coolone119

Hi all,

I want to learn a little bit more about POUGs, is it completely random or is there some science to it. Currently when I go under manage my booking, I see an upgrade by avios or cash button, then when I click the tab it says not available. I know this is a bad sign.

Could it all of a sudden appear one day at random, what is the strategy for checking it, should I look everyday? Is there a chance it may never come. I would like to understand more about this. Is it purely based on the flight load, or something else.

FYI my ticket on BA was bought through Chase Rewards points.

Thanks.

Tobias-UK

KeaneJohn

Bullswood

I thought you couldn't upgrade an awards booking anyway (unless cancel & rebook if available in higher class), hence why it's showing not possible online...?

Tobias-UK

bisonrav

In my experience if a POUG is offered but unavailable you get a "call BA" message. There's no loss beyond not getting what appears to be on offer, and I'm scratching my head a bit to understand what the grounds for legal action are if there is no loss.

On the original point, POUGs are always announced by the first banner ad in MMB. I think there are 3 scenarios:

1) a couple of days after a direct booking is made, I usually get an offer for both legs. This usually seems to add up to the price of the cheapest CE fare available but removes minimum stay requirements (so if the cheapest fare requires a two day stay, I get something equivalent on a day return).
2) a period of time following this, one of the legs is removed so that if you attempt to upgrade both legs, one says "price will be displayed on next page", and it's expensive
3) a day or two before the booking, any legs you haven't upgraded seem to become available.

If you don't get the banner ad, it's not a POUG. Travel Agent (i.e. work bookings) tend to remain stubbornly un-upgradeable via the website all the way through except by calling (never done this).

It's possible I'm being targeted as a soft touch as I upgraded a lot this year in the search for TPs. But I've only had a couple of bookings this year made direct that don't follow this pattern. One is a one way to Seville this weekend, and so far my Beirut trip in a couple of weeks hasn't offered POUG.

corporate-wage-slave

POUGs are now offered on redemptions, though I'm not sure this is necessarily a good idea, since redemption availability may well also be available sooner or later and are likely to be better value. You won't get TPs or Avios on a redemption POUG.

There are 2 stages to this: is there POUG bucket availability? And then is your MMB display updated to reflect that a POUG is now online? Both of them are one a day actions that follow just after midnight GMT, and in particular the MMB update is not in real time, whereas the bucket availability is in real time. Though it is switched on after midnight it can then vanish at any point - either because other people have taken the availability, or more on a more subtle level because all the other buckets are at a point where POUGs would fall to zero.

The problem that sometimes happens is when the calculation is very finely balanced, so it's right on the edge of being available, and then the actions of any other passenger can take if off the cliff. To complicate things further, there is a degree day algorithm which marches on towards departure time, at any given point this could be in your favour or not. So you are on a hair's breadth as to whether the ticket is really upgradeable.

But the bigger problem, as essentially referenced above - is that the MMB banner - the bit of this visible to Joe Public - is only updated once a day. So you get the availability at 01.00 hrs in the morning, the availability is available for perhaps not very long, the availability fades away, but the banner stays in place until the next midnight witching hour. If someone tries to accept the POUG at this point then it starts off well enough but then falls over with an error message before completion.

If the availability has genuinely gone, then calling an agent will usually just result in "sorry, I cannot do anything, we're just not able to sell it". On the other hand, if you did buy via BA.com but there is some complexity (e.g. Closed User Group ticket such as Defence Discount tickets, use of a BA voucher, credit card issue) then POUGs can fall over since the calculation doesn't work out automatically. Plus the usual BA IT having a bad time. An agent can intervene on these ones and manually push it through.

Though I agree with the first point, the rest isn't quite how I know it to work. one or both legs are subject to the ongoing recalculation mentioned above, so they can come and go with demand and the degree day system. Clearly for the return leg the degree day could have more road length, whereas the first leg will have less. The next big event is T-24 when POUGs get switched on to 125 tickets not controlled by BA, so travel agency bookings and related. The ticket will still need to be fairly simple otherwise the automatic self-service recalculation won't work.

This looks complicated but maybe it isn't more difficult than saying POUGs are available subject to demand 72 hours after purchase, the core calculation is done at midnight every day, and MMB's banner is sometimes correct but does show false positives.

coolone119

I see it , I click it and this comes up, it says to contact BA, when i contact BA they say there is nothing they can do and to just keep trying. What kind of BS loop is this? Are the customer service agents at BA not empowered to do anything even when the system clearly says to contact them?

TWCLAM

Are you contacting BA or your TA?

LTN Phobia

The photo of the Upgrade screen with seats is not a POUG offer screen as far as I know.

That is a normal screen for a full-priced upgrade. So if you see this, and you call BA to ask about the special price upgrade, and told it is not available, that would be correct, because that is not what is being offered to you.

However, the trouble here is that you booked it on points, so a full cash upgrade would not be available to you, either. So they cannot price it for you.

I see that message "Sorry, it is not possible to change this booking on ba.com. Please contact your booking/travel agent." for flights in first class. Even if I called someone, no-one can upgrade me no matter what, but I still get that message.
In other words, basically, what you are seeing is an IT bug.

If (and that is a big IF - it is by no means a guaranteed offer) a POUG becomes available to you (and noting that just because someone else in the same cabin sees a POUG offer, it doesn't mean it will be applicable to your booking as well), then you will see quite a different looking offer. I think it says something like "special offer upgrade", and it will tell you the exact price for it on the screen too.

Alternatively, you could see if an cash upgrade will be offered at the airport ("AUP") but again there is absolutely no guarantee that it will be offered to you - again, noting that just because someone else in the same cabin sees a POUG offer, it doesn't mean it will be applicable to your booking as well.

If you really want to fly in a higher cabin, I would suggest either cancelling this booking and booking with cash, or wait until Avios availability crops up for your higher cabin. Punting on a POUG, Avios availability, or AUP, is not really a reliable way of upgrading.

coolone119

Thanks for the input.

frandrake

Every time I tried to redeem a POUG (ET to CE) it never worked through the app and I had to call and pay over the phone. It almost always went through, a part from a couple of times where availability was no more.

A bit of a mystery to me, but overall I find it to be good way to boost TPs when short of them.