abc193

Does anyone have any experience of upgrading at the airport with Cathay? I know this is often available on other airlines but any searches online for Cathay upgrades lead me to the "upgrade bid" option only (which my ticket in E is ineligible for).

Mwenenzi

abc193 Welcome to FT
Flying from where to where ?
Have CX or Oneworld status?
I would not be hopeful of an upgrade if your cheap ticket is ineligible
You could change your ticket with money. but likely to be expensive

Look here:- https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...on-thread.html. From that thread wiki

watery

Short answer: no.

Long answer: Cathay doesn't offer upgrading at the airport, unless doing an upfare which is essentially changing your ticket to the new class of service by paying the new fare (and maybe change fees). You might be able to do it all the way till on board (with a credit card).

And welcome to FT!

abc193

Thanks for the replies. I'm flying from London to Hong Kong and OneWorld Sapphire status.

Hmm I guess I should have just stuck with BA.. Unfortunately I didn't realise that the upgrade bid option was only available on selected fare classes, although having read the thread on here about the prices other people have been quoted it seems I haven't missed out on much!

Would the cash cost be the difference in ticket prices if I were to search for a J and Y+ booking (plus any change fees) today? I don't have the costs split out given it was a package booking.

G-CIVC

The difference is going to be the amount between the E fare that you have purchased and the R (if you can fork out miles at the same time) or I fare (if) available for sale at the airport on that day. Bear in mind that sometimes, some tickets just cannot be upfared at all.

abc193

Thanks - I guess I will just have to make do this time around unless there is availability at the airport. The flight & package deal was a bargain though for a (fairly) last minute booking!

Does anyone know why Cathay are so strict on their upgrade rules, considering the disaster that the upgrade bid scheme seems to be? Surely it makes more commercial sense to fill the upper cabins if there is availability, regardless of the original ticket purchased.

patrickw

Because it will create an expectation for some passengers to buy a low fare class ticket and wait for the cheap airport upgrade. While it could be good to fill the front as much as possible, the extra revenue might not worth it by creating such expectations and lower the yield.

Mwenenzi

This is not unusual. Many airlines have the same fare rules on cheap flights.

It is not a "disaster upgrade bid scheme".
If people could expect to always being entitled to get an upgrade why would any buy PE, business or first with real money?
Many airlines have the same policy.

QRC3288

You have answered your own question mate.

If you want a nice J or F product, then you have to have cabin pricing integrity. If you want USA-style awful "first" class, then you let everyone play let's make a deal and the product races to the bottom. It's not a coincidence in the US airlines are selling more J and F class straight away these days and letting cabins go out not full, especially in these (relatively) new US transcon premium cabins like JetBlue Mint. And you hear the whinging from Big 3 airline loyalty members who have been trained to not spend a lot but somehow think they're valuable. Painful but has to happen....way too many low yielding elites particularly in the US. But airlines have finally learned after 20 years of insanity! Training your customers to expect the freebie upgrade does not lend itself to quality premium cabins.

Sadly, CX J and F soft products have significantly deteriorated in the last 5+ years. So who knows maybe they'll introduce let's make a deal given how bad the product has become, particularly regional J. But for now, they remain stingy and the Upgrade Bid is very limited.

abc193

I don't recall having an option to choose the fare class when booking - I assume because it was a package booking. At least I've managed to book bulkhead seats on both flights with my OneWorld status. Re the upgrade bids, I've seen prices quoted on the other thread that were virtually the same price as booking the ticket outright, so I don't see how that can be seen as a successful scheme given it's purpose is to fill availability in higher classes at a discounted price.

As far as upgrades go, my company has a policy of booking Y tickets and I've struggled to upgrade these in MMB with BA as they're booked through a TA. Even calling CS hasn't been successful at times on bookings with several people, so I've had to rely on airport upgrades in the past. I do generally book J/F when travelling for pleasure though.

abc193

Ha yes it seems I did indeed. I'm more than happy with the booking I made, although the option to upgrade would have been nice! The second question was more of a general pondering since this is my first time flying with CX. Thankfully I've never had to fly with any US airlines

andersonCooper

Not sure about the particular "package" booking you were referring to, but if you were booking on CX website, there is an option to do PEY flexible in W or R farecode.

Also, for fare code E, you could pre-select available seats without status.

swingaling

To the OP, upgrade bid is available for E fares. It's just not available for all routes (despite what the CX site says). For instance, I've never seen it offered for the BOS-HKG-BOS route.

Might be a flight and hotel package from Cathay Holidays. Those typically book into E, but the change fees are astronomical. If allowed to upfare to R (which isn't always allowed), the change fee/penalty is equal to 50% of the total package cost.

fairhsa

I'm not sure this is true. I've done it a couple of times, using points, from the Wing (First Class Lounge). Not tried outside. I'm DM which may make a difference.

FlyPointyEnd

Instant upgrades are available in all if not most CX ports.