Does anyone really care?

Is this paid upgrade option always available on BA, or just at the discretion of the CSD? Is it really a policy, or just something that can happen by chance? If it is routine, it may be better to redeem BA business class and then try to upgrade to F.

I know, that I really care if I am on an Award ticket!


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You can find several threads on this in the past half year or so over in the British Airways section.

The scoop seems to be that it's a standardly priced upgrade (which implies that it's policy), but that not all CSDs seem to be equally aware of it at first blush (implying that beyond not being widely publicized, it's not widely included in training).

It would seem to be available if there are available seats AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE, but it's not quite clear how things are resolved if there are paid upgrades and other kinds of upgrades competing for the last seats in a given class. (For one thing, you can't get the paid upgrade until you're on the plane, so that implies that all people who can upgrade some other way before they get on the plane get priority over you.)

And, again, it's only the seat that gets upgraded. Your food has already been loaded on the plane, so you don't get your food upgraded. So in that sense (in cases where there are food service differences between classes) it's not quite the same as buying the next class up or getting a pre-flight upgrade to the next class. (In the case of WT [regular economy] to WT+ [premium economy], though, the only differences between those classes ARE the seats (the food service is identical) as I understand, so you get about the whole effect from the paid upgrade. If the food changes for Club (business) and changes again for First, that would alter the equation in those cases.

Don't forget on BA the only way you can upgrade before a flight is at the time of booking with miles or vouchers so you will not be behind a list of people waiting with certs.

Also I understand it that you will only be upgrade if the seat is available and the food is loaded so you will get an F meal in F and a J in J.

Even after knowing how you got into a seat, the response by staff seems to differ. Some consider mileage award or or voucher/upgrade award as deserving of the highest quality service as is a paid ticket. Other staff seem to treat you differently.

My own experiences on AA/UA/CX/BA/SQ, etc. has been very good - they rarely seem to care.

This was true even on some of my CI (China Airlines) upgrades when they had dead cheap upgrades - the checking and gate staff seem to provide "full service" even if you are using their very affordable upgrades. The cabin crew seems to not know the difference.