If they have plenty of availability they may notify before the six hour cutoff. However, the official bid deadline for long haul is six hours before departure.

I can also say that there have been a few times where I haven't been notified until three hours before departure. But usually you know by six hours.

From my experience business class timelines are as follows (just own experience, no idea how much it matches reality):
T-24: Upgrade bids processed until there are 6 seats left in business class.
T-6: Bids close. Rest of upgrades processed until 0 seats left. Will sometimes be processed a little later. If there are still seats available after this then CU for Diamonds might be processed.

And this is exactly when it happened: at the six hour Mark our bin was approved, CPH-BOS at the minimum of 240€ that I put in several month ago - later and until this morning the minimum bin was 680€.

Availability was C7D7 before and C5D5 after our upgrade, and it seems there were also two Upgrades to Plus as the seats we had were fallen up with no additional open seats in Plus.

Greetings - Dirk

Wouldn't this imply that there is 0 reason to bid more than minimum until after T-24?

It seems the first round of processing would give seats to whomever had the highest bids, but with n seats available, your best case scenario is to have the nth highest bid. If you win the bidding at t-24 that implies your bid was too high.
Before T-24 your bid should be minimum - you might get lucky.
After T-24, you should set your bid to what you're actually willing to pay.

I guess you could argue setting your bid slightly above minimum from the beginning, paying a little extra for the increased chance of getting in before you have to put in your highest bid.

I guess the point is - there is 0 reason to have your highest bid from the beginning.

Mostly agree here with your assessment.

There are so many posts from people stressed out about when to bid. And in most cases it doesn't matter. There is really only two or three times one needs to check. Anything else is a lot of worry for not a lot of benefit.

When my booking is confirmed, I check the bid price and the number of open seats. If the bid price is low I will place a minimum bid to just have something low in the system. The minimum bid price can really fluctuate. Sometimes I keep my bid knowing it's below the minimum and have still won.

Then I forget about it all until about 10 days before the flight. If most of the business class have already sold, I might consider to just buy it outright. If not, then I see what the minimum bid is. I only change things if the minimum bid amounts have gone down.

I'll come back in around T-36 a d T-12 and check the min bid and the number of seats. Then I decide whether to make any changes.

I know lots of people watch it like a hawk. I just don't understand why.

It depends on how low the minimum bid is, or if it has lowered. Case in point. Booked ORD-CPH Aug 20 for flight Jan 18-26. At the time the minimum bid was 750. On Black Friday, and for about one week, it went down to 680. Mid December it went down to 410, and I placed bid of 411, later Jan 15 I amended bid to 424. This was for ORD-CPH. The CPH-ORD bid never changed except on Black Friday time to 680, and a week latter it went back up to 750. A few days latter after I amended my bid it went down to 730 and stayed like that. 23 minutes before check in, I received confirmation email that my bid was accepted and I was already re-assgined new seats. When I check cabin, it looks half full, and PE, what I booked, only a few seats left. At this point no idea what is the bid for first, or if it will lower at the 24hr, 6hr, check in mark. CPH-ORD is now 680, maybe it will lower and I will bid, but not now.

Min bid of 50K with EBD boost for Go to Biz cleared for ORD-CPH just before check-in opened at T-24h. C9 before and after bid acceptance but min was still 50k points (up from 44K when I checked in December). Glad my employer reimburses me 750 USD for the points or I'd probably be waiting and hoping for a CU.

sk944/ Jan 18? I’m on it 7D

Right behind you in 8A :)

Booked a trip to Tokyo with the promo they have going on now, but only managed to get the return in Go/Y. What are typical low bids in cash/points going from Go - Business? Current minimums are $700 / 42k points for Business or $330 / 20k points for Plus.

Upgrade at airport?
 

Does anyone have experience about upgrading at the airport? Is the price usually higher or lower than bidding beforehand? Flying from Copenhagen to Bangkok 30.1.

Quick question:

I have gold booster benefit. I see the min bids for Go -> Business for CPH-BKK as 510 euros/36000p.

Would someone in Go who didn't have booster status be offered,

a) The same minimum bids as me? So a minimum bid from me is worth more than a minimum bid from them; or
b) Higher minimum bids? So minimum bids from each of us are worth roughly the same, but theirs would cost more.

It's an award flight, or I could probably just remove my Eurobonus number from the booking and check myself!

Thanks

AFAIK everyone gets the same minimum bid price. The booster tops up your individual bid.

Another data point from my return from BOS: I did bid 241€ in July when the minimum bid dropped to 240€, shortly after it went up to 680€ but a few weeks befor the flight (I checked late December) it was down again to 340€ where it stayed until now. Bid was confirmed 24:30 before departure at C7D6 leaving it at C6D6 after the upgrade. PE remained at Y6S4 after two more seats were taken in PE, not excactly sure if these were upgrades or people actually checking in for the flight,,.

Greetings - Dirk

I lost the bid 25 hours before departure however something weird happened. I got an email which says it was declined, but a notification at the SAS app that I was upgraded. However I was not able to select seats in business and I see they deducted the points I bid and instantly got a refund (did SAS just change their minds?) However I would like to try at the airport, is checkin best or the gate best (LAX for reference)? I see there are 10+ seats availble so it should be able to upgrade.