This year we’ve managed to travel several times in business class without either having paid nor selected to be there at the time of booking. How? Many airlines, including Aegean, Malaysia Airlines, Etihad, Aer Lingus (and plenty of others) offer ‘bid to upgrade’ programs where you can make an offer to upgrade to the next cabin class for an amount you set, within parameters.
Having scored several successful upgrades this year in this exact way, what I’ve routinely noticed is the following;
– While in theory, you should be e-mailed and made aware of the opportunity to bid to upgrade, this often doesn’t happen. Aer Lingus for example never e-mailed me, presumably because the booking was made through a corporate travel agent, even though the upgrade auction site did let me in and offer me the chance to make a bid.
– As a result, you’ll often need to find the page – or look to see if there is one – yourself, and then try using your PNR and last name to find out if you’re eligible.
– There is always a minimum limit, so it’s not as if you can just put €2 and be on your way.
Which brings us to the strategy that has so far worked quite well for us;
– Ultimately, this could probably be one bullet point and it would be; “Add a margin to the minimum, between 5 – 10% extra and never bid a round number; if you wind up at say, €300 per passenger, make it €301 to edge out anyone who also landed on a round number.” My greatest successes here have been just slightly higher than the minimum, not a round number.
– If you think you’re going to give this a go, and you know the airline in question has this system, then you should feel very firmly incentivised to find the cheapest economy ticket to book into first, since you’ll end up paying for your actual ticket plus the upgrade bid cost if successful.
– Also, make sure you check the cost of just booking into business class in the first place; there are limitations to this program (see below) so if the prices are likely to wind up within striking distance of each other, then it’s probably more beneficial to just book a business ticket directly.
– Lastly, after you’ve made your bid, keep an eye on your credit card statement or bank account more so than your e-mails; in two cases this year, I noticed the upgrade was successful from the funds being deducted several hours before the confirmation e-mail.
So, why not just do this all the time? Well, here’s been my way of thinking…
1. Because these upgrades so often clear in the 24 hours immediately before the flight, seat selection can be tough if practically non-existent. With Malaysia Airlines for example, there was nothing that could be done but wait for the assignments to be made manually at the check-in counter and hope we all somehow ended up sitting next to each other (we did).
2. None of the programs that I’ve encountered credit the full upgraded cabin miles / tier credits – you’ll wind up getting exactly what you were entitled to, only in the originally booked cabin. So this is definitely not a way to retain status, if that’s important to you.
3. Arguably, this may not be important if you went into battle planning to upgrade in the first place, but add-ons generally don’t carry over. So pre-booked meals (except, perhaps, due to dietary restrictions – although even they’ll need to be reconfirmed), any paid seat selection, will generally all be lost without refund in the upgrade. In the case of our Malaysia Airlines upgrade for example, we’d prebooked lounge access which was nonrefundable when the upgrade happened – a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things, but annoying nonetheless.
4. Obvious but worth repeating; there will be times you’ll either be outbid or not enough seats will be left unsold in the upgraded cabin, and you’ll inevitably find yourself stuck in economy. If this is a dealbreaker – say, for us, on a particularly long-haul itinerary, then it’s not worth the stress.
Overall though, done right though and with some careful planning in advance, this is a great way to bag a flight in business class at a far more reasonable price than the regular fare price.
Have you used any of these upgrade auction or bid programs? How did you find it?
