Why the phenomenal cost to upgrade?

Old Dec 4, 2022, 5:05 am
  #1  
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Why the phenomenal cost to upgrade?

A couple of months ago we booked Premier Economy DUB to AMS to SIN 7 April 2023 returning via FRA 1 May
It cost about €2200 each.
I just checked the cost of upgrading to Business and they are asking for about 6k each person outbound and 3k for the return. So adding the original to the upgrade is 11k.
If I search for new flights in business the*total* cost would be about 5.5k each.

What's going on?

Last edited by Stormbel; Dec 4, 2022 at 5:12 am
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Old Dec 5, 2022, 6:08 am
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No idea, maybe you booked into one of the more flexible classes of PE and so when you request to upgrade they assume you want a similar level of flexibility, whereas the low J price is for Business Lite?
Or may be a computer glitch due to the outbound and return routes being different, such that a new booking is priced correctly whereas upgrade is priced as two one way trips (assuming the 5500 fare you are seeing is for identical routing).
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Old Dec 5, 2022, 7:50 am
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When I wanted to change my return trip from BKK to Seattle because Singapore Airlines had changed the Bangkok to Singapore segment by 3 hours and 45 minutes, Singapore Airlines said to contact Budgetair, the third party agency from whom I had bought my ticket. They said it would cost me $1,650 to change a ticket that I bought for $674. I ended up buying another one way ticket to get home and am suing Singapore airlines and Budgetair $880 for the price of that ticket. Singapore airlines rationale in your and my case is to make a lot more money. While not every customer is paying the difference, enough are to justify the policy.
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Old Dec 5, 2022, 2:55 pm
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Removed at my request
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Old Dec 5, 2022, 5:18 pm
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Originally Posted by onlySIA
No idea, maybe you booked into one of the more flexible classes of PE and so when you request to upgrade they assume you want a similar level of flexibility, whereas the low J price is for Business Lite?
Or may be a computer glitch due to the outbound and return routes being different, such that a new booking is priced correctly whereas upgrade is priced as two one way trips (assuming the 5500 fare you are seeing is for identical routing).
The trip is the same. All I did was to go to my booking and choose the Upgrade with Cash option. No people involved so no confusion!
Maybe if I wait until closer they will offer me a decent upgrade price automatically! Ha ha.
How many days out are the upgrade offers made, if at all? 4 days?
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Old Dec 5, 2022, 6:47 pm
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As this is a mixed class (Y on EI/PY on SQ) /mixed airline (EI/SQ) booking, SQ's systems will be challenged. While SQ can sell the ticket upfront (somewhat impressive given SQ's IT), their upgrade engine is clearly using an alternative source to calculate fares.

As for a potential upgrade offer from SQ, this will be at around 72 hrs before departure. Of course, whether you receive an offer depends entirely upon availability in the next class.
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Old Dec 5, 2022, 10:54 pm
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SQ targets people who haven’t paid for their base ticket: if your company paid for the ticket but you want to treat yourself to a nicer experience, you can upgrade.

What SQ is trying to make more money out of this than what an upfare would cost and it seems this strategy works for the small number of upgrades they offer.
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Old Dec 6, 2022, 12:20 am
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Originally Posted by bpk6h
As this is a mixed class (Y on EI/PY on SQ) /mixed airline (EI/SQ) booking, SQ's systems will be challenged. While SQ can sell the ticket upfront (somewhat impressive given SQ's IT), their upgrade engine is clearly using an alternative source to calculate fares.
I think this may have more to do with it: the repricing would likely be based on the whole itinerary, not only the AMS-SIN sector. This means the upgraded price would be based on a theoretical fare that would include DUB-AMS in business, and that might well map into a much higher fare bucket than what you could buy AMS-SIN for in business outright.

That’s only one possible explanation, of course there are others…
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Old Dec 6, 2022, 2:28 am
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Travelling back in July I looked at upgrading our economy fare to business on the return leg from Vietnam to Australia
Through the upgrade tool in the app they wanted 1500 USD just to upgrade to a higher Y fare class on a return ticket that cost us only 1k USD.
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Old Dec 6, 2022, 1:06 pm
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Originally Posted by NetJets Germany
I think this may have more to do with it: the repricing would likely be based on the whole itinerary, not only the AMS-SIN sector. This means the upgraded price would be based on a theoretical fare that would include DUB-AMS in business, and that might well map into a much higher fare bucket than what you could buy AMS-SIN for in business outright.

That’s only one possible explanation, of course there are others…
I think so too. Presumably, DUB-AMS is currently in Y, since there's no PY cabin. The online system might be forcing the whole itinerary to a higher RBD, in order to accommodate DUB-AMS in Business.

I'd be curious to know what DUB-AMS books into when the OP tried making a new booking from scratch. It might be still be Y, thus keeping AMS-SIN-FRA at the lowest possible Business RBD.

Of course, this is all an educated guess.

Originally Posted by Stormbel
The trip is the same. All I did was to go to my booking and choose the Upgrade with Cash option. No people involved so no confusion!
This might be one instance where it's worth giving SQ a ring. Best to keep it simple with them and say you'd like to change your ticket to Business. Try not to mention "upgrade" because they'd think you want to use miles.

Originally Posted by Dean1953
When I wanted to change my return trip from BKK to Seattle because Singapore Airlines had changed the Bangkok to Singapore segment by 3 hours and 45 minutes, Singapore Airlines said to contact Budgetair, the third party agency from whom I had bought my ticket. They said it would cost me $1,650 to change a ticket that I bought for $674. I ended up buying another one way ticket to get home and am suing Singapore airlines and Budgetair $880 for the price of that ticket. Singapore airlines rationale in your and my case is to make a lot more money. While not every customer is paying the difference, enough are to justify the policy.
Your circumstances are quite different from what's being discussed in this thread. Might want to start your own thread for further discussion.
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Old Dec 6, 2022, 1:17 pm
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Originally Posted by SilverChris
Your circumstances are quite different from what's being discussed in this thread. Might want to start your own thread for further discussion.
There already is a separate thread. Dean1953 was given good input as to who is in charge / to blame here. But I guess they chose to drive their point home regardless.
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