Thai upgrade
 

2nd topic in a short time.

I've been flying with Thai since 2014, became Gold in 2015. Unfortunately, still stuck on Gold, hopefully next year Platinum.

So far Thai never upgraded me from Business to First, or Economy to Business. Is this typical for Thai? Back when I was flying with CX I got an upgrade regularly, even being MarcoPolo Green (or whatever the name was).

I fly with TG between 2 and 4 times a month, so I'm a loyal customer. I made a complain last year seeing they had serious issues with their inflight entertainment on their 747's and the older a330's. TG gave me a 200USD discount for this issue, which was a nice gesture. However, they are stingy with their upgrades. Even on TG601 (sometimes they use a a380 for this route), first & business relatively empty, even then no upgrade. Any advice? I guess its only for Platinum members.

even as a Platinum you do not get regular op Upgrades
there are actually also few occasions!
as a Platinum you usually fly anyway Business as otherwise miles do not count for status and there are only few flights left, where they operate F, so very few occasions for upgrade
my last op upgrade was years ago, but what you get quite regularly is to sit in the F cabin where they operate 747 (and A340, 777 with F in the past) and do not sell F (just last week from Europe to BKK)

Flew BRU-BKK yesterday in Y. I informed about upgrading options at check in. Was told I could pay 1485 euro to sit in business with my economy meal. I'm *G and was in booking class Q.
I thanked them and kept my seat in Y. For, let's say around 600€ I would have done it.

so you had a low booking class for your Y ticket like V or W?
seems to be normal price for standby upgrade
you get also only mileage for Y but that you will stay with your cattle class meal is a lousy joke...

TG got to be kidding! Who would pay this amount to be seated in C (but still eat a Y meal) when you are often able to buy a return business fare to BKK from select European cities for the same amount or slightly more with other carriers :confused:

The prices for such 'standby upgrade' at the airport are now very poor value. Miles earning remains in original class. I am surprised to hear that it was stated you would be served Y meal - that is not my experience in doing a couple of these standby upgrades in the past.

The Standby Upgrade price list can be googled to find:

ex-Bangkok: https://www.thaiairways.com/en/plan/...business.page?
global: https://www.thaiairways.com/en_AU/pl...obusiness.page

Have been TG G for 20 years now and have had 3 opups C to F and 2 Y to C in that time. Nothing for at least 4 years though.

I must have completed over 300+ fights with TG in the 9 years I have been living here in BKK.

So much so, that every year I qualify for 2 x GUP (that's 100k bum on seat miles), almost always in eco.

I have had one op up out of BKK>HKG, one out of HKG>BKK, one out of ICN>BKK and one out of LHR>BKK, all Y up to C. Based on my experience, it seems operational upgrades out of BKK op ups are super rare.

My mates who work in HKG get many more CX operational upgrades. I think TG's revenue management system rarely oversells flights and therefore operational upgrades are so rare.

I do appreciate the recognition I receive as a TG*G sitting in the economy cabin. But it would be nice to be upgraded to TG*P for all those miles I rack up (although sounds like TG*P has few additional benefits, except the First Class lounge access)

100K + bum on seat miles got me Miles and More Senator Status (when I was based in Europe) which has the great perk of a guaranteed free adjacent seat block in the eco cabin. I think their check in system algorithms reassign economy seating assignments based on status.

Would be good if TG blocked the adjacent seat in eco for TG*G, but almost always I am sitting next to someone, whilst others have free seats.

there are some more benefits for a TG*P in addition to FCL access (which is already quite great given the lousy J lounges of TG in BKK):
FCL access also at other destinations (currently only HKG)
check in at First Class check in also when flying in Y
Fast track inbound and outbound in BKK also when flying in Y
miles have unlimited validity
additional PUP for every 50k flown

I am as well SEN and have experienced that the adjacent seat in Y was not blocked on LH, LX or OS...so not so sure what is the percentage of flights you get a empty seat beside you...

In about 10 years being TG*G, I had two op-ups from Y to C, once in Frankfurt and once in Bangkok. Until two years ago Thai had a reasonable standby upgrade fee for about 600 eur, but that is finished now. I have been flying Emirates to Bangkok for less than two years now and I had three op-ups from Y to C, one free R/T ticket for a denied boarding in Dubai (waiting three hours in the Dubai lounge sipping champagne) and one very nice upgrade offer from C to F on 2 legs for 50% of the miles. Emirates still has reasonable standby upgrade prices Y flex to C at about 450 eur per leg (so 900 eur for BKK-BRU). The quality of the Emirates lounge is way better than Thai C-class lounge and even better than Thai's F class lounge, better food, excellent wines and quiet.

Interestingly I'm booked to fly Bangkok-Sydney a few weeks after the frequency drops from two flights to one per day and there are still the same number of J seats available as there were before the cutback. My partner is flying Sydney-Bangkok in November using a "sale" W Class ticket bought cheaply in May and we had no difficulty changing the date with only the standard penalty applying on the day after our original preference

As stated by others you should not expect to get upgraded just as a "nice gesture" because business/first seats are available. It's a different story for oversold flights though. In my experience they will always fill up the plane in all classes and do upgrades as necessary (not only for confirmed passengers but even standby). So the upgrade chances really depend a lot on the route, season and other factors that affect the load.
Having been with TG for >25 years i got upgraded countless times, especially in the good old times when they were flying the A340 to Europe. That plane had only 199 Y seats but 60 C and 8 F. That meant that for Saturday / school holiday flights where majority of travelers were Y they always had lots of upgrades. I remember a time where i did a Europe-BKK or BKK-Europe every week - always on Saturday - and during the 3 months i did that i scored 9 upgrades out of the 12 flights !
These days things are very different and i rarely get upgraded. In my opinion the main reason is seat config: a 777ER has 42 C and 306 Y, i.e. 14% premium seats - compared with 34% on the A340. They maybe also have better optimized inventory management and other factors that reduce op-up opportunities.