asimha

Cross post as is seems the Swiss lurkers are no longer lurking ?

We must fly Economy for work on short-haul which is fine, however in some cases I don't mind paying for an upgrade. I cannot understand why some flight bookings show up on swiss.com with the "Comfort" option allowing a paid upgrade and some do not.
Swiss states: "You can book an upgrade on all European flights, regardless of the tariff on which the flight was booked. Upgrades are available at a fixed supplement and guarantee you a seat in our multi-award-winning Business Class." but this is not always the case and furthermore I have tried many times to use the Swiss Choice Upgrade option located at https://www.swiss.com/ch/en/Customer/Upgrade/Login which requires a login even if one is already logged in to swiss.com or allows using the booking reference but neither actually work (tried several browsers) and always errors out with an "Internal Error 500. Our servers are currently not available. Please try again at a later date."

I just don't get it ... any ideas?

Viennafly

I think it requires that the flights are directly booked on swiss.com. For most of my business travel, our company travel agent does the booking and I never see the Swiss Choice upgrade options, whereas when booking myself on swiss.com, I am able to pay the upgrade.
In my experience, it also only works if all flight segments are operated by Swiss and not codeshares.

asimha

Thanks @Viennafly could be indeed the issue as it happens to me exactly as you describe it. Must be something to do with the way the TA books or the commission from the airline perhaps. Thank you !

Concerto

I've managed it with Expedia booked tickets, but that was a while back. Like everything, it's weird, illogical and inconsistent.

asimha

Sadly there are too many bugs on the swiss.com website and the information is incorrect (for example on this page https://www.swiss.com/ca/en/book/swi...pgrade-options which should state that Swiss Choice Upgrades DO NOT apply for travel agent bookings) instead of stating that "You can book an upgrade on all European flights, regardless of the tariff on which the flight was booked. Upgrades are available at a fixed supplement and guarantee you a seat in our multi-award-winning Business Class."

Many of the Swiss Choice options also error out when you try to use them (and they require another login even when you are already logged in ...) - Dear @SwissInternationalAirLines perhaps a good idea to improve the user acceptance testing prior to releasing to the public ?

Thanks !

Fabo.sk

It's not that inconsistent if you consider the difference between OTA and ITA, i.e. online and actual travel agency...

well it is true and it is false at the same time... it could very much apply to any tariff as long as it was bought online, so it's not limited by the fare, but by channel.

airoli

I've never really looked into these upgrades but I have a longer European flight coming up and am now considering it if price is reasonable.

I credit my miles to UA these days. Would the upgrade change my accrual rate to Business Class - and if so, which booking class?

Key8

I have managed to book these kind of upgrades on the Swiss website without problems for travel agent bookings as well as bookings on Swiss.com.
Maybe they have discontinued the TA version of it - I always wondered what would happen with an ugraded ticket if the corporate travel agent had to rebook it.

I have noted however, that the website does not always offer them - and I presumed it is because they are not available.
(Yes any booking class is upgradable, but you still need to have availabilty in business class for it to be upgradable... and probabbly upgrades will not be sold any more if Business is full ony or only full fare C is available....)

asimha

@Key8 Make sense, however perhaps our friends in Swiss IT could add a few comprehensible messages if for example an upgrade is not possible rather than the typical "500 Internal Server Error" which, even if I am in IT, is rather difficult to interpret

Concerto

airoli

I do not disagree but sadly, the same applies to pretty much all of the other European airlines.

And to be honest, they also sell Business Class (directly or via these upgrades) at the same price as Economy 15 years ago. And Economy for next to nothing.

Anderson24

The ticket is reissued with a new booking class, so I guess you should get more miles.

The new booking class can vary and seems to depend on the availability rather than on your original booking class. The easiest way to know for sure is to go to your reservation, select the flight you want to upgrade and start the process. It will immediately show you the new booking class on the next page, without having made any payment.

Carpacchio

I have done the upgrade option several times for our summer vacation flights (as it was cheaper to book economy+upgrade than business directly). Flights will change to new booking class (had P, Z, D already), and upgrade fare depends on your current and your future booking class difference (I assume).
However note: the conditions of your current ticket remain - i.e. if you had an HBO economy fare, this will remain HBO (similar to rebooking and reimbursement conditions...).

Concerto

My recent Air France Business class flights from SVO to CDG and on to MXP had catering that was as good as a school canteen, no better. It was truly poor, at best Economy from the early 2000s (although I recall eating very well on Swissair in Economy in 2000 on the ZRH to ARN route: the Economy catering was akin to that found on SUN-AIR these days. And SUN-AIR is a Seltenheit these days).

Back to the upgrade topic, and I think it is a thing that is impossible to do on the Moscow route. At least, every time I looked for it there was no upgrade option available (lots of dummy bookings). And SWISS from GVA in Economy with non-existent catering I will avoid completely from now on.

asimha

Have confirmation (since Swiss does not reply) that web upgrades - Swiss Choice - will only work if booked on swiss.com and not through a travel agent.
Not sure how difficult it would be to add a clear message on the website; I am an old developer but can still write HTML if that helps