copenhagenBA

has this ever happened to anyone.. in 10yrs ive never got one upgrade travelling with one of my “silver” kids when im gold.. anyone struck lucky on kids sub 10yrs of age?

UKtravelbear

You mean a free upgrade i.e. an OPerational UPgrade?

Those are very few and far between and BA has an algorithm to decide who gets them and it id easier for them to given them to solo passengers then because you can just plonk them in a seat.

With a child <12 years old then they have to have adjacent seats per CAA regulations and that complicates seating.

Takiteasy

As additional data point, I have had quite a few OpUps both solo and as a couple, but never with a child. I buy your implied view that the algorithm denies any upgrade if one of the pair is a child!

ThatT1Feeling

I've had this only once - my whole family of 4 got an ET-CE upgrade (kids were 10 and 11 at the time), but this was after a cancelled flight so it may have been some kind of service recovery.

We have also (all 4 of us) been moved up to the F section on one of those 3-class flights with a 4-class aircraft substitution, also before they were 12.

Normal op-ups without explanation, no - it's never happened.

BAAZ

Only happened to me once - my wife and I (both Gold at the time) and my son who was about 8 (he's 22 now) were all op-up'd to I think 2DEF in the old convertible-seats days, on an LHR-FCO with a light load in Club Europe.

benjai

Not on BA but 2 years ago wife, 5 yr old and I were on VS to HKG in Y and all got bumped up to PE. Check in lady was super friendly and didn't mention it but I suspected when she started putting the PE luggage tags on. Only confirmed when we got to the gate which was great news. Not sure how they managed to have 3 empty seats together!

MrsW

I have been upgraded when travelling with one of my kids. It was last year from ET to CE. Son was 11 years old and silver. I am gold.

LondonCanuck

Every now and then, but not very often when all 3 of us travels. In the last 2 years, once to CE and twice to CW. When I travel by myself, happens a bit more often...

prof

I've had it happen a few times over the years, from WT/WT+ to J and from J to F.

Innocent Abroad

I was once upgraded with a "blue" child from WT to WT+; it was following an aircraft change (772 to 773) so not the usual scenario.

TyneTraveller

A few years ago myself and the wife were both upgraded WT-WTP on a flight back from JFK.......we had a lap infant in tow at the time, and has never happened since their own seats are required.

Jed

Never been upgraded with our children on BA. My wife and I are both gold, as is our 4 yr old. Our other son is an infant and i think he gets the black mark against his name (probably with good reason as he likes to scream and wander). On a recent DXB-LHR in WT+, several passengers got double upgrades from WT to CW whilst we weren't upgraded. I am sure that FLY has something written in that prevents an upgrade with an infant. We now tend to split our bookings on flight only bookings in the hope of maximising chances of the upgrade!

CX on the other hand have offered op upgrades for one adult in our family. They clearly said infants and children are not eligible for op upgrades, but they were good enough to ask whether we wanted to take 1 upgraded seat.

dptraveller

We used to get it quite a lot as an upgrade for the 3 of us when coming back from India (both Delhi and Mumbai), but every since kid no.2 came along, no upgrades...sigh..kid no.2 has cause a never ending amount of issues

LTN Phobia

Separating a family can cause problems at times. Some time ago on a BA flight one person from a couple with a lap infant got op-upped.

The baby had such a separation anxiety from her father that she screamed the whole CE cabin down (could probably be heard by at least half the aircraft), and as it was a longish flight for public service reasons I felt somewhat compelled to give up the empty middle seat (I happened to be seated next to the mother & infant) so that her father could come up from ET and sit next to the baby. So I approached the purser about it, and it was duly arranged.

I'd have offered to swap with her father but he was in my least favourite seat on the whole aircraft and as someone who's a bit claustrophobic I couldn't subject myself to it (esp when I paid about Ł600-700 one-way for CE).

At least the peace was restored when her father sat next to her so the issue was resolved, but it wasn't a good situation for anyone to be honest.

Amygdala28

A couple of years ago my wife and I (both Gold) were offered op-up from exit row to CE leaving our 13 year old daughter behind in the exit row. They wanted the seats for 2 crew on stand-by. We declined and the crew got the CE seats.