Flight upgrades - BA automated check-in

muzzle_2

Hi,

Me and my girlfriend are flying to Vancouver with BA next month from Heathrow, and we're planning on getting married while we're in Canada. I was wondering with all the range of automated check-in options BA now have, are our chances of an upgrade even less likely than they were anyway?

To have any chance at all of an upgrade, I assume we need to check in the old-fashioned way i.e. with a human being at one of the desks. If we do this though, are we likely to end up with the worse seats on the plane (because everyone else has already checked in remotely) when we inevitably fail to get an upgrade?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Murphy_The_Cat

Good afternoon & welcome to MSE Muzzle

Good news for you.

If you register for the BA Executive Club (for nowt, theres your first moneysaving tip) you can checkin online AND PICK YOUR SEAT 24 hours before take off. If you don't want to join the Executive Club, you can register for online checkin if you want - but now you can only checkin 12 hours beforehand.

All info was found here.

MTC

p.s. sorry, but I could not find anywhere on the site where to blag a cashfree upgrade.:j

richardw

It is a long haul flight, you can register at https://www.ba.com and choose your seats now if you have the BA reference.

You need to have a higher booking class to join the BA Exec Club, lowest economy Q class no longer lets you join the BA Exec Club.

BA and many airlines now use very sophisticated computer software to minimise the need for cabin roll, so chances of upgrades are much smaller and you need to be near the top of the One World frequent flyer scale to even have a slight chance of getting an upgrade.

Murphy_The_Cat

Bloody hell RichardW, you're right about the exec club.

When I joined them a while ago any cattle class ticket would entitle you to join the Exec Club - at least you can still go online & pre assign your own seats.

MTC

iceliquid

muzzle wrote:

Hi,

Me and my girlfriend are flying to Vancouver with BA next month from Heathrow, and we're planning on getting married while we're in Canada. I was wondering with all the range of automated check-in options BA now have, are our chances of an upgrade even less likely than they were anyway?

To have any chance at all of an upgrade, I assume we need to check in the old-fashioned way i.e. with a human being at one of the desks. If we do this though, are we likely to end up with the worse seats on the plane (because everyone else has already checked in remotely) when we inevitably fail to get an upgrade?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have a friend who works for BA and from what she's said in the past.....I'm pretty much doubtful that you will get the upgrade you want (other than pay for it)

Essentially, whether or not you get upgraded will depend on whether BA (or any other airline for that matter) need your seat in economy (i.e if they have oversold the flight) If you click here you may be able to get an indication of how busy your flight may be.....obv- the busier the better the chance of upgrade.

On a more downbeat note, my friend also said that a few of the checkin team do not like being asked "any chance of an upgrade" and when she and her "crew" deal with a passenger who is persistant- it prompts them to enter a "not suitable for upgrade" comment into the booking. Also said there are a lot of people who pretend that they are getting married- when in fact they are not. In the past- BA (and other airlines) looked favourably on honeymooners etc but too many people have taken advantage of that "just married" card.

The best way you can hope for an upgrade (besides the obvious choice of paying for it) is dress nicely, be polite, be genuiene and don't expect you are entitled to an upgrade. It also helps to pre select who you want to check you in.....if you see a dragon manning the desk...and your next in line....then offer the people behind you to go first.....

If you ain't lucky at check-in....you can nicely ask at the gate as well

Murphy_The_Cat

Its me old buddy Iceliquid - how are you doing


:beer: on me.:j

MTC

iceliquid

Murphy_The_Cat wrote:

Its me old buddy Iceliquid - how are you doing


:beer: on me.:j

MTC

Yup, I'm back....... :beer:

A few too many :beer: at the weekend!!!

Meant monday morning :eek:

zolablue25

A mate of mine spent last year working in New York and travelled back several times using Virgin and BA. The guy is 6' 7" and got a free upgrade every time with BA but never managed a single upgrade with Virgin. I know he is an exceptional case but it does show which airline is more flexible!

jetboy

If you get an upgrade with BA it will likely be to World Traveller Plus (one above cattle class). The ONLY difference is the seat. The cabin service (if you can call it that) is the same as economy. My advice is to try and acquire some emergency exit seats. This can usually only be done at the normal check-in on the day. Make sure you're early. As a back-up, reserve a bulkhead seat online too.

ultrak3wl

I agree that you should get what you pay for, if you hunt for the super-cheapo tickets it's hypocritical to want to be bumped up to first-class.

Having said that... it's normal and human to do your best for people you like so no rules against being nice to check-in staff and hope for the best. I always do try and be friendly with any customer service people, partly because I am one myself and appreciate it when customers are nice to me, partly in the hope of getting an upgrade or whatever, and partly just because it's the right thing to do and costs you nothing anyway.

Doesn't hurt to be mildly well-dressed either but at the end of the day if you don't get anything tangible out of it well that's one of those things.

Actually the smallest things can make a difference, prior to a Virgin flight I phoned to pre-order a vegetarian meal and got into a conversation about travelling with babies with the phone lady. Hey presto in-flight the crew had been notified that I was a frequent flyer!

muzzle_2

Some really helpful stuff there - thanks everyone.

We'd originally booked with Zoom, and paid extra to reserve seats with more legroom. However, from originally booking direct flights Manchester - Vancouver, Zoom managed to change the booking twice so we ended up with indirect flights both ways (via Gatwick going out, and via Glasgow coming home) and then they put our outbound flight back 24 hours so we had to fly on the sunday rather than the saturday we originally booked - which isn't much use when you have a wedding booked for the monday! Don't be fooled by their low fares, because by the time they've finished messing you about and changing the itinerary, you end up getting something completely different to what you originally thought you were booking - my advice is steer well clear of Zoom Airlines.

Anyway, we were able to cancel our booking, and managed to book with BA this week on the dates we wanted. We now have to fly from Heathrow, and it's too late to go onto BA's website and reserve our seats (I tried) - the flight has reached it's quota of pre-allocated seats. Looks like we'll just have to sit where they put us!

Thanks again for the advice.