Infocustv

I have a flight coming up in a few weeks from JFK to LHR which is booked via BA website, a 125 ticket flying on American airlines. Is it possible to upgrade that flight from economy to business using Avios (To be fair I do get a Main cabin extra already but as its overnight, Business would be preferable especially as I now need to go straight to work on landing)

ExpertFlyer is showing this as availability at the moment -
J7 R7 D7 I2 Y7 B0 H7 K7 M7 L7 G7 V7 S7 N7 Q7 O7

Ideally want to use Avios to upgrade and not cash upgrade.

KARFA

What selling class are you currently booked in?

Infocustv

Apparently Selling class O

KARFA

Unfortunately UuA of AA flights in economy are only possible for selling class Y and B.

Andriyko

Just to add - upgrading in this situation would have been impossible regardless of the booking class as the flight was purchased as a BA*AA codeshare, and codeshare flights can't be upgraded with Avios.

ijgordon

Globaliser

Try going to https://www.britishairways.com/en-us...ditions-of-use and then clicking the link that says "Upgrade using Avios on BA, AA and IB Flights", which will open up the T&Cs of doing that.

Not the easiest way of getting information unless you're a lawyer who loves reading T&Cs, but it may nevertheless be a bit more informative.

ijgordon

Ok thanks, there it is...
So only Y fare on AA is eligible for upgrades out of coach. Almost 100% worthless benefit... (Not to mention most J/C/D fares are probably issued by corporate travel agents so ineligible too).
And additionally, you have to book on AA marketed flights but you have to buy from BA? Will BA.com even sell you a domestic US AA ticket?

Globaliser

I doubt that this is the use case for which the benefit was designed. If you have Avios to use on a domestic AA flight, I would have thought that you're likely to be better off simply making a pure Avios redemption, given BA's rates for pure awards.

ijgordon

Well, this is specifically related to a friend who has earned mostly in BA/LH programs (he's German but was working out of London for a while), and now wants to use some of his huge stash of BA points for domestic US travel. A pure redemption would be his first option, but saver availability can be difficult to come by. So we were looking into the possibility of buying coach and upgrading to business (yes, this is only incrementally more available than pure redemption awards -- on AA they're different inventory buckets). But full Y would be way more than buying discounted J, making this benefit nearly 100% worthless.

I wonder how many of these have been redeemed since the program was instituted. Less than 5?
What IS the use case for these upgrades?

Globaliser

You may want to check exactly how BAEC works when doing these, then. I don't know, but it wouldn't altogether surprise me if a BAEC upgrade award on an AA-coded flight will still require U class availability, the same as for a BAEC pure redemption. If that is the case, then this plan wouldn't really work for this additional reason. Hopefully someone else will be able to either confirm or refute this.I imagine that at least one of them is corporate travel booked into Y class (but at a whopping discount through the negotiated corporate fare, so that the net price is comparable to something that a member of the public might buy), about the booking of which the passenger has no option but which the passenger can upgrade using their own Avios if they wish.

It is discussed here from time to time, so it cannot be an unknown situation.

ijgordon

Fair point on the required inventory. Would be interesting to know.

But the fare must be booked with BA directly in order to be eligible for upgrade, right? IME, corporate negotiated fares need to be booked by the corporate travel agent.

Anonba

HarryKUK

Andriyko

They provide a great value when upgrading some WTP fares that book into Y on domestic AA flights.

Yes, both conditions must be met. The ticket must be purchased directly from BA.