Upgrading an agent issued ticket
 

Hi All,

Long story short: Am moving from BKK to HKG, new company has purchased a Y Cabin tkt via a HK travel agency and I'd like to upgrade it with cash.

Excess baggage costs are borne by me and by my calculation, the extra weight (10kg) I will carry equals more than the cost of the upgrade where I can then get the 10kg included in my FBA.

Now, as expected, I can upgrade my ticket (Flex Plus) with miles, not that there is any inventory anyway, but I would prefer to pay for the upgrade.

Is there anyway that I can do a cash upgrade before the flight without having to go back to the agent as I don't know who it is and I don't want to ask too much of the new company?

I assume my only hope is to wait until the tkt is at station control when I check in for the flight and pay for the upgrade there, which then brings up another issue in that the flight is pretty full now and an op up is likely on this sector anyway.

Need to get control of the tkt from the agent... any ideas?

Cheers,
Justin/BKK

Could ask EK ticketing office to give you the name/contact detail of the agent in their systems, then contact the agency directly. Depends if it's an internal travel agent for the company or not as to whether your new employer will find out!

As to getting control of the ticket from the agent - it won't happen until you've flown the first sector. Then again, it sounds like you are on a one-way flight...

If you can't get hold of the agent then pay for upgrade at the airport (or on board - but that won't help with baggage) if possible.

Thanks ET, just as I thought.

Thanks for at least confirming I can do it at the airport. Yes I am on a OW ticket. I'll do it at the airport, rather not deal with an agent that I don't know who is located in a different city.

Potentially a stupid additional question, but upgrading at the airport is still a reticket and as such I am afforded 40kg allowance after the upgrade is made?

Thanks again!

If you upgrade with miles or cash at check-in you get the higher allowance yes. It may or may not get reticketed - I suspect you will simply be charged a supplement and given an EMD receipt rather than reticketing, if EK don't have official control at that point. Ticketing will call the desk to make sure you can check in 40kg though/lounge access. In fact last time I did something like this it was all processed down at the supervisor desk by the standby counter.

If you find yourself at BKK, go up to ticketing on level 6 and ask them to check the agent details for you.

just to let you know, once they didnt want to upgrade my ticket at check-in against cash because it was issued from an agent (as an IT fare) - only changeds via travel agent..

That sounds strange, about 2 weeks ago I made the mistake of booking through a travel agent and was able to upgrade with cash at the airport. Couldn't upgrade before first sector though.

After the first sector the plating carrier (i.e the first three digits of the e-ticket number) is allowed to make changes/reissue a ticket so they can process it in the usual way. The problem is if ticket control hasn't been passed to the airline yet where technically the airline can't make changes to the ticket such as class changes. In that sort of situation the ticketing desk can manually accept a surcharge and call the controller to move seats (although you'd probably need to follow up with Skywards for extra miles)

We're trying to upgrade an agent issued ticket as part of a package too.
Price they are giving is really expensive - Is it possible to wait until the airport and try there. The extra luggage isn't a massive issue. Were going from BHX to MRU via Dubai.

You should be able to upgrade at the airport if space is available - be prepared to pay a lot for the change however - many tickets issued within a package are significantly discounted and you may find that the only J seats that EK are able / prepared to sell you come from an expensive fare bucket.

it is going to cost you a lot of money - I'd not bother.