Availability of GUP to business class to Germany / France / Switzerland
Feb 8, 23, 1:28 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2007
Programs: ROP Gold
Posts: 1,288
Availability of GUP to business class to Germany / France / Switzerland
Dear all,
I am trying to make use of my GUP to business class for a travel to Europe from BKK.
I usually use the Air Award tool from Thai to check if there are free business class seats and then I book the Econ ticket with Thai and ask them to process the GUP. But I cannot seem to find any available seats.
Could someone recommend another tool where I could check the availability of seat available for GUP?
Appreciate your advices. Thank you.
I am trying to make use of my GUP to business class for a travel to Europe from BKK.
I usually use the Air Award tool from Thai to check if there are free business class seats and then I book the Econ ticket with Thai and ask them to process the GUP. But I cannot seem to find any available seats.
Could someone recommend another tool where I could check the availability of seat available for GUP?
Appreciate your advices. Thank you.
Feb 8, 23, 2:30 am
#2
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: WLG/BKK
Programs: TG*G, NZ*GE, QF G, Accor Gold
Posts: 9,582
Dear all,
I am trying to make use of my GUP to business class for a travel to Europe from BKK.
I usually use the Air Award tool from Thai to check if there are free business class seats and then I book the Econ ticket with Thai and ask them to process the GUP. But I cannot seem to find any available seats.
Could someone recommend another tool where I could check the availability of seat available for GUP?
Appreciate your advices. Thank you.
I am trying to make use of my GUP to business class for a travel to Europe from BKK.
I usually use the Air Award tool from Thai to check if there are free business class seats and then I book the Econ ticket with Thai and ask them to process the GUP. But I cannot seem to find any available seats.
Could someone recommend another tool where I could check the availability of seat available for GUP?
Appreciate your advices. Thank you.
I have never used the award tool as fare classes for award travel are not used for GUP in my experience. I have heard teh THAI is charging some award-associated fee to the European market for the upgrade.
I use ExpertFlyer.com to provide me this information. They offer free trial or limited free queries.
But you can also make a dummy booking for the dates you are interested in and check the fare class (YBHMQ and J )are available.
See the ExpertFlyer screenshot below, MUC-BKK has Q9 andJ6 so this is the best value GUP. However, FRA-BKK Y8 J2, and a full Y fare can be more expensive than simply buying business class fare.
Feb 8, 23, 2:47 am
#3
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 408
GUPs require a purchased Q class or above fare and they then need J class availability in Business. Availability of award seats is irrelevant.
The problems are that Q class does not seem to appear on the TG website, only V/W on cheaper fares or M with the expensive Full Flexi fares.This means you need to book through a TG office, thus adding a booking fee to the price, or using a travel agent. There are of course addidional fees and taxes for using the GUP.
If you use the multi city booking tool on the TG website you can see if J class shows in the long list of available classes, or Expert Flyer can also show you.
GUPs are still working OK since covid, but finding award availability requires time, patience and flexibilty.
Edit...T-K you are quicker than me!
The problems are that Q class does not seem to appear on the TG website, only V/W on cheaper fares or M with the expensive Full Flexi fares.This means you need to book through a TG office, thus adding a booking fee to the price, or using a travel agent. There are of course addidional fees and taxes for using the GUP.
If you use the multi city booking tool on the TG website you can see if J class shows in the long list of available classes, or Expert Flyer can also show you.
GUPs are still working OK since covid, but finding award availability requires time, patience and flexibilty.
Edit...T-K you are quicker than me!
Sep 22, 23, 1:03 pm
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2007
Programs: ROP Gold
Posts: 1,288
May take this question further. I see booking class "I" is available from the Mutli-City booking tool. Does it mean that a mileage redemption ticket is available? Thank you.
Last edited by anaidross; Sep 22, 23 at 1:30 pm
Sep 22, 23, 4:10 pm
#5
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: WLG/BKK
Programs: TG*G, NZ*GE, QF G, Accor Gold
Posts: 9,582
Yes, ‘I’ is the business class fare bucket for award redemption seats, and ’X’ for economy.
However, this is not relevant to GUP. ‘I’ and ‘X’ are only relevant when using miles to book an award flight in the cabin class you are interested in.
GUP is a different process, whereby you buy an economy fare (‘Q’ class or higher), and THAI re-issues the ticket into ‘J’ class after applying the GUP. ‘J’ class is usually a paid/revenue fare class as discounted business class (‘Z’ is even more discounted/constrained).
So important to ensure that ‘J’ class also is available on all the sectors before booking the Q class economy fare.
Similar process used for business to first class.
However, this is not relevant to GUP. ‘I’ and ‘X’ are only relevant when using miles to book an award flight in the cabin class you are interested in.
GUP is a different process, whereby you buy an economy fare (‘Q’ class or higher), and THAI re-issues the ticket into ‘J’ class after applying the GUP. ‘J’ class is usually a paid/revenue fare class as discounted business class (‘Z’ is even more discounted/constrained).
So important to ensure that ‘J’ class also is available on all the sectors before booking the Q class economy fare.
Similar process used for business to first class.
Sep 27, 23, 3:17 am
#7
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: GSE
Programs: TG Gold
Posts: 441
Never had a problem with GUP, just called my local Thai office before buying the Q-ticket and ask if there would be any problem applying the GUP.Off course have done dummy booking my dates in C to see how many seats available before calling.
Sep 27, 23, 4:21 am
#8
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: WLG/BKK
Programs: TG*G, NZ*GE, QF G, Accor Gold
Posts: 9,582
Did they charge some kind of award fee? Never experienced this in NZ but I recall other travellers have been stung?
