volar

I've received two of these today:

"Why not treat yourself to a more comfortable and premium experience on your upcoming trip by travelling in Club Europe, our business class?

Begin your journey in style with dedicated check-in, then unwind in elegant and exclusive lounges before you fly. On board, enjoy more personal space with a free middle seat and complimentary meal options from our new seasonal menus. Club Europe offers an elevated experience with the perfect combination of comfort, style and dedicated service.

Upgrade spaces and prices are available for a short time only. Don't miss out."

Clicking the 'Treat yourself' button just takes me to a MMB screen asking for a booking reference and surname, so I've got no idea which bookings these emails relate to (most of mine are already in Club Europe anyway, and those that aren't are reward flights). Anyone else had these / had any luck using them?

corporate-wage-slave

This has been reported by someone before in FT a month or two back, and at the time I don't think we got to the bottom of it. I have had a few of these since then, and from what I can make out, they appear to be triggered by a POUG being flagged on an existing booking. POUGs are dynamic but appear to be calculated once a day around the midnight witching hour used by other revenue and redemption algorithms. They can vanish, get cheaper, get more expensive. On one example the POUG came up in line with the email, another there was no additional POUG that I could attribute to the email. When I dug a bit further, I noticed that there probably was a POUG calculated for one specific booking, but at the same time the revenued buckets shuffled up, the curtain moved, and the POUG vanished. Two days later, with no additional sales going on that flight that I could spot and one passenger cancelling their booking, all of a suddent the POUG was offered.

This is anecdotal, but essentially at this point you can shove in all the usual hackneyed phrases about BA's IT infrastructure. Against that, when POUGs are offered to passengers, it's good to get an email to check them. So as ever it's where good intentions doesn't fully match execution.

volar

Well I just double checked. Of all my bookings, a couple are using Flight Pass and don't have a POUG available, a couple are Avios bookings which can't be upgraded and the rest are already in CE. So I'm mystified as to what might have generated the emails. Nothing more to say about BA's IT, but I agree that an email to flag an available POUG is a good idea, if it works properly!

corporate-wage-slave

Avios bookings can now attract POUGs. But maybe you will see something in a few days.

just_starting

Do they get your name right at least? I get this about once a week, have to say it makes me feel like a highly regarded customer

volar

Dear Null,

Yes they got my name right, so it wasn’t a total mess. Actually the email looks totally different to the one you show.

TTmex

I've had these before too and then entered to find nothing. I got it during the middle of the night (I'm 6 hours behind UK time), so guess by the time I opened it any POUGs had been snaffled by others.

ryan182

Be glad your surname isn't actually Null, as it can cause all sorts of fun if handling such cases wasn't accounted for by the programmers https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...mputer-systems

watersign

I received one of these for an upcoming flight. They offered upgrade ET to CE for £89. Later they dropped it to £79!

nd100

Really? How does it work then - you pay money to upgrade an Avios booking to the next class? Does the ticket then become non-changeable/non-refundable?

ThatT1Feeling

Interestingly, for as long as i can remember, I have been receiving POUG offers for £59 btwn LHR and MAN (and vv). I've been studiously ignoring them and now the cost has gone down to £49. I'm not sure if it's driven by my behaviour of not taking the offers previously or whether everyone is getting the same offer..

Dicksbits

It’s a total joke when it was offered to us (not taken) on a rtn from Almeria in October. No lounge available anyway and no style at all, in fact no curtain (still) on the clapped out ex-BMI A319 with a filthy cabin, and certainly no ‘separate club Europe cabin’. How BA get away with it is anyone’s guess. Style it is not.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes to both questions, but in theory you can remove the POUG altogether and revert to the Avios booking's previous flexibility. You would lose the money spent on the POUG.

Telecasterman

Likewise - What irks the hell outta me is POUG's are P2P London centric. Why on earth are we penalised for living in the regions and not offered POUG's MAN-LHR-DXB, NCL-LHR-JFK etc.......Whats difficult in offering the LHR-DXB / LHR-JFK sector etc as a POUG like those commencing the same flight from LHR! Sure I know all the BA IT issues, simple routings etc...surely they can get the algorithm to bring this into play.

TWCLAM

There was me constantly annoyed that despite being in a HHA, me having window set as pref and Mrs Clam as aisle BA deeming to sit us vv every bloody booking somewhat infuriating.

Having now met Mr/ Mrs( it's unclear) Null ( juststarting ) my rage seems pointless