beck0723

well they didn't mention which booking class will be on for PE.
so I didn't take the deal, I am looking forward to seeing what will happen tmr night on my flight and I will post what happen afterwards on there. thanks guys

Often1

This is a reverse auction. If there are others willing to pay, the PE seats will be gone or the potential oversell situation will be dealt with and there won't be anything for OP at the airport.

There are a lot of people who would pay that kind of money for the UG.

pandaren

Agreed. $160 is very cheap to upgrade a 8 hour flight.

Cathay Boy

CX is trying a new strategy? Instead of free op-up they target people to pay ahead, good strategy.

KACommuter

That's what BA has been doing for years, but they automate it via a push email. I have had upgrades from PEY to J offered for GBP499 on the SIN-LHR route.

Cathay Boy

Holy cow, what a steal! This actually makes good sense. If an airline knows it will have to op-up X number of people, why not send out announcements that if anyone is willing to pay rather than giving it away for free?

Saltire74

Hi All

Wonder if anyone could give some advice. Just received an email offering an upgrade to PEY for HK$500 for a flight HKG to SUB on Thursday 6th November. When I checked MMB the other day the aircraft shown was a regional aircraft with J & Y only. Is there any way of finding out before hand if the equipment has changed and if they are offering PEY now?
The other question is, it only gives a HK number to call. I am in the UK at present. Could this be queried via the UK number?
And lastly, I am currently holding an H class ticket which gives me full teir points and miles to be credited to my BAEC account. If I was successful in doing this upgrade would I still get the full teir points for PEY to credit to my BA account?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Safe and happy travels

S

sxc

1. If you do a dummy booking, you should be able to see what classes are available for sale on the flight.

2. Don't know if the UK would be able to handle this, but you can always try ringing CX UK and telling them the story, and see if they can deal with it. I would expect they can see the offer in your booking.

3. When you talk to them, ask what fare class the upgrade will be booked into. I would expect, but don't know for certain, that if the class is W, R or E, then you should get the respective BA tier points for those classes.

Saltire74

Hi sxc

Replied to your pm. Tried to reply on the original thread but the post reply button wouldn't work.

Called the UK line and they couldn't deal with this so called the HK number and the CS agent sorted it out. The equipment has changed so jumped at the offer and took the upgrade for HK$500. Booked into E class so according to BA and the CS agent will get full PEY teir points and Avios :-)

Good offer for a 4.5 hour flight.

Cheers

Happy & safe travels

S

sxc

Great result! Be aware that regional premium economy doesn't offer anything above economy when it comes to catering/service but please enjoy the space. And with any luck, maybe you'll get pushed up to long haul J!

CanucksHKG

For $65 USD, what a deal!

Saltire74

Hi sxc

Thought that was a fantastic deal. Ł40 and a bit of comfort. Being tall I don' t overly bother about the catering etc. It is the extra space I enjoy more. It should be a good trip. I am flying out to HK tonight on BA on the A380 in Club World after upgrading my WTP seat using Avios, then a nice rest overnight in HK before my PEY flight to SUB so should be well rested before I see my better half whom I haven't seen in 7 months. And the last time I flew to SUB they had substituted the aircraft to one that had PEY and they assigned me a seat in that section but when it came to boarding I got the magic beep and sat in J. So here's hoping

Safe & happy travels

S

percysmith

Giving up incremental revenue to earn pax goodwill/loyalty? But CX isn't into that (at least not anymore, as demonstrated by selling GOs)

CrazyJ82

It's not so clear-cut, which is why CX has only slowly been starting to experiment with this. The problem is that once pax are accustomed to the possibility of cheaper cash upgrades being available, it can change their willingness to buy the higher premium fares outright. Reading the BA board on FT, it looks like BA has done a good job conditioning flyers to assume that cheaper upgrades will be available much of the time, especially on shorthaul routes, or from economy to premium economy longhaul.

I'm sure that works for BA (and UA and others that do this) because they keep it up, but it might not be the best model for CX. We have no idea how things like different cost bases, pricing strategies or number of seats in each class affect the calculation, or whether some changes in CX's sales are driving their recent experiments in this direction. We also don't know whether they'll keep it up.

sl0uch

Just a guess, but I think paid upgrades may be offered because those seats aren't being sold otherwise, so it's a ploy to get bums into seats, better than empty. They could sift through customers and pick those that may be a little more likely to pay for an upgrade, and contact is proactive so CX gets to learn customer behavior, and it's probably considered better since it's not "stooping" as low as offering upgrades at check-in (like say TG).

On my usual routing to BKK, PEY is just $100US cheaper than J, and CX PEY costs the same as TG J. If you ask me, of course I'm not gonna pay that much for PEY, and CX may have a lot of empty PEY seats they need to rescue some lost revenue from, hence the upgrade offers. Maybe CX thinks this is still a smaller loss than offering PEY to me at a lower fare, or there's a timing issue involved.

If certain flights have consistently showed an inability to fill PEY, then they could do what you said BA does, make the offers more permanent. CX would still benefit from less people being able to upgrade their way into J.

I wonder, but I wouldn't say outright, what it means when a small cash upgrade gets possibly a higher priority/easier availability than the same seat via award tix and upgrades. Thanks for reading my rant