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Bits: Waitrose / Virgin – up and down, BA to launch airside in-app upgrades

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News in brief:

Waitrose / Virgin – what’s going on?

On Wednesday I wrote an article pointing out that the generous Virgin Atlantic earning rate for shopping in-store at Waitrose was due to end.

Giving you 4 Virgin Flying Club miles per £1 was unsustainable as anyone who understands the economics of grocery retailing will tell you.  I suggested that you might want to buy some Waitrose gift cards to lock in ‘4 miles per £1’ for a while longer, since I expected a fall.

And what happened yesterday?  It isn’t clear.

If you are not logged in to the Virgin shopping site, it shows that Virgin Flying Club increased the earning rate in Waitrose to 5 miles per £1.   However, once I log in (with cookies cleared) this changes to just 1 mile per £1.

We have seen this behaviour before with Caffe Nero on the Avios in-store shopping programme.  A high rate is promised, and continues to be promised to new customers, but existing customers see their earning rate cut without warning.  Even worse, anyone who looks at the Virgin site to double-check their earning rate – but fails to log-in – will mistakenly think they are still getting the higher rate and spend accordingly.  Not clever.

Details of how to earn Virgin miles at Waitrose, including how to register your credit cards, are in this article.

British Airways to launch airside in-app upgrades

I got a news release this week about the development of the British Airways app.  This was all very ‘meh’ (“there’s been some good progress on fixing the basics”) except for one nugget of information.

From this Summer, British Airways customers will be able to upgrade themselves airside via the app.  I assume that this has been made possible by the ability to generate a new digital boarding pass automatically.

There is no clue about how this would work:

Will you be able to upgrade with Avios as well as cash?

What will the cut-off be?  (By definition, if you’re airside these are upgrades which will be processed in the 90 minutes or so before departure.)  

Will these upgrades only open up after check-in closes, at which point BA would know exactly how many people are going to be on the flight?  

How will BA handle catering, given that meals will already have been despatched to the aircraft at the point you upgrade?

There are plenty of ways this could go wrong, but it has the potential to be a very interesting initiative.

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Category

British Airways and Avios, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (61)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Speedbird676 says:
    26 May26 May 04:53

    BA will already onload standby pax when the flight closes at -45 mins, so they have a mechanism in place to handle a few last minute meals. This is common practice for most airlines. My guess is these requests will all be added to the upgrade list and processed along with standby pax at closure. Bad news for staff upgrades 🙁

    • John says:
      26 May26 May 06:16

      Fine for ex-LHR and longhauls, but I expect on inbound shorthauls you just won’t get a meal. I don’t know why anybody would pay last minute prices for CE though.

  • Paul says:
    26 May26 May 05:22

    I suspect that what they are looking to do is try and monetise these overbooking upgrades. Why not try and sell something that you would end up giving away for free at the gate? Bad news for higher status holders.

    • Rob says:
      26 May26 May 08:05

      BA has never been big on upgrading status pax. What they actually do is upgrade people who do not usually fly that cabin to persuade them to fly it next time. If you are in PE you have a better chance of a CW upgrade if you have never flown CW before.

      • John says:
        26 May26 May 10:34

        Yup, upgraded to CW and F as blue and once to F as silver, never upgraded as gold

      • Mark says:
        26 May26 May 10:39

        once got upgraded from WT to WT+ at check in and then WT+ to CW at the gate, still to thus day not sure why as a lowly blue, didn’t complaint though.

  • Stu R says:
    26 May26 May 05:33

    Well I’ve linked my BAPP card to my Virgin shopping site, spent £130 in Waitrose in the last month (our nearest store is 30 miles away) and my FC balance from Waitrose = 0 miles.

    I guess you’d say my earnings rate is definitely on the ‘down’ side!

    • Rob says:
      26 May26 May 08:04

      If you look online you will see what has tracked but not paid. I am due about 6,000 miles (which show as tracked) but have only had a few hundred so far.

      • Mark says:
        26 May26 May 14:37

        I didn’t see this before, but it would explain why some anticipated points have not tracked. Was the exclusion of “Retailer store cards” there all along, on the Virgin / Wairose instore page?
        Please note, rewards can’t be earned on transactions made through:
        – Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay
        – Wallet providers including PayPal and YoYo Wallet
        – Retailer store cards
        – Cards not bearing the Amex, Visa or MasterCard/Maestro symbols

        • Rob says:
          26 May26 May 16:22

          That’s not what it means, I think. I think it means that if you have, say, a Next account card then you cannot register that account card – and it won’t have a MC / Visa / Amex logo anyway (and of course Next isn’t included, but it’s an example …..!).

      • Leo says:
        26 May26 May 16:27

        It’s not that simple. Virtually none of my myriad of waitrose purchases have even tracked. This is possibly the most disappointing points experience of my life….

        • Fenny says:
          27 May27 May 00:08

          Raise a missing transaction claim.
          I kept a list of all my purchases since the points started. Some of them have not tracked and I will be raising claims when I have time over the bank holiday. My desk drawer is full of receipts, but they are all tracked on my mywaitrose card along with my free coffee, so there shouldn’t be any reason to decline them.

  • Angmo says:
    26 May26 May 05:41

    I got upgraded on Cathay recently due to an aircraft type swap which meant there was no Premium Economy (technically I was downgraded but then upgraded by check-in).

    I was surprised that despite this I still got the requested special meal (Indian Vegetarian).

    Additionally I missed a connection in Hong Kong and got rebooked, again into Business as this flight had no PremiumEconomy. A special meal (Indian Vegetarian) in business class got loaded again.

    • John says:
      26 May26 May 06:17

      CX has equipment swaps all the time on regional (though sounds like one of your flights might have been longhaul) so they have the special meal thing down to an art

  • Alan says:
    26 May26 May 07:37

    My other question re upgrades is will they only be for direct flights to/from LHR (as is the case with POUGs just now), or will it be able to cope with domestic connections?

  • rotundo says:
    26 May26 May 07:38

    I wonder if the app will allow to choose the seat while purchasing the upgrade. If the CW middle twin seats are the only ones left available I want to know beforehand!

  • Simon says:
    26 May26 May 07:45

    O/T Just got this on my Amex Plat login….
    Apply for the companion
    Platinum Credit Card – Representative14.9% APR variable
    by 31 May 2017 and receive3,000 bonus Membership Rewards® points

    when you spend £500 on the Card in the first three months.

    • Rob says:
      26 May26 May 07:53

      Good deal, def do this.

      • Grimz says:
        26 May26 May 08:37

        I have this on my Gold card – is this worth doing?

        • Andrew says:
          26 May26 May 08:43

          I had a similar offer, via targeted(?) email on my BAPP (but for 3,000 Avios) on my first supp card. Shame I already have one.

    • Miguel says:
      26 May26 May 10:23

      Care to share the link to apply, please?

    • John says:
      26 May26 May 10:35

      Amex has never credit searched me since my first ever Amex

      A dent would last for 6 months, I would happily accept £30 for that, it’s not like I’m applying for 10 cards a year

    • Rob says:
      26 May26 May 13:45

      I think people overplay this. Lots of things, including a new mobile phone or a new insurance company, can lead to a credit search. It should have virtually no impact on someone with a perfect record of repayments, low utilisation of existing debt and at least one credit card with a long life span (I’ve had my Amex Plat since 1999, which makes me look reliable).

    • Isa says:
      26 May26 May 14:19

      I got that offer via email last month on my gold card and had forgotten about it… Thanks for the timely reminder!

    • Graeme says:
      26 May26 May 14:47

      Ooh, I have that too! That’s pleasing – I only upgraded from Gold about a month ago, and I still have the Gold Credit Card. Nice, easy Avios.

      Thanks Simon – there’s every chance I wouldn’t have noticed that.

  • Richard says:
    26 May26 May 08:24

    >>By definition, if you’re airside these are upgrades which will be processed in the 90 minutes or so before departure

    where does the 90 minutes come from ? Not everyone starts their flight at Heathrow. On a connecting flight you might be airside many hours before departure.

    • Rob says:
      26 May26 May 08:37

      When BA says it is launching ‘airside’ upgrades, what it means is ‘last minute upgrades’.

      They aren’t getting to let you upgrade 4 hours before departure just because you happen to be airside at Edinburgh at the time, waiting for a connection. They can and do still sell seats – and for full fare – at that point.

      • Macca says:
        26 May26 May 15:15

        Coincidentally I just stumbled across your post about the Loyalty 2017 IATA figures saying 44% of people would like airlines to sell last minute discounted points upgrades. Could BA be actually listening to its most loyal customers for once…?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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