POUG on BA flights with IB ticket?
 

I have a booking on BA stock that includes the following (intra-european) flights:

1) Flights operated by IB booking booked on IB flight number

2) Flights operated by BA booked on BA flight number

3) Flights operated by IB --> when I look at my booking on ba.com I see a BA flight number and it says flight is operated by IB; when I looked at iberia.com I see a IB flight number and it says flight is operated by BA :confused:

I wanted to bid for upgrades (at least for the IB-operated flights) and use POUG offers for the flights operated by BA.

For 1) it´s no problem: I can make an offer on the IB website.

For 2) I can see the options "Upgrade with $$$" and "Upgrade with Avios" (booking class would allow) but when I click it the website says it is not possible and I should contact my travel agency (online booking on iberia.com). Will POUG become available at OLCI? Any experiences?

3) is very strange. I can make/buy seat reservations on ba.com and it will open the IB-seatmap (it´s a flight LHR-MAD operated by an A340-600). I cannot open the seatmap on iberia.com. On BA there is no option for POUG as in 2) and the iberia-website does not allow my to make an offer for J class. Any idea if I should use my IB or my BA App for OLCI to get an Upgrade option?

Thanks for your help.

Because BA don't own that ticket, you won't get a POUG offer, just a full price reticketing if you call up. More information in the POUG thread in the Dashboard. You can perhaps get a AUP at the airport, subject to availability.

AUP?

Do I get it when using OLCI (BA App)?

Any ideas about the IB-flight?

2) ticket issued by IB (with Iberia's ticket number) do not allow for Upgrade with avios on ba.com, but you could transfer avios to Iberia Plus and try with Iberia. Upgrade with cash will be a full price of cash upgrade, no POUG offered from my own experience (as cws pointed out - BA don't own that ticket). Airport Upgrade - ask at the check-in desk in Madrid, there's usually a note displayed offering a paid upgrade - should be no problem.

3) LHR-MAD has special arrangements which confuse both iberia.com and ba.com - basically all Iberia flights departing LHR from T5 have low BA numbers too. I have a similar booking for flight BA522 which is in fact operated by Iberia's A330. This flight also have IB522 flight number and IB3167 too. I booked my flight via ba.com, I can select seats on ba.com no problem, but I cannot select seats on iberia.com which claims flight is operated by... BA. On the other ticket I have my flight was booked with Iberia, I could select seats on IB's website, but not on ba.com. It's annoying, but both Iberia and BA doesn't seem to care as they have a monopoly on that route.

AUP is Airport Upgrade Promotion. There is a glossary of terms in the Dashboard. You have to ask for it at LHR airport (general advice here, since I can't see the specific route you are taking, BCN is different for example). But it's not guaranteed, however the price is similar to POUG. At OLCI you may be offered a POUG on the BA metal sectors, but I doubt it if an IB plated ticket, plus they are fairly rare anyway.

For your point 3 - again without the route I'm guessing, I'd assume that's an IB flight running from T5 under a BA code and therefore BA operated check-in, but again it's difficult to give specific advice without the relevant details. If that conjecture is right then you can AUP it at LHR.

For OLCI, check in first on IB, their app is quite good, very few Spanish travellers do OLCI so your seat selection should be quite good. I don't bother doing it before then. If you don't want to leave it that long then have a go with Qantas and other oneworld websites to see if their equivalents of MMB work. Try Royal Jordanian last, but they have an almost raw interface to the system so it's the last throw of the dice.

Then check in for BA for their metal, that should work, but leave it a few hours for the first flight to be checked in. The App seems better in this situation.

My routing is:

FRA-LHR (BA) LHR-MAD (IB/BA) MAD-LHR (IB) and LHR-FRA

I remember from previous flights from FRA-LHR that I was offered to upgrade for something like 69 EUR per leg and happily took that as I did not have any status with OW and could have spent some time in the lounge.

The most "interesting" flight is LHR-MAD as it is operated by A346 and upgrading this would give me a at least a nice seat. But this one seems to be the most difficult one as IB does not offer me to bid for the upgrade and BA won´t be able to offer me AUP.

Right, you're not going to get a POUG, with the extremely thin possibility on the two FRA sections at OLCI. You could try for AUP at FRA and LHR, but on these shorter sectors they may be be available for LHR-FRA. FRA-LHR may be easier and it may be around the 80€ mark. The LHR MAD is therefore an IB service with BA code due to the T5 departure. Ready to Fly, the IT system, assumes a BA code here and apparently can't work with an IB code. So it's IB's job to offer the upgrade on that sector, their customer service centre has a good reputation for helpfulness. I'm almost (but not totally) certain that BA won't sell AUP on that flight.

If there is a Saturday night involved here, it may frankly be easier to upgrade to a full fare business fare. If there isn't a Saturday night, then you could perhaps create one if this a flight routing you will repeat in the future. If there is a Saturday night in there already, the POUG/AUP isn't supposed to be any cheaper incidentally, it's priced accordingly.

Thanks for your explanations, corporate-wage-slave ^^^

Is AUP in FRA/LHR possible after OLCI or do I need to check in at the airport? If I should not check in (select a good seat) I better don´t count on the AUP option.

There is a Saturday night between the flights. When I checked flights seperately LHR-MAD was ~80 EUR in Y and ~ 170 EUR in J. I think I will try to contact IB and ask them if they could change accordnigly.

Definitely check then, if there is a Saturday night. Because of the IB routing it may be different, but if a BA routing then using AUP/POUG is often a bad idea in this context, the original fare would/should have been cheaper. The MAD and LHR lounges are certainly worth a visit if you have time between flights, FRA rather less so in my view.

For the AUP, OLCI in the usual way at the first opportunity, to get at least the best seat you can. Very, very technically they do actually offload you as part of the AUP process, but that really should not change anything, it's just 3 key strokes to offload you, and I would guess 70% of AUPs have already checked in, so they're quite used to doing this.