CW-to-F o/w upgrade lowers r/t price?
Apr 16, 2018, 10:30 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 756
CW-to-F o/w upgrade lowers r/t price?
Greetings from a lurker.
I have a JNB-LHR r/t coming up at relatively short notice. In CW, the r/t cost was coming in around ZAR 48k (GBP 2.8k).
I noticed there was First reward availability on the return, so I upgraded that sector for 22.5k avios. This led to the overall cost of the ticket dropping by GBP 700 to around GBP 2.1k.
What I noticed was that the outbound (non-upgraded) sector fare class was knocked down from R to I when I upgraded the inbound sector from CW to First (which remained in selling class I). I presume this is what led to the price drop.
Is that meant to happen? If not, has anyone experienced this before? Is this just a quirk, or a known trick?
I have a JNB-LHR r/t coming up at relatively short notice. In CW, the r/t cost was coming in around ZAR 48k (GBP 2.8k).
I noticed there was First reward availability on the return, so I upgraded that sector for 22.5k avios. This led to the overall cost of the ticket dropping by GBP 700 to around GBP 2.1k.
What I noticed was that the outbound (non-upgraded) sector fare class was knocked down from R to I when I upgraded the inbound sector from CW to First (which remained in selling class I). I presume this is what led to the price drop.
Is that meant to happen? If not, has anyone experienced this before? Is this just a quirk, or a known trick?
Apr 16, 2018, 11:26 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: UK
Programs: Mucci, BA, AF
Posts: 10,129
Was this all done in one go before purchasing the return Club ticket?
The only thing I can think of is that the point of sale changed from South Africa to that of your Exec Club home address, bringing up an I seat.
The only thing I can think of is that the point of sale changed from South Africa to that of your Exec Club home address, bringing up an I seat.
Apr 16, 2018, 11:36 am
#3
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold / OW Emerald
Posts: 753
I have noticed something similar in a much smaller scale, where booking a ticket with one leg in ET and another in CE seems to often (at least for my routes) reduce the overall price by a few quid, where two ET + CE tickets are cheaper than the total cost of one ET and one CE ticket.
Apr 16, 2018, 11:45 am
#4
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Programs: Mucci. Nothing else matters.
Posts: 38,644
And BA6501's suggestion is strongly supported by a test: JNB-LHR on 9 May and LHR-JNB on 16 May using a UK BAEC account gives the result that you saw, and EF confirms that the JNB-LHR flights are I9 and I3 using a UK POS, but I0 and I0 using a ZA POS.
Apr 16, 2018, 11:46 am
#5
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
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I have noticed something similar in a much smaller scale, where booking a ticket with one leg in ET and another in CE seems to often (at least for my routes) reduce the overall price by a few quid, where two ET + CE tickets are cheaper than the total cost of one ET and one CE ticket.
Apr 17, 2018, 6:21 am
#6
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 756
Looking at the numbers on a dummy booking, that looks like it's correct. Although fares are different on different days, they're at the levels that you're looking at, so I think that the booking class change is very likely to have been the reason for the price drop.
And BA6501's suggestion is strongly supported by a test: JNB-LHR on 9 May and LHR-JNB on 16 May using a UK BAEC account gives the result that you saw, and EF confirms that the JNB-LHR flights are I9 and I3 using a UK POS, but I0 and I0 using a ZA POS.
And BA6501's suggestion is strongly supported by a test: JNB-LHR on 9 May and LHR-JNB on 16 May using a UK BAEC account gives the result that you saw, and EF confirms that the JNB-LHR flights are I9 and I3 using a UK POS, but I0 and I0 using a ZA POS.
That's quite an interesting discovery! What is the reasoning behind restricting certain fare classes by POS? Is the UK always going to have greater availability in lower booking classes than elsewhere on BA?
Apr 17, 2018, 6:28 am
#7
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
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There are frequently differences between the availability shown to different markets, no doubt for arcane revenue management reasons. You can't predict in advance which markets will have better availability in lower booking classes. Sometimes the UK has more than other places, and sometimes it has less. And - as you have seen - sometimes it can be made to work in your favour.