dolfinco

Hi all. Hoping this is the right place but i have another 2 questions/issues.

6 of us flying LGW to LAS on May 10th and 4 of us have used upgrades to Business and the other 2 are booked in Premium so been checking religiously for 6 months now and nothing yet. The flight load is still showing as:

J9 C9 D9 R7 I0 W2 E0 T0 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 G9

So it looks like the flight is fairly quiet in Business.

Seat Map on Expertflyer suggests only 10 of the 48 seats are occupied though i appreciate more could be booked and people havent chosen seat yet.

A few questions.

1) Is there a specific date window the seats start to get released to Avios to entice more upgrades ?

2) Is the fact Business is only 48 seats a contributing factor and i may not get them for the final 2 passengers ?

3) I know ive asked this before but keep forgetting, what time in the morning are the avios refreshed? Is it 1am or 3am ?

Thanks in advance

dontflymuch

1&2 Who knows, BA may choose to not open up any reward availability and let the cabin go half full.

3 Not sure, but for £3 per month you can set up an alert on rewardflightfinder.com and they will check hourly and email you if availability opens up.

corporate-wage-slave

Availability mainly gets released at midnight GMT, which now that the UK summer is on us (and snow is predicted up north) means 01:00 London time. So if in Europe you're best to check daily in the morning.

The comment I would make about those numbers is that it is interesting you are focusing on the 48 CW seats: in reality your focus should be on WTP! It looks like it is oversold to me, or very nearly so. BA will sell WTP knowing it's just shoving people into CW, and so W2 is indicating that. So if your travellers are WTP revenue and booked via BA.com on straightforward LON-LAS then I'd expect POUGs to be showing for them shortly. However with R7 then that also means any E or W fare WTP passengers wouldn't have to pay much more than than a POUG to end up in CW anyway, depending on precise fare conditions, by simply paying the fare difference. The trouble for you is that will also apply to any new bookings made right now, and if a party of 3 or more they would only be shown CW fares if booked together.

And yes, there is a deliberate random aspect to this that the flight could really leave totally full in WTP and WT (though that currently is not on the cards), with CW near empty, and BA won't offer a single AUP, POUG, redemption or UuA.

On that particular route I would suspect 10 occupied seats = 20 to 25 CW passengers, plus you have to add in whatever spills over from WTP. When the Bronzies get seat selection in a few days it will be a bit clearer.

Short version: all you can do is check every morning and hope for the best.

dolfinco

Thanks for the replies. Will continue to sweat it out for now then.

dolfinco

CWS - Just returning to your comment. They are on BA.com but we are all booked to start in DUB>LGW>LAS. The selling class was T. Not sure if that changes anything or helps or not.

corporate-wage-slave

It does rule out a POUG for sure. It won't rule out an AUP, which can be checked in the Customer Service Desk in Zone A, or the left hand desk in the lounge entrance foyer. Otherwise just keep checking LGW-LAS (not ex DUB) for normal Avios availability in CW.

dolfinco

So every seat is now booked and reserved meaning there has to be upgrades. Is there anyone with the magic power to do it the now given the situation or do i just need to ride this out ?

corporate-wage-slave

Typically upgrades get doled out at the gate. But if there are a lot of upgrades then the App version of the boarding pass may show it in advance. Sometimes you will see an upgrade 24 hours in advance, usually it is later.

The bulk of WTP passengers will be offered POUGs over the next day or two, so long as they are on point to point flights, so it may change a bit. Also there is always the risk of equipment change....

dolfinco

I've given up trying to work BA out. Does a quick search first thing and there is a new avios seat available.......in Premium Economy......which is already over sold and fully booked.

Meanwhile, there are still 38 empty seats in Club.... lol.

dolfinco

Apologies for the bump on this one. With the AUP you mention above CWS, im assuming this is Avios UP and are you saying that this is possible on the day of the flight when we land in London. I thought Avios upgrades were only possible 24 hours before and once it got into same day, there was nothing that could be done ?

dolfinco

This is the latest status:

J9 C9 D9 R7 I0 W3 E1 T1 Y9 B9 H8 K8 M7 L7 V7 S7 N6 Q5 O4 G4

corporate-wage-slave

An AUP is an airport cash upgrade, more details in the Dashboard and example fares in the wiki. You can only get that by speaking to someone at the airport, it won't show up online like POUGs.

But actually you can get also an Avios upgrade on the day of departure, the 24 hour rule relates to changes to existing bookings, but upgrades are still allowed even if it was a redemption. It's easier to do that if you are not at all checked in for the longhaul, so best to do that if you are ok with seating and so on. My experience, however, is that if Avios availability is showing on the day of departure, it was probably also showing up the day(s) before too. So it's always worth checking BA.com to see if there is a full redemption available in the desired class of travel and then to call up. Don't try to do it online, in your case it is pretty much bound to fail. Incidentally this route is probably the easiest way to jump 2 cabins rather than 1.

dolfinco

Thanks CWS - Im checking at 1am every morning with India call centre number handy....lol

I havent checked us in as we will be at Dublin airport at 5am on the morning we are flying so im hoping if we havent managed it by then, that PEC will be full and it may be easier for them to check into CW.

Geordie405

AUP = Airport Upgrade where BA will relieve you of a cash sum at the airport for an upgrade to a higher cabin. It's usually in the region of £600 - £700 for a longhaul flight, but can vary. I was quoted over £1000 for a W to J upgrade from LHR to LAS which I politely declined.

Also, AUPs are discretionary in the sense that they may not be available for a particular flight and, even if they are, may not be available to specific passengers.

The flight is currently showing J9 C9 D9 R9 I9 W3 E1 T1 Y9 B9 H7 K7 M7 L6 V6 S5 N5 Q5 O0 G4 on ExpertFlyer so you now have both the T and E classes available in WT+ which you didn't have before. The seat map is also showing two open seats plus two blocked seats in WT+ so it certainly seems less busy than before.

All I can say is wait and see what happens. You may be able to buy an AUP on the day. Based on only three rows of WT+ this is an unrefurbished 777 - so I am not sure that an aircraft swap would actually help you as the refurbished LGW 777s have a larger WT+ cabin and 10-abreast seating in WT.

corporate-wage-slave

I suspect first thing in the morning would be good enough. 1 am Eternal is best left to SYD, SEZ and MRU I would suggest.