[EU_Flyer]

[quote quote=761315]

There’s also an argument that says they have the loyalty of their own golds so why bother looking after them any further and upgrade people who are on the edges so basic card holders who perhaps they know travel with a competitor more often. Many years ago (25+) I often used to get upgrades on short haul BA (when they cared about their passengers) and more than once I was told it was because of my gold diamond club status and they wanted to demonstrate they could do a better job of looking after me, it didn’t work, BA was necessity, BD was choice!

[/quote]

So true!

When Emirates and Qantas first married, Emirates were treating top tier Qantas FFs on their flights like royalty, upgrading liberally and subtly handing out Skywards application forms and spreading the Emirates love to Qantas’ most valuable customers. All at the time Qantas were cutting costs to survive.

[Cloud-9]

When i lived in Australia, my mum used to visit every year.

She always travelled on BA in J and that was the extent of her flying. She wasn’t even a member of the BAEC – but she got upgraded to F once.

We always assumed it was because she was a cheap option, as she would not have made the most of the onboard booze at her disposal 😉 !

[FrequentPR]

PR staff recently told me that my flight was overbooked.

I had already paid via PR’s relatively new ‘upgrade me’ for a discount Y to J upgrade.

They suggested that passengers would be upgraded based on fare paid (implying that this was more ‘important’ than ‘status’ with its frequent flyer program called Mabuhay Miles).

In the end, clearly there were extra passengers in J but it was still not full whereas economy was chockas.

[YellowBelly]

I have just returned from Rio de Janeiro and was booked in Premium Economy. I am a BA Gold EC member and travel as least once a month with BA long haul. I was travelling with a work colleague who travels occasionally with BA, rarely long haul and has just managed to keep his Silver status (he was actually short of the 600 tier points but BA kept him on Silver). We were both travelling on the same fare basis, me LHR/GIG return and my colleague ABN/LHR/GIG return.

As I have a Gold card we checked in together at the First counter. Guess who got the upgrade to Club World? Yep the infrequent travelling Silver card holder. My colleague advises there were at least two other upgrades sat near him and the seat in front of him was empty. So no logic as to who is upgraded……
Note: there was no Gold welcome from the CSD on this or the outbound flight.

[rferguson]

BA keep their cards close to their chest when it comes to upgrading too. I know with the new ‘fly’ system they use for check in it is meant to be more ‘customer focused’. I know it’s not strictly done on tier/CV. Data is kept of who has been upgraded in the past and the system is designed to not constantly upgrade the same people on the same routes.

BA will only upgrade if the flight is overbooked or less so for service recovery.
A few days out before a flight departs if a flight is overbooked a computerised ‘Discretionary Upgrade Tool’ (DUT) basically makes a list of those booked on the flight that should be considered for an upgrade and where they should be on the DUT. I guess this is the question Tom asks….who decides where each person is ‘on the list’. But the list generally only comprises card holders. Around 48hrs prior to departure the computer system will start upgrading people as necessary (or as predicted will need to be) and these passengers will be noted as ‘Pre Flight Upgrade’ (PFUG) in the system.

On the day further upgrades may need to be made due to a greater than anticipated show of Y/W passengers etc. The customers are selected from the DUT list and listed instead as an ‘involuntary upgrade’. Of course staff travelling with a F/J entitlement are usually upgraded at this point also.

[mkcol74]

And from what @rferguson has posted that’s just what happened to me & my husband coming back from MIA on 1st Oct.
We were booked in W which was then over-sold, while waiting in the lounge our boarding passes updated with new seat numbers in J. We’re both gold but not overly frequent or high value customers, and this was a redemption booking.

[sailandfly]

I fly 3-4 return long haul flights a year and mostly with LH group, always in eco, always the lowest booking classes. I was silver for 4 years but could not maintain status as on lower booking classes you earn peanuts. Occasionally I would upgrade my flights by miles and those miles were mostly coming from CC spending.

First time ever I got upgraded for free was eco to PE just before I was supposed to lose my silver and on a flight where there were few free seats in eco. Why would they lose some revenue was behind my logic except to show me product which I maybe can afford in future travels? Just two months later flight was so overbooked that I was low even on standby list for PE and really low on business. At the gate at the end of boarding there was “sorry, we can’t do anything” so I entered almost the last and found myself stuck in the middle seat, dreading to 8.5h flight. The moment I got settled in the seat (shoes off, socks on) FA tapped me on the shoulder and told me to follow him. So I took my stuff, my shoes in one hand and backpack in another and followed him to the business class cabin! They accepted my PE upgrade and from PE to business was for free?

Two days ago I got a third one on a heavily overbooked FRA EZE flight where I was supposed to fly in PE (again upgraded by miles). Beep at the ticket scanner and few minutes later I found myself in seat 5A. It’s 14h flight and I felt like I a won a lottery! BTW, I never buy lottery, not even on miles:-)

Maybe LH does give priority to M&M members when upgrades are in question but I know my great look helps too 😉

Rgds to all from not so sunny BA.

[Derek1948]

First time we got upgraded was back in 1992 on a BA flight back from Vancouver, we were flying cattle class as we had won a BA FlyDrive holiday. We had never sat on the top deck of a 747 and I asked the booking desk if they could arrange for us to sit in Economy upstairs when we checked in for the flight home to LHR. The lovely lady said she could, but then said “I can put you in business class if you’d prefer?”. Needless to say we jumped at the chance, ah those big old recliner seats. Unfortunately this free upgrade has since cost me a fortune as my wife has always insisted on Club ever since on anything ex Europe!!

[wastedlife]

My experience of having a silver then gold card with BA is that upgrades are driven firstly by business need – the cabin isn’t oversold then they won’t happen – then by your “score” – a percentage computed somehow, but presumably linked to tier points and type of ticket you’re buying. Back when our corporate policy was for flexible tickets all the time, I was on the GGL, got up to 97% and was being pretty regularly upgraded J to F, despite on occasion wearing clothes that I was embarrassed to be wearing in F (I recall an excruciating day when my 3/4 length tracky bottoms ripped on a connection from Belo Horizonte to Sao Paulo and by the time they handed me my new boarding pass, I might as well just have been wearing Calvins).

Interestingly, this isn’t carried over onto American when I fly with American and I guess reasonably so – I’m a BA EC member not AA Advantage member and they should look after their own regardless of alliances. Unlike BA though, AA will upgrade if there is space available in the higher class cabin.

[seasonedtraveller]

I am delighted to say that I’ve been upped to First on this evenings BA from EWR to LHR.
Dress code certainly not a consideration as I’m wearing jeans and ‘Black Sabbath’ T-shirt 😉

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