[SimonS1]

It happens – in the days before the company took its business elsewhere I had three upgrades in a year. 2 to Johannesburg and once to Cairo.

It was old first, nice but not such that I would have paid for it, especially on the JHB route where you can sleep just as well in CW.

[scott66]

I’ve never encountered a random act of kindness (AKA upgrade) from BA.
Having flown five business sectors on Thai I was upgraded from Bus to First. Their position was an equipment change a346 to b744 – less business seats, my good fortune was single traveller with silver status checking in early, sadly the upgrade wasn’t made clear at the the check in I was just handed a ticket with 3A seat on it, I only twigged the what had happened when I saw the 747 at the gate. Have you noticed the flight appears to take a whole lot less time in first?

In response to the original post. i agree that you’re well overdue for an upgrade. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, honestly how many longhaul sectors does one have to do with BA for an upgrade? I know my question is at odds with the original post – Random acts of kindness.

In a way the secondary question is how little does one have to fly with other airlines to get a ‘random upgrade’?

[MartynSinclair]

Not sure how many of you run your own businesses / are shareholders but I would be pretty peeved if goods/services/stock was given away from companies I was associated with… especially as an investor.

In the case of private jets, more seats are flown empty than full, clients choice. If there is an empty leg, potential clients normally have to pay to try…

The major exception for filling empty seats and this is mainly in the States, is a system where corporate flight departments would inform a clearing house looking for empty seats for those in urgent need of life saving medical treatment.

Also remember, a first class / business class cabin with spare seats, usually makes the journey for the few, more comfortable……

If you win are awarded an upgrade, for any known or unknown reason, just accept it, say thank you and stop trying to beat yourself up thinking, at long last!

[IanFromHKG]

I recently experienced a random act of kindness on BA. I was travelling JNB-LHR with my family. I was in First on a full redemption ticket (Asia Miles, not Avios) as it was the only redemption seat available on that flight when we booked. The memsahib – who did not take my surname when we got married – was in CW. The Offspring were in WT+. All of us had separate tickets.

Shortly after boarding, the CSD came around with his iPad to greet me and said he noted I was travelling en famille. I replied that yes indeed I was, but we were unable to get tickets in the same cabin (not strictly true, but I was slightly embarrased about being in the pointy end when the rest of the family were not). During our short chat it became apparent that he had actually been focusing on the Offspring and had been intending to bump them up to CW. As it was, when he realised that my (as mentioned, differently-named) memsahib was in CW he offered to bump her up to First. And did so.

A little later I bumped into him and he explained that he hadn’t been able to bump the girls up to CW as well “because he had had to give the seats to Gold card holders” – although I think in reality he thought one bump-up was enough for one family (and fair enough too)

Totally unexpected, apparently not an op-up, and as you can imagine the memsahib was chuffed to bits

I haven’t written a review of the flight – although I had promised to – partly because I would struggle to rave about the seat and yet that was such a lovely experience that it would seem churlish to write a less-than-fulsome review under the circumstances!

In other news – last year I was getting so annoyed about never getting upgraded on CX despite being top-tier for many years when my colleagues and friends seemed to get upgrades all the time that I demanded (under data privacy protection laws) to know whether there was anything in their records or systems that suggested I should not be given one. The answer was in the negative. Since then I have, however, received three upgrades from economy to business (one on KA, which I gave to my daughter since she needed to study on the flight, and two on CX) – but all on short-haul flights, and clearly all op-ups (on the CX flights a number of my colleagues were also upgraded). I also received an op-up on AA from business to first a year or so ago, which was especially welcome since business had wedgy seats and it was an overnight flight!

[Bullfrog]

Policy may be written for airlines on how they deal with staff perks. What is enforced may be very different.

I am perplexed as to the word ‘upgrade’. Pay for what you want ! One reason NOT to hand out upgrades, is that will start the erosion of passengers who are prepared to pay for that level of service. It generates considerable bad feeling when a higher fare passenger realises that adjacent passengers have been upgraded from lower fare cabins.

On a recent VS flight, I’d got a prime Upper Class seat. A friend asked at check in if they could pay to upgrade from Premium Y to Upper, and understandably they wanted to sit next to me. Sadly the adjacent seats were taken, so my friend remained in PY, although another Upper Class seat was available in another cabin.

It turned out the young chap next to me could not keep his mouth shut, and told me how his girlfriend’s father, who works for the airline, had arranged his free seat.

Lost revenue for the airline. The ‘check in staff’ should have moved the freeloader to the seat available in the other cabin, and taken the payment from my friend to upgrade.

[IanFromHKG]

Bullfrog, I do pay for what I want, and I expect to get what I pay for – nothing more. That is not to say that loyalty is not boosted by the feel-good factor of an occasional upgrade 🙂

My beef with CX was that many others were getting upgrades, and I never did (we are talking about something like a five-year run) so I was concerned that there was something on my profile preventing upgrades happening. But – to make it clear – I do not feel “entitled” to upgrades, except to the extent that if upgrades are happening anyway then as a top-tier member I would expect to be at or near the top of the eligibility list!

[jonas123]

As someone who works for BA, I can give a little more insight on staff travel. General staff travel is on a standby basis – we can pay a bit more to fly in Club, but commercial passengers always take priority. We can not pay to fly in First.

However, certain management grades get an added perk of being able to fly in First once a year (or twice after 5 years service). However this is still on a standby basis, and if First is full, you get the next cabin below.

As far as I know, upgrades due to overbooking are normally done the night before the flight, and gold / silver card members are first on the list for this. However, occasionally last minute upgrades are required and these would most likely go to staff, particularly if there is not enough food loaded in the higher cabins (as the staff get what’s left!)

[Papillion53]

MS@ 23:11

It was general practice in hotels to “upgrade” guests or enhance their stay with little extras, e.g. Add in breakfast, nice bottle of wine to welcome them back, remember their birthday etc etc. And as dazza74 said it does give you a “high” if you are looked after in this way – everyone likes to get something for nothing, it’s how we humans are!

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but haven’t you said on here that you like to form relationships with GMs at the hotels you frequent, and that in doing so you find you “enjoy your stays more”, in other words those GMs look after you??? Those may not have been your exact words, but my interpretation of that was that you enjoyed certain privileges, maybe only better rates for regular stays, so you can’t state that you don’t like goods/services/stock etc given away, when that is precisely what is happening when you ask for a “better rate” which always means a reduced rate for your stays and of course your loyalty! I’m sure most GMs have autonomy to set rates, but too much rate reducing is not good for the bottom line. And that bottle of wine in your room, nice welcome, but it has to be accounted for, so lost revenue and therefore profit in that case. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for a rate deal but there is always a cost when something is given and perceived as “free”. Hotels have revenue managers just the same as airlines, and you may find that sometimes your specially agreed rate may be subject to black out dates. And those revenue managers are tough cookies. Years ago when I was a Sales Manager, and set up any corporate rates, I had to justify why in terms of number of expected room nights per year, it wasn’t necessarily a done deal because I wanted it to be, but as you can imagine I was always able to get the deal done 😉 :-).

And in saying all of this, certainly in my experience it was always much better to have someone in an hotel bedroom albeit paying a reduced rate, or covering the costs, than having that room empty, as there is a cost in having that room empty. There are staff rates enjoyed at hotels also, something which I dearly miss!

Can’t have it all ways Mr!!! 😉 🙂

I also agree with Bullfrog, pay for what you want and then there is no disappointment.

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