SWISS Upgrade Bargain (Bid or email invite to upgrade)
 

Comments will be in booking to show pax upgraded this way and will be on PIL as usual.

Interesting news. Do you happen to have a source? (could not locate any on LX website).
Thanks for sharing.

Oh well - here we go with the monetization of the spare front cabin capacity. FFP upgrades and/or Business class rewards will now compete directly with a latent revenue offer for that same seat.

And as for occasional operational upgrades in cases of overbooking... well, good thing I'm not investing in retaining Miles&More status any more.

Sad to see a long standing, much valuable FTalker abandoning M&M. I do not get your point: No one sane will ever upgrade with miles, but redeem award tickets in C and F with miles - doing this well in advance I never had problems. You could benefit from the sensational companion Senator award - recently had 4 intercontinental sectors in F for two with 435 000 miles....

Of course operational upgrades will become less, but it is a thing you can not speculate getting anyway. And LX C is pretty full always because simply excellent - I doubt there will be much space available for the "auction" in P. Hopefully LH will protect its F soon as LX did already - excellent award availability for its own elites.

Airlines do that more and more, they try to get money out of everyting, especially things that were for free before. Same with seat selection!

That said, KLM has this system for a while now, and I have placed an upgrade bid 2 times, it got refused, and I got up-upped at the gate for free. I hope for Swiss they have a different system :)

It is not new from today that you don t need to keep status in order to get op-ups, unfortunately.

behuman, thank you for your kind words. It is sad indeed, but I increasingly felt like the proverbial frog in boiling water, and I decided to jump before it's too late. (By the way, as recognition for 10 years as SEN and many years as SR TCGM before, I got... two status stars! :-::-:)

In the last few years, the continuous enhancements to M&M (less accumulation on many fares, redemption grid inflation, outrageous cash surcharges, program rules restrictions etc.) became a real headache. The final straw was when last year, LH childishly reduced status mile earn on TK after I had already booked 3 revenue J tickets with TK. They essentially pushed me out.

No, but with eVouchers with expiry dates...
Well, on my trunk route YUL <-> ZRH, Y is notoriously full and C / F notoriously empty, so my op-up score in the past few years, especially around holiday periods, was near 100%.

Since about last year, I noticed LX counter staff in YUL actively flogging their last-minute cash upgrades (at fixed amounts), but still with few takers. However, with the new bid system they can opaquely accept a $100 upgrade bid if they really have to, before giving out any op-ups.

Don't get me wrong - I work with airline economics and I perfectly understand the financial rationale behind products such as Plusgrade. However, airlines using this system trade emotional / intangible brand loyalty against short-term revenue boosts. And sitting at the other end of that trade, I made my choice to walk.

And I hope for us that they don't! :p

So do I!!

As for KLM, there the system cleared/refused updates until 30 hours before departure, so it stays a guess for the airline. This may be the clue: they were probably still hoping for C tickets to be sold, people to upgrade, or Y pax to cancel, so they decided my 300 EUR upgrade offer was not worth it. At boarding time they saw that they had to op-up me because they could not charge me my 300 EUR any more. From the fare availability I was pretty sure I would get the upgrade, paid or not :)

Does anyone know if this is a 'copy and paste' of the plusgrade/MyOffer that LH use?

At least, my experience from LH is the minimum bid amount has always been over €600 and there were still many free seats in C.

The system is the same as OS/SN/LH: op by plusgrade.

The website is now live too: https://www.swiss.com/gb/en/book/swi...pgrade-bargain

I don't see this in confllict with the other avenues: miles/evoucher/cash upgrade at the airport. Compared to the latter its even better since you get rebooked into P and earn full miles...@:-)

From the FAQ
Not sure if this one holds - since they "sell" a business class ticket I would assume that standard downgrade compensation should apply. If they enforce this new rule it will also have quite negative consequences for mileage/voucher upgrades ....

Not sure if 100% true (heard it first-hand from a colleague) but last week, he was supposed to fly in K with his +1 to PEK (from ZRH), and got a call around 28 hours prior to departure, asking if he was willing to pay 1000 CHF for an upgrade to Business class. He denied it. During Online-Checkin a few hours later, they were already upgraded to the Stübli. SEN and No Status.

Seems on popular holidays routes, when LX is massively overbooking Y but lots of seats empty in C/F (like PEK imho appears to be in spring, personal OpUp experience is also very good) they really try to squeeze some money instead of giving out free opups if they can..

The terrible OpUp rules from LH was the last piece that took me off LH completely, steps like this (or the removal of any baggage allowance even for SEN/HON..) will make me considering flying any LX even more.. well, I'm fairly sure QR, EK, EY, TK, SU, BA, AB etc. won't mind my money..

Well I guess that very much depends on how much you fly and how many miles you have.

Hello to everyone.
I can read, on the Swiss web site, this: "SWISS Upgrade Bargain is currently available on all SWISS long-haul flights. In order to qualify for SWISS Upgrade Bargain, your ticket must be issued at least 120 hours before departure."

Well... I have 3 legs long-haul. All tickets bought in Italy, on Swiss web site italian version. GRU-ZRH-FLR, this end of may (as the second part of a round trip eticket that started with FLR-ZRH-GRU), then FLR-ZRH-GRU and again GRU-ZRH-FLR. I bought the first ticket some months ago and the last round trip on day 14th of this april.

I cannot find WHERE, on my account or during booking process through Swiss web site, I could enter my BID.

Yesterday I sent an email to Swiss customer service and they replied few minutes ago with this:

"...
Con la presente desideriamo informarLa che "Swiss upgrade bargain" e' un' opportunita' che viene offerta ai nostri clienti solo per alcuni voli e l' offerta viene effettuata esclusivamente su invito tramite email.

RingraziandoLa per la Sua comprensione rimaniamo a Sua disposizione per qualsiasi quesito in merito ai nostri voli.

Cordiali saluti,..."

This, informing that the Swiss upgrade bargain is only available for some flights and only through an invitation email by Swiss.

Are these infos correct or the agent who replied to my email was not well informed?

says the website so the agent responding to your query was correct.

Ooops! It seems as I missed those 2 lines :(
Thanks.

Probably I was misled by the lines above those you pointed:
"Requirements:
SWISS Upgrade Bargain is currently available on all SWISS long-haul flights...."

Interesting to notice that, apparently, between ZRH and GRU it is not possible to bid (at least... I have 3 legs on the next months and none of them is clearly eligible :rolleyes: )

Does this also apply to edelweiss operated flight? I have a flight from ZRH to YVR that I would love to upgrade.

Cheers!

I really do not know, sorry.

I interpret this as "no route is excluded", but it does not mean that "every single flight is eligible". I imagine that a lot of routes have seasonal variances in yield and load per cabin, and that LX activates the upgrade bid tool selectively when they feel their yield management for the C cabin could use a little boost.

The route between ZRH and GRU is always very busy, with heavy loads and proof of it is that quite often there are op-ups. Very likely for this reason it is not eligible, as mentioned by airoli.

Actually, the logic here does not hold.

If indeed there are often op-ups on ZRH-GRU, then this means that there was an overbooked Y cabin and open seats in C and F. This is precisely the situation in which an airline would want to leverage this bidding tool: Instead of giving out free op-ups, you now alleviate your overbooking situation by accepting "bids" from Y passengers to get them into C.

An airline will not offer the bidding tool if they are confident that they can sell out the front cabin at the regular C / F ticket prices.

SWISS Upgrade Bargain (Bid or email invite to upgrade)
 

My experience on the route ZRH-GRU-ZRH with Swiss is that I have never been upgraded (in 8/10 trips with FTL status with Miles&More and 4 trips as starGold). But I was upgraded, in the past, almost 50% of times while traveling MAD-GRU-MAD with Iberia and no status :D

According to the thread of op-ups in this forum, normally those are from C to F, and actually I was op-uped to F the last time I flew on this route(original class P or Z, cannot remember).
Of course this could be a consequence of previous op-ups from Y to C.

Has anyone had any successful bids? I was offered PEK-ZRH, 600CHF minimum bid (which was they deem a "poor" chance of success), 740CHF for a "fair" chance. I put in 750 and am wondering if I'm over or under?

FYI, my bid was accepted 4 days before takeoff

PEK-ZRH is one of the routes where I've had the highest amount of OpUps in the past. Most possibly, that flight was massively oversold in Y (and usually not full in C from personal experience) - you most probably robbed a SEN (or FTL/*G) of an OpUp with your bid...

Bid
 

I just received this email too for my SIN-ZRH flight. Any successful bids from Forum members yet (other than BossB)? I bid 900 CHF...still in the poor category however, I have previously been upgraded via a phone call by their service centre for this exact same price...

Thanks

Just to update: My bid of 900 CHF for a single leg from SING-ZRH was rejected....Shame but also shows, this is not a bargain or cheap way to get upgraded by any means!

Just got an invitation to bid for a ZRH-SIN flight. Minimum is 850CHF which I don't really find very cheap and the site tells me it's a weak offer.
At 3100CHF the gauge shows "excellent" offer.

for about two weeks I am WL on a upgrade by miles and it feels like this is not valued as much as money.....

Where is the attention for a 10yr loyal SEN*Gold?

There are too many SEN/*G. Therefore SEN/*G is nothing.

As tickets sold IN Brazil are not valid for bidding, would a ticket sold in switzerland for a trip starting in brazil count as sold IN BRAZIL just for the origin, how does it work for those who buy from one place and travel from another? Any info?

Can't speak to your exact case, but in both my last two GRU-ZRH and ZRH-GRU flights I received the upgrade email. Price range was ranging from CHF 860 ("weak chance") to CHF 3'250 ("excellent chance") (who would bid that?).

I did not participate in the bid, but in one of the two occasions I received an email two days before departure with an offer to upgrade for CHF 999. I accepted it after making sure that this would book into D class and give enough miles to reach Senator this year :)

Given that short-term fixed-price upgrade offer I wonder how many people actually bid the upgrade to business at anything above what Swiss considers "weak":confused:

Not just anyone can use Swiss Upgrade Bargain
 

I just got off the phone with Swiss Reservations. In answer to how one participates, one must be invited to bid :( Too bad for Swiss. Of all the silly schemes...

Indeed.

I also wonder if these silly hawker games inhibit LX from ever developing a proper PE as LH did? The gap between the crappy coach and the Business bed is simply ludicrous chez LX.

Received today the email offering for the "upgrade bargain".
My flight will be ZRH-GRU on day 6th november, originally booked on "S" economy class.
Price range was from CHF 850 ("weak chance") to CHF 3'250 ("excellent chance").
I decided not to make an offer :D

Is there any benefit in booking higher economy class code wrt. possible upgrade?
For example booking "S" versus booking "U" is a 350 CHF savings for me.
When they decide to accept bids, does the booking code play any role in what they accept?

If it doesn't, then booking the cheapest fare and hoping for upgrade is best I guess.

For the upgrades at check-in table there was special price for booking codes YBMU that was 800 CHF for North America and 1100 CHF for other booking codes. (Why wasn't H included, I have no idea...) Does this have any meaning for this upgrade bargain?

If your ticket was booked via a travel agent - would you still receive the eMail? I can see hundreds of things going wrong before my correct eMail address actually reaches LX system...? And no way to call to LX and correct email information with responses such as "invitation only" or "you must contact travel agent regarding this reservation"...?

Am I wrong? :p

Talking about upgrade bargains, there's a deal on now from the UK for half price upgrades. Not sure if it exists for flights originating in other countries. But I was quite chuffed at cannily biding m=y time these last few days and just waiting with a booking. I scored an upgrade on LGW-GVA in February for only £32!

Note that you have to proceed through the booking as if it was an ordinary economy booking, then add the upgrade when it comes to the page offering extras such as baggage. Bear in mind if you choose a hand baggage only fare in economy then the upgrade will not include baggage. I paid the extra £12 for a bag. Would it have been possible to add that service at a later stage, having bought the special offer upgrade already?

ORD-ZRH
 

Any experience with upgrade-bids on ORD-ZRH recently?

Hi everyone!

This morning I received an bidding for upgrade invitation via e-mail. Me and my +1 are flying in 10 days to GRU and the lowest offer you can chose was 850CHF!!! R they completely nuts in LX? The highest was 3700CHF. And we r talking of amounts per person. Who on earth would pay that in a "bid for upgrade" bargain?

Now, we flew recently JFK-ZRH in J and we both had the impression that LX J got worse. The amenity kit was a x-mas stocking (cheap version). The entree was served together with the main course...etc...

I´m SEN and my +1 has no status. This flight seems to be overbooked, otherwise they wouldn't send this e-mail. Any ideas how realistic it is to get upgraded to J at the airport? We are leaving from VIE. But I guess we´ll know it first at the gate in ZRH...:rolleyes: