.

So I started going premium from LHR and have now gotten to where I only want to go WT with an Avios upgrade to J or find a J ex-EU fare. I've not increased my overall spend from premium that much but enjoy the experience much more.

hcuk94

If you have your own company or you're on an exec board, fine.

If you're flying First through a 'standard' middle management or lower employment, however - you are very lucky! Make the most of it as the number of companies that will pay for that is rapidly falling!

Skipcool3

You may be surprised. I have been upgraded on 3 out of my last 4 WT+ flights to CW.
There is a separate thread about upgrades being restricted to three.....

Paralytic

I love happy stories like this. I hope you enjoy the maximum of two further upgrades this year too

HIDDY

My first ever upgrade over twenty years ago was to business class on a BD operated flight from CPH-GLA. Many people here poo-poo the CE product today but that flight was certainly no better. So that definitely wasn't an incentive to pay cash for a business class short haul ticket.

I have AF to thank for my first long haul upgrade from Y to J. We both arrived at EZE fresh as daisies but decided the very high cost of J fares in those days didn't merit the high premium cost over our normal Y tickets especially as we used to travel twice a year. No Flyertalk either so had no idea if any workarounds to get cheaper J tickets even existed.

Paralytic

Fixed that for you.

Quarky Quark

I think all else being equal you probably have a better chance of being upgraded from WT+ to CW, than from WT to WT+. I think so because WT+ is a smaller cabin and therefore more likely to be full, plus you have a bigger chance as 1 of 24 rather than 1 of 100+ in WT.

I've been upgraded twice from WT+ to CW, both times as a oneworld status holder with no BAEC membership.

T8191

Nice start on the slippery path, rmac86. ^

Yesterday = Y
Today = W
Tomorrow = be very afraid about where this may lead you

BlackBerryAddict

Almost too convenient

fripperies

Same here. A flirtatious gate agent on an AF flight CGD-SVO gave me an upgrade Y>J. That was 25 years ago and it was my first upgrade in 20 years of flying. Certainly enjoyed it but it didn't change my habits. Like HIDDY, I didn't feel it justified the premium fare. Soon after I had to go to SYD and at that time EK were doing unbeatable prices in J so I too the plunge. Very disappointed to discover it wasn't the magic carpet ride I had expected. Sloping recliners, I couldn't sleep at all, and still arrived at SYD feeling wrecked. So wife and I spent a few more years trekking between UK and US West coast in Y or W with BA or VS, disliking it more each time. Then one day I got a gate op-up to CW, the early version with fan dividers. What a revelation. Never seen inside a WT cabin since that day.

I'm probably just one of a great many who have BA to thank for showing me that long haul needn't be purgatory - and thereby draining an ever-increasing share of my pension.

BotB

Fixed that for you...