Possibility of purchasing upgrades at the counter for SQ flights?
 

Hi,
two years ago when I flew from CHC-SIN, I went on a vacation to New Zealand with my mom and we bought full fare economy class tickets for SGD1500.00 ea. ex-SIN. We upgraded with miles from SIN-AKL, but because we booked the trip 1 wk before we left, there were apparently no seats left for upgrades to Raffles. But, because we dreaded sitting in economy on 10.5 hour flight back to Singapore so we went up to the counter and asked if there were any possiblities for upgrades. The SQ person in charge, was veryfriendly and very helpful like most other people I've met in NZ and offered to block the middle seat for us first and said that hold on let me see if we're doing upgrades today, no one else from SQ ex-SIN or many other places offered to do that before! She apologetically said no the flight was not oversold just very full and if she upgraded us she'd be queired by higher management. However I only had 35,000 miles on my card, which i used to upgrade my mother. But she felt bad that we would not be sitting together offered that we could pay NZD 1224.00 to upgrade to Raffles. After I said nicely that this was kinda expensive, she thought for a second went into a back office and came back saying we could pay NZD 1030.00 instead. :) This had full mileage and PPS credits so I agreed to pay the price which I thought was reasonable, never expected haggling to work with SQ :D . BASICALLY this was one really good experience but do any of you know any other cities which SQ is willing to upgrade you if you pay a price at the counter or was my ex-CHC upgrade a chance in a million??

This happens sometimes. It's all quite official and above-board. You're paying to upgrade to a discounted space-available business class fare.

any idea how much this is between SIN-FRA and SIN-ZRH ?

Interesting... I had never heard of this policy. Any details....?

IIRC there has been the odd mention here of buying an u/g at check-in, some of the figures quoted seemed to be less than the fare difference from what I could tell, but I could be wrong.

So then, the question would be, how much $$$ is there to be saved by purchasing upgrades in this fashion? Also, you have to buy each segment upgrade on a stand-by basis, right....?

On some routes it would be none as full in the premium cabin.

I have some flights coming up that wouldnt mind being in F so will try and see what happens.

Savings are varied by route. This is similar to standby in the sense that this fare bucket (if that's really what it is) is only ever available at the airport on the day of departure and only if there is space available (perhaps abundant space available) and perhaps only if the lower class is at risk of overselling. It doesn't seem to be available very often.

Do we have a lurker who could clarify this?

I'm interested in this as well. Let us know how it goes and good luck.

Yes, do keep us posted.
zvezda, are you saying that it has happened to you before? Were you offered to pay for the upgrade? Did you ask to pay?
Thanks.

I've read here about it occasionally happening, so I always ask "Is it possible to pay for an upgrade?" I've had success only once on SQ, but several times on UA. It's always been about $500 for a C to F upgrade one way.

Buying up at the counter is new(s) to me. Any suceess with other carriers? I guess it doesn't hurt to ask. Although one should know the going rate for discounted biz class when given the option.

I am not sure since I only fly F, but I do have a thought. Is the language "upgrade" the issue? What I mean is, you are not asking for an upgrade - you want to purchase a seat and pay the spread. Given the incredible sensitivity to "upgrades" that could be the issue since I can not imagine any airline, SQ included not being willing to take money form its PAX.

Very good point.... in this case, semantics could play a huge role. Perhaps the term "reissue of this segment" or similar should be used....?

Mhmmm, interesting. So you think that simply asking, "Is it possible to purchase an upgrade to C/F?" might not work because of how you word it? :confused: