Report Flight Upgrade Successes

qwerty123456

listo wrote: »

Hi I've just returned from New York flying with BA and was upgraded both ways using the tips I found on this site. :beer:

My wife and I were booked in to premium economy because it was only a little more than economy and it gave us much more free time in New York due to better flight times, as all the economy seats were sold.

To start I joined BA's executive club

Then I made sure I checked in online as soon as I could, online check in opened at 8.20am on xmas day, we were checked in by 8.30am!

Then next day I made sure my wife and I were smart but casually dressed I used a laptop bag as my hand baggage to complete the look. When it came to check in our bags, we were greeted by a gorgeous BA member of staff who made me melt! We were polite and friendly and without any prompting she said in a quietish voice "I have good news you for you, you have been upgraded to business"! I was now in love but thats another story!

Business class was fantastic there is no other way to describe it! You owe it to yourself to try and get upgraded. I f you look and sound like the pitbull who was in the queue next to us, I dont think you have a hope. I'm sure the staff on the desk have the final say.

On the return leg I again checked in online in New York using a computer in the hotel just for that purpose. How many people do this?

When we got to the airport we did the same routine, polite, well dressed etc etc, but the american BA employee was giving nothing away, until right at the last minute she told us she was printing new boarding passes, as we had moved seats.

What a result, upgraded to BA business class both ways free of charge. Many thanks to Martin and all the mods at the MSE. :T

The BA customer service agents had no say in your upgrade and what you wore made no difference. Your flights were oversold and you had checked in online so BA knew you were actually travelling. You actually would have been upgraded well before you arrived at the airport. Then when the CSA scanned your boarding passes to accept your bags, seat change would have come up on the screen and new boarding passes printed.

Moral of the story is to ALWAYS check in online.

listo

Ok cool, thanks for letting me know. I wondered which one of my actions helped me get upgraded. How do you know? Can you check my flight out out or do you have insider knowledge? I'm not desperate to know I'm just intruiged.

One thing is for sure if I hadn't read the tips on this website I wouldn't have known to do any of the things I did. Therefore my thanks still goes to all Martin, the mods and all other posters as I read all of it before I went.

I will always check in online as soon as I can in the future.

Tojo_Ralph

listo wrote: »

Ok cool, thanks for letting me know. I wondered which one of my actions helped me get upgraded. How do you know? Can you check my flight out out or do you have insider knowledge?

qwerty is quite correct in what they say and their comments reflect the reality of the way airlines operate with regard to allocating upgrades.

As for which of your actions contributed to your upgrade the most, the primary one (approx 90%) was not purchasing an economy ticket, the secondary one was possibly checking in online.......... the rest was purely coincidental.

Getting upgraded from premium economy to business class, business class to First Class, etc is common and that's perfectly logical given that it's a numbers game. As qwerty has stated, economy would have been full, so economy passengers would have had to have been upgraded.

Lets say 7 passengers needed to be upgraded from economy to premium economy..... So based on average transatlantic sating thats going to be something like one in twenty passengers, which is just 4% of passengers.

Now, if premium economy had say 20 ish seats and was not full, perhaps 6 passengers would need to be upgraded to Business class?..... that's perhaps six out of eighteen..... or a healthy 33% of passengers.

Anyway, the above are very general sort of figures, but hopefully you get the idea.
......

littlereddevil

I've been upgraded twice with BA and hadn't checked in online. Both times I was told at the boarding gate.

danehardinge

I got me and two kids upgraded JFK to LHR to full business class, including the lounge. Good old BA. I am a frequent flyer so that helped and we all asked (kids begged!) - went to the premium seats so asked again for business class which we got in the end. All four got upgrades again with BA Mumbai to LHR. Cathay gave me upgrade HK to UK to business - I had my special Jacket and did look like a business traveller plus the hostess at the gate who moved me was gorgeous.

lorweld

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skivington

clairehi wrote: »

I have never asked for an upgrade but many years ago flying economy on business from LAX to LHR on Virgin was upgraded to Premium economy at the desk. She looked at me and said "are you wearing shoes?" . I thought how odd- I would hardly be barefoot! The plane must have been full I guess.
Anyway I was well chuffed with this but when I got on the plane, there was someone in my seat also with a BC with the same seat no. I thought I was out of luck and would have to go to the back of the plane but when I complained (politely) to the attendant she immediately led me into Upper Class where I was spoilt rotten for the duration.
I could not believe my luck - I have still not come across anyone else who has had a "double bump" in this way and I can't see it happening again.

My doubbe up was at JFK flying back to LHR just after newyear (4 or 5th Jan I think) and got upgarded a business at check-in (I was a silver member though) and was called from the lounge to go to the desk and the guy there said "I'm afraid we have to take that upgrade off you sir, I smiled and replied "thats ok sir" then he ripped up my boarding pass passed me a new one and said "beacuse your going into first class" my jaw dropped and he laughed and said "I love it when I do that" made my trip meamorable, I kept the menu's and goodies as a momento as I will never be there again.

dmg24

skivington wrote: »

My doubbe up was at JFK flying back to LHR just after newyear (4 or 5th Jan I think) and got upgarded a business at check-in (I was a silver member though) and was called from the lounge to go to the desk and the guy there said "I'm afraid we have to take that upgrade off you sir, I smiled and replied "thats ok sir" then he ripped up my boarding pass passed me a new one and said "beacuse your going into first class" my jaw dropped and he laughed and said "I love it when I do that" made my trip meamorable, I kept the menu's and goodies as a momento as I will never be there again.

You have responded to a Virgin upgrade post. I assume you were not flying with Virgin?

captainhaggis

I work closely with BA so regularly enjoy a 'nice seat' but the hard and fast rule these days relating to upgrades is that they just don't happen.

Unless you're seated in an overbooked cabin, the airline has no need to move you forward - this usually involves providing more costly food and alcohol for your consumption.

At the moment a lot of BA's flights are heavily overbooked in Economy and fairly fully occupied in the Premium Economy cabin so a number of Eco passengers will find themselves moved to Prem Eco. As such, a number of Prem Eco passengers will enjoy moves to Business Class.

But as has been said previously on this thread with a certain amount of tongue inserted in to the proverbial cheek, knowing someon at the airline is invaluable!

One of my best friends is crew for Virgin and she tells me that people coming on and asking for an upgrade is almost a sure fire way of them ensuring they don't get one! All this stuff about "it's my birthday" or "we're on honeymoon"... if it's that special an occasion, you'd buy the fancy seat yourself.

CliffWalker_2

Hi, I'm a newbie here (posting that is, I've been visiting this site for years).

I'd like to add my upgrade experience to those already here.
My wife and I flew Virgin Atlantic to Miami a few weeks ago for a birthday trip (mine and hers, they're 8 days apart) that involved a trip to Miami, a cruise and then a domestic Delta flight to Los Angeles, ending with a return flight from Los Angeles back to Heathrow with Virgin.

We've had flights with Virgin before and I am a member of their Virgin airmiles thingy (in fact I used 2000 of my air miles for mine and my wife's tickets to save a few pennies, knocked about £40 each off, I reckon).

A few days before the flight I had a call from a Virgin rep telling me that they noted that I'd checked in online and everything was confirmed (I joked that I'd hoped she'd rung to uprgade us as the trip was for our birthdays, she just laughed)
Then she asked if I wanted to pay for an upgrade (ah, the real reason for the call....)
I declined her kind offer of an upgrade to Premium Economy for a mere £289 each (eek! that's still steep), pointing out that I'd only paid £350 each for the tickets, so I was hardly likely to pay almost the same amount again simply to have bigger seat...
Then I forgot all about it (didn't even mention it to the wife).
On the big day, we got to the check in desk and the nice lady asked me if I was aware we'd been upgraded to Premium?
I was so gobsmacked it didn't occur to me to claim I knew all about it and tell the wife I'd arranged it as a birthday treat!
(Ooh, how many brownie points would that have got me?)
So, there you go, it does happen.
Whether it was because they noted we'd flown quite a few times before with Virgin, or they noticed it was our birthdays while we were away or whether the lady who rang me a few days before had noted the fact it was a birthday trip?
Who knows?
My wife managed five glasses of champagne before we'd even got to the runway... (I don't drink, so she had mine...)
We heard two couples sitting near us also mention that they'd got upgraded too.
Overbooked Economy?