100 BA upgrades from WT – First today.

[quote quote=919361]

rferguson wrote:

I think there is less commercial sense in upgrading 100 top tier FF’s than 100 selected on the basis of their purpose of travel on Valentines day.

This IS a marketing exercise.

Who would be interesting in seeing a video of 100 Gold card holders getting preferential treatment (again) at a check in desk. No one would be interested as this does happen on a daily basis anyway. I think there would be more a rolling of the eyes from the viewer than anything.

Of course, RF. And many frequent flyers are demanding customers, used to upgrades and in a sense a bit blasé. These guys on the video are truly thrilled. It is nice to watch, and indeed has more marketing value.[/quote]

And that’s what I find so amusing about some peoples reactions to this PR stunt. On one of the blog sites someone had posted than anyone travelling on ‘the published first class fare’ on flights where these people were upgraded should have the difference in the first class fare and WT fare refunded to them.

But on a day to day basis when you are sat in F or J do you know who has paid what?

Although it differs route to route the reality is a minority of passengers sat in F will likely be on a published F fare. Some will be on hugely discounted corporate deals. Some will be using upgraded vouchers or Avios or their Amex 2-4-1. Some will likely be staff with a F entitlement. Some may have elected to shell out the extra prmotional upgrade amount online during OLCI. There may be one or two that have been upgraded at the request of the captain (usually friends of one of their flight crew colleagues). And some may just be INVOL U/G as it’s common for M or W to be overbooked which spills over into J which spills over into F.

The only difference in this scenario is that it was very publicly promoted and the selection criteria was not as usual. But for one day in the year, it makes a nice change, no?