Charges on upgrades
 

Hi,

To bump up my BAEC TP to reach silver I wanted to take up the offer of £99 for an upgrade on LHR to CDG next month.

For both legs it's turned out to be £253.50.

What's with this surcharge!? Ridiculous! Is there any way around it?

What's ridiculous about it? As I read your post, £99 was the price (presumably a special offer aka POUG price) for upgrading LHR-CDG.

That would not involve any promise that it would also cost £99 to upgrade CDG-LHR. There may have been no special offer available for that sector, and it may have been that your only option was to upgrade in accordance with the fare rules to which you agreed when you bought your ticket.

You're never entitled to a cheapie upgrade. You can only get them if BA has some reason for offering them.

Probably additional passenger charge/tax from LHR because of the class of service?

It's quite frequent to be offered a POUG just one way, with the other leg being "price will be displayed on next page".

Take the POUG, and don't select the second leg. There is a very high chance you will be offered another POUG a day or two before the flight for the other leg. In fact 100% in my case where I've done this.

I guess this slightly peculiar system is based on not wanting to compromise minimum stay requirements for cheaper CE fares, as you can turn a cheap day return into quite a cheap CE day return.

Which is £13 of the £99 cost.

Ah, I see what you mean. If I go for the one way UG that was offered it should just be the £99? I'll try that now. thanks

This was exactly the case and I now got the one way for £99, thanks all, much appreciated. I'll wait to see if I get an offer for the inbound in due course.

It's just an algorithm at the end of the day. They are totally within their commercial rights to try and see where the tipping point is price wise to tempt people to upgrade. And that can be led by supply and demand, passenger UG patterns, cabin fare differentials, some combination of the three or even tea leaves if they want. And therefore the only way to 'beat' the game is to truly understand the game.

Therefore ladies and gentlemen I give you....the best BA info resource on the web....Flyertalk BAEC forum.....

So many sharp cookies here. I have learned loads, and interacted with some good people here since I joined. Bisonrav's advice here for example is spot on.....

Erm, thank for the attitude, nicer people than you have answered my question with some respect.

My point was .... actually, nah, can't be bothered explaining.

... that it wasn't actually "ridiculous" at all for a £99 special offer to be available in one direction only, and for it to be a non-special offer price of £154.50 if you wanted to add the other direction as well.

I can't see anything incorrect or disrespectful about Globaliser's response to your post. Quite the reverse actually. Get a grip!