Vistara Optiontown Upgrades
 

Hi all,

Starting this thread to enlist the successes/failures of Optiontown upgrades for Vistara.

PNQ-DEL (April 2017) : Y+ was significantly cheaper than Y in my case and hence booked ticket in Y+.

Received email from Vistara couple days later, INR 3600 for a (fixed) bid to upgrade to business or INR 6300 for a confirmed, on the spot upgrade.

Put in the bid of course, shows decision pending now.

I found it interesting that the upgrade marketing is done by Vistara themselves while the upgrade bid and payment is made directly with Optiontown anyway.

I use it for almost all my Vistara flights and have had an 80% success rate overall. Generally if seats are available, they will upgrade you.

Thats good to know. How far prior to the departure do you usually get the confirmation?

in the past i've often found upgrading at the airport to be cheaper than using optiontown....has optiontown become better with pricing????i haven't used them in a while....

I didn't know Vistara offered walk-up upgrades, no mention of it on their website.
Could you offer an example how much they wanted for an airport upgrade?

i used it once between del-bom last year....i don't remember the exact amount but i believe it was under inr 6k....

i've upgraded at the airport in the past when flying air india & air asia....for both airlines i found the airport upgrades to be cheaper than optiontown....

Vistara in particular has really competitive pricing on Optiontown.

@deovrat - 24-48h before departure.

Thanks !

I assume the miles accrual would be according to the original booked class?

Just to add a data point - Received the upgrade confirmation email T-72 hours.

Plus, it turns out that the upgrades are booked in fully-flex business 'J' class.

Unlike other such upgrades/airport upgrades, the miles will be credited as per the upgraded class (not per the original booked class) and all other 'J' class fare rules will apply.
Confirmed this with Vistara.

Nice to get some Krisflyer miles at 125%. :)

Any recent experiences? I am currently on a standby upgrade on a flight for 3 days from now that is showing all 8 biz class seats open for sale, and my upgrade decisions till shows pending.

You will receive a decision in the T minus 24-12 hour window.

Thanks for the update Anish... FYI my upgrade cleared at T-48 probably due to low flight load - was booked to 0 in Biz, now I am the only one as of now... Saved me about 6K INR from buying a biz ticket. I bought premium eco as even if my upgrade didnt clear I was in a bulkhead in row one with good legroom. Luckily it did so worth the risk.

8000 from Economy to Business DEL-PNQ

As a data point, I've been monitoring my flight leaving in less than 24 hours. Business class is showing no seats assigned and all fare classes in business have at least 4 available. Standby upgrade from economy to business still hasn't cleared.

I’m glad they’re following the SQ model over the US airlines model. That’s a sure way to go bust in no time in India.

Also, UK is removing J from many of its less profitable routes.