Saudia First Class Upgrade
 

Can you upgrade to first class from business on saudia? Any idea on cost?

No clue. But why would you? If I am right the first class planes have already full flat business, in most cases with direct aisle access. And the catering....in the end it is a dry airline. I flew SV a few times in business and that was just fine for the (low) price.

Larger bed/bedding to be able to sleep better.

Depends on your itinerary. Generally they have a my upgrade link which you can bid for an upgrade. Usually it clears within 48 hrs of your flight and it depends if you are the highest bidder.

any idea what it prices at usually ?

Saudia uses Plusgrade to manage paid upgrades, if you have already an active booking you can bid the upgrade at SV website any time, the page will show you the minimum offer that is based on specific destination, regardless of time and seats availability for what I was able to see. For instance last April I placed a bid for the leg CGK-JED from Y to J (no F offered in this flight), minimum bid was 362 USD that was accepted 24 hours before flight. The other leg JED-MXP minimum bid was 272 USD but I did not place any as was only a 5 hours day flight.

I have a new trip already booked for year end holidays and the minimum bid is always the same as above, from my calculation considering the actual price for rebooking on J there is a saving of around 50% vs the minimum bid. For sure there is no 100% guarantee that space will be available or bid to be accepted at the level suitable for you. About upgrades at check in I have no idea and not sure anybody here will be able to answer you.

Interesting since quite cost-effective. If you bid for upgrades, do you also get miles for the upgrade? (for me FB XP matter? At AF/KL if you upgrade yourself via online check in, you get the better seat but miles for original flight).

I enrolled Alfursan and while tier miles reflect original booking class, it seems that reward miles reflect the upgraded class, but I'm definitely not sure as the app only shows the total miles per leg but not the breakdown (outbound flight that was upgraded from Y gained 7472 reward miles while the inbound that was booked in J saver class from the beginning gained 6227 miles).
To note that Alfusran webiste and app are terrible, full of bugs and issues, same as their customer support via WhatsApp or email, useless and frustrating.

:-) about their website and app and customer support, shake hands. Interesting to see your experience on miles. Since I am at FB, gaining the XP is crucial - if anyone has experience how many XP you get if you buy Y and after that upgrade to J with SV I am all ears.

Currrently SV have 8 planes with F. All of them are 77W.

They have registration HZ-AK36 to AK43.
Just some curiosa if anyone want to see where SV deploys the F frames.

Where do you find these written?

https://www.planespotters.net/airlin...abian-Airlines
Search for an airline and see their full fleet, under the column you see the config. You can do this on every airline and also follow latest planes delievered. Great website which I have found accurate with even updated retrofits.:)

Thx. But I meant how would I know if the flight I'm taking has that config while doing a regular search.

Expertflyer. Load the seat map or look at the Flight availability. Ofcourse equipment swap is always possible so EF is not always 100% accurate.

EF have 5 free queries each day, for more it costs $9.99 a month. Very much worth it if you ask me.

I have placed the minimum bid on a JED-LAX segment for October ( minimum bid was $1350 ). Really not bad considering I payed $1250 one way in J from MNL-JED-LAX. I will report back if I get it and how it credits to FB.