squirk

I posted this question on the newbie forum (even though I am not a newbie; just a newbie to paid upgrades). I got a lot of great and helpful responses, but I wanted to open it up to the group at large.

I have a TA between DTW and AMS coming up in mid-January. I booked in MC, received a CU via my Plat status, and am now looking to pay to upgrade all the way up to D1.

The plane is an A330-300, so the D1 seats are just the lie-flats (not suites). The upgrade price is about $800 or 80k miles.

I've already looked into cancelling my original tickets and buying new ones as D1 fares, and it doesn't save me any money in this particular case.

I usually fly for business and never pay for an upgrade, so I have no frame of reference on these prices. Is $800/80k a decent price for that upgrade? The D1 cabin appears to be pretty empty at the moment, though I know the seat map isn't always accurate and that upgrade prices can go up if the cabin starts to fill.

Basically, since these upgrades are non-refundable/non-changeable, I'm just wondering if I should pull the trigger or take a wait-and-see approach in case the cost drops appreciably.

If the consensus is that "it's a fair price; it might go lower, but not by very much," then I'll just upgrade now and lock the seats in. But if a bunch of folks say they've see that upgrade (same time of year) drop to, say, $500, then maybe I will wait.

Any helpful comments would be most appreciated.

Please and thank you.

GagaPilot

Personally, I would consider $800 a fair price. I doubt you will see it go any lower.

HohoGAP

My understanding is if you buy the upgrade and cancel for any reason, the upgrade fare is lost. if you cancel and re-book, then the full fare is usable if you have to cancel. Others - am I right?

sonkie23

I definitely thought this was the case but I recently canceled a flight where I took the upgrade offer in miles. Those miles were refunded. Not sure if it's different if you use miles but I did get them all back.

squirk

This is my understanding as well. I secured trip insurance to cover the cost of the upgrade. Not CFAR, unfortunately, but it'll cover the only likely reasons we would actually cancel.

xliioper

Note that you don't necessarily have to cancel and rebook to up-fare to higher class. The change flights option will usually work (where you just pay the fare difference) as long as you haven't applied existing credits to a flight (although sometimes schedule changes also seem to cause issues with the option). For roundtrip bookings, it may be able to preserve existing fare in one direction if you only want to up-fare one way (if you cancel and rebook, you will have to pay for new fares for both directions).

Shinyobjects

I'd consider $800 a great price for that upgrade.

Shinyobjects

I didn't know you could do that.

HWGeeks

I would buy it before it disappears so if the price is right for you buy it if not don't.