IB Intra - European J Possibilities?
 

I am booked on a flight from LIS-MAD on Tue 16 Feb 2015, which is scheduled to be operated by an A330 (I don't know the reason), but as it's difficult to get wide-bodies on these routes, I booked myself onto it for £26. I'd love to try IB LH J product (just the seat, no service). What's the chances of me getting a free upgrade considering I am flying all the way from the UK just to get on this flight? ;) Minimum bid is £56, but obviously that isn't guaranteed until 4 days before travel and I think as it's a 1h 20m flight that wouldn't be worth it? I'm very new to IB so I don't know a lot. Any help would be appreciated

If you bid the minimum, you will probably get it. If you don't bid, you might be offered an upgrade for a lower price when you check in.

From experience, IB usually offer promotional upgrades to Business on intra-European legs such as this one for EUR60 at online check-in, or at the counters.

I personally wouldn't see any advantage to making a bid at ~£56 if there was a chance at check-in that it would be less. I'd also be surprised if the Business cabin is particularly busy between Madrid and Lisbon when operated by a widebody aircraft, so I'd say you would have a decent chance the promotional upgrade would be available.

One thing to remember if you're chasing Tier Points or Avios, is that unlike BA's promotional upgrade offers, IB's only credit Avios and TPs for the original purchased fare, not the upgraded class of service.