Upgrade pricing factors
 

I've been keeping half an eye on ET>CE upgrade prices for a return trip to Venice in September.
Originally after booking it was about £290 or so return, so I held off in case it came down. Interestingly after I stumped up a few quid to reserve a seat on the outbound it dropped to £242 or so. I still held off (the lounge would be nice; I'm Blue) in case I got a decent POUG.
Checking today, it's shot up to £502, although the increase is all on the outbound (£451 vs £121 for the return). Big jump in a couple of days- does this just indicate that the CE cabin is getting filled up?

My only concern here is that my pre-paid seat (6F) is likely to get bumped because they reckon they can move CE back a couple of rows? (5 was the first "normal" row IIRC) - no, I'm not going to pay 500 quid for a lounge and empty seat next to me :)

Or is the pricing a law unto itself?

You will possibly find that some restricted fare classes that require a "book X days in advance" clause have now become unavailable

Yes there is a risk here, whether you have pre-paid or not. Two days ago I reserved a seat 2 rows back from the curtain. When I travelled yesterday the curtain had moved back one row, so I assume those originally in the row in front of me were scattered across the plane.

I've seen curtain moves after online checkin opened on a flight (AMS) and on a day where there was no disruption or cancellation. Of course I can't say if aircraft type changed on that day but still curtain can moves basically anytime. So nothing is guarantee until your boarding pass swiped during boarding and you able to sit down on your selected seats. How often this happens I don't know but I've seen this a few times before as well.

Interestingly the upgrade today is down to a total of £175 (that's the pay-price, not a puog). Somewhat more tempting...