Deltus

I have a Euro Traveller booking coming up, booked via my corporate travel agent (Carlson Wagonlit). Fortunately one leg booked into fare code N, so is eligible for an Avios upgrade to CE. The question is, if I do UuA, will CWT get a notification (and consequently tell my "travel organiser" on the CWT system)? Or can I keep it hush-hush between me and BA (unless my "travel organiser" pro-actively goes and checks my Amadeus booking)?

I think I could justify it anyway since they're my Avios, but there is an "all economy" travel policy... (I was lucky not to end up on Ryanair!)

BLHD

Yes, Carlson will be notified of the change in Booking Class.

bisonrav

There are theoretical reasons why a company might not like employees to fly CE even on their own dollar, but I wouldn't worry about it. My experience of CWT (which we use) is that they're not the most proactive of souls at the best of times. And providing your travel policy allows you to collect your own Avios (most do) there's no reason not to use them. They wouldn't complain if you used them to BoB.

On the other hand, if you can grab an exit row in ET and expense a bacon roll and coffee, it's often a waste of Avios to upgrade.

EsherFlyer

If I POUG a corp TA booking I get a rather alarming email from their system informing me of "major change to booking", so they are told.

Same day changes (AUP or late POUG) don't seem to cause this. This may be once the flight / booking moves to airport control - but I'm not sure if that is a fixed time, depends on various things, or is a complete red herring. But you can't UUA that late can you ?

flying_pig

In short, yes tour TA would be notified. The most important thing to keep in mind is that from the moment you UUA a TA booking, BA takes over said ticket. This means that any subsequent change has to be done via BA and the company’s travel desk (or their TA) cannot touch the ticket any more. Some companies don’t care, others may not like this for a variety of reasons.

Often1

It is part of your employer's contract with BA, administered through an enrolled TA such as CWT, that it be notified of any change to the ticket or PNR. Whether the employer looks at the changes or does anything about them is purely an employer-driven decision.

Unless your employer prohibits travel in a premium cabin, is there a particular reason you care? If it does care, understandable. If not, you have paid for the upgrade.

Starship73

We book through a corp TA, but our company travel policy actually states that if we use Avios to upgrade then we can’t claim the extra tax on expenses, but with that proviso we can upgrade with Avios.

carrotjuice

My company fortunately is rather flexible in this regard - say I fly to LHR, I can even pay the difference to extend to another European city (on my own dime). Useful to get the extra 40 TPs by adding another CE leg.

Often1

That is the case for the vast majority of employers. The reasons for tracking employees are many and most have nothing to do with who is using avios to upgrade. But, if you do work for an employer who prohibits travel above some given class of service, to the extent that the employer is paying for the tickets, it is well within reasonable to know of changes made to a ticket which it paid for.

scubaccr

Some companies do not alow as deliberately booked Y is booked as a flexible ticket , and then if employee upgrades, the ticket whole becomes inflexible. If so, and you then have to travel out or return on a different day having first upgraded and lost flex on the ticket, then you will be having to pay for your new ticket.

mec72

I remember I once POUGed a HKG-LHR flight from WT+ to CW. My plans then changed and the ticket was indeed inflexible (or far less flexible than the underlying WT+ ticket). I called BA and the agent reversed my POUG (I lost what I had paid for the upgrade, but my ticket became a relatively flexible WT+ ticket again) and I could then make the changes that I wanted. If this is the norm (which I admit I don't know), then the upgrade shouldn't be a concern.

P.S. Funnily enough, I was OP-UPed anyway so ended up flying CW.

FliGuy

I have done this several time, we also use Carlson Wagonlit, and never had any issues nor have they contacted me. It has always been late / last minute (within a couple of days) when i know the trip is def going ahead, since the upgrade usually makes the ticket inflexible to change.

CALlegacy

It would seem the most likely hazard is that if you mess up the ability of corporate travel to deal with IRROPS or with a change to plans that would not be viewed as getting your job done responsibly. It would not seem likely that just buying your own upgrade should be an issue all by itself.

Often1

The fact that neither your employer nor your employer's enrolled agent (corporate TA) contacts you is the norm. This does not mean that they are not advised by the carrier. They are. It is simply that the reports of these changes are ignored. That is the case for most employers as most employers simply do not care unless the employee is making a flexible ticket inflexible or the employee is changing the nature of the trip, e.g., using the ticket's value to travel elsewhere.

As noted above, if a change has the effect of making a flexible ticket inflexible, that may be an issue for the employee with the employer.

Deltus

Hmm, thanks all for your advice. I did go ahead and try to upgrade one leg, but at the final page of the process the BA site said something like "Sorry, we can't do it, please contact your travel agent."

Having read the UuA section of the "Spending Avios" sticky in detail, I notice there is an exclusion for TA tickets where the TA is based in a different country from your BAEC profile. It looks like my ticket was processed by a CWT office in continental Europe, and my BAEC profile is linked to my home address in London. Does that mean this is a complete no-go? Is CWT able to do UuA's if I ring them up? Or can BA do it if I ring them up? Or will I just have to sit in ET and forget about it...?