airoli

Yes, but no guarantee. The airlines use various data points to let the system determine if bid upgrades should be available or not. It may or may not become available closer to your travel date.

romans

thank you! I am just curious and comparing LH, OS vs LX. Would be great if these bid appear.

Fuggi

Hello Swiss forum!
Flying GVA>JFK return in January and placing bids on upgrades from Economy to Business (for two of us flying)
Anyone have any experience with this? The plane looks pretty empty right now but I will monitor the situation closer to time, imagine it's unlikely to be busy as it's end-Jan (well away from the holiday periods)
Would love to have any data points on bids placed that were successful or not

P.S. sidenote: whoever is running mileage bargain postings on Miles&More needs to be a bit more accurate...they were advertising J-class 55k return NYC from Switzerland without any -actual availability- a couple weeks ago

59Impala

check out the master thread

Longhaul cash upgrades to LH E/C/F [upto 6 weeks in advance]

Mlkbird14

I'm flying to Zurich via Swiss on the 16th from SFO. I upgraded my leg home for $680 fixed rate from economy to business (much less than the minimum bid of $900). However the upgrade for the way there is $1270. I've put in a bid for $990 to see if I can snag a slightly cheaper upgrade since it would be two tickets and thus double that price.

My question is around how likely is it that a bid will trigger and I'll grab two business class seats? Business class looks like it has about 7 or 8 seats left not including the reserved seats. First class still has 3 seats open. And economy only looks half full but that's hard to determine given you have to pay to choose your seats in economy so many people may not want to do that.

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oliver2002

Plusgrade (the provider who operates the bidding portal) gets some P seats on each flight that still has physical seats available and distributes them to the highest bidder(s). If the flight is not completely oversold you should get your upgrade.

Mlkbird14

Is it normal for the Flat Rate Upgrade offers to change price? I have logged in every day this week to review offer options. A few days ago the flat rate was ~$1,270 USD to go from Economy to Business Class. Yesterday, I logged into my account and it no longer gave me any options for offers. This lasted over 24 hours. Then a few minutes ago, I logged back in and now the Business Class offer is for $1780! I still have my bid in for $990, but won't find out until 48 hours to my flight leaving. (Dec 16th at 8pm from SFO)

I am wondering if it's normal for these fluctuations given this is the current Business Class seat map from ExpertFlyer. It still as 12 open seats and 6 blocked seats in business class. I have only seen more seats open up in the last week, with 6 seats still available in first class. I am not sure if they would end up moving some business class folks into first class or perhaps some will want to upgrade.

gojko88

Totally normal. As the lower fare buckets are exhausted, the fixed price upgrade goes up.

Mlkbird14

Thank you for all of the insight into my questions. Here's another.

I am in the waiting period to find out if my upgrade bid will go through. So I can no longer cancel my bid. But I am also being offered to upgrade a flat rate much lower than my bid. Has anyone encountered this before? I am afraid of grabbing the flat rate and then having the bid also go through. Effectively having to pay 1.5x for the seats.

oliver2002

The bid will fail if you already upgraded with cash.

gojko88

The flat rate upgrade will automatically change your fare class, so it shouldn't be possible for the bid upgrade to go through afterwards.

Mlkbird14

That is exciting news and would be awesome. It means since I was willing to bid almost $1000, but instead could pick up a flat rate of $650, that is some serious savings. Thank you both for your quick replies. I really appreciate it.

Mlkbird14

For what it's worth. I have realized that I could only access bidding through mobile and could only access flat rate offers on my computer when I am logged in (versus just looking up my booking). I am not sure why they do this, but posting in case it helps anyone else out.

NYC1

Rarely, but in your case, the stupidity of the LHG IT system works in the passenger’s advantage.

bigmak92

YUL - ZRH on 9.1.2022 booked in K (LX*G status)

I was given the opportunity to bid for a J upgrade and the minimum bid was CHF 300

I submitted a bid for CHF 310 and was succesful! My strategy is generally to bid the smallest amount above the minimum bid (when the range is not too expensive). I knew that the loads were quite poor and that I would have a high chance of snatching it

Looking forward to a cheap J treatment on Sunday