Which British Airways economy flight tickets can be upgraded with Avios?

Outside the world of Head for Points readers, where there tends to be a stronger focus on long haul Business Class flying, one of the key wishes of people who have frequent flyer miles is to use them to upgrade from Economy.

Unfortunately, this is rarely as easy as it sounds. I’m not sure which airlines allow you to upgrade a deeply discounted ‘no refunds’ Economy ticket but it must be a pretty short list.

British Airways has, over the years, made it easier to upgrade Economy flights using Avios.

Historically you could only use Avios to upgrade flexible World Traveller or Euro Traveller economy tickets.  If you were spending your own money, it is very unlikely that you would be buying these. Over time it has become more generous.

You can currently use Avios to upgrade cash bookings made in K, M, V, L, S and N class on British Airways operated flights.  This covers more Economy fare classes than previously, including some non-refundable ones.

Here is the bad news.

You cannot upgrade O, G and Q fare classes.  These are the cheapest Economy / World Traveller ticket types and the types that the majority of leisure travellers will buy.

You also need to remember that upgrades use the same reward availability as Avios redemption tickets.  If you cannot book an Avios redemption in World Traveller Plus or Club Europe, you won’t be able to upgrade your World Traveller or Euro Traveller ticket.

Can you upgrade British Airways flights by more than one category?

No.

A BA Economy / World Traveller ticket can only be upgraded, if it can be upgraded at all, to World Traveller Plus on long-haul.

You cannot upgrade to Club World unless you buy a World Traveller Plus ticket, and you cannot upgrade to First unless you buy a Club World ticket.

On short haul, you can upgrade from Economy / Euro Traveller to Business / Club Europe as those are the only two cabins available.

What does this mean to you?

On ba.com, you can see your ‘ticket bucket’ by clicking on ‘Flight Details’ on ba.com.  Note that, on the new website, you cannot see this information until you have selected a flight and are on the ‘Flight Summary’ page.

It will say something like ‘Selling class: O’, for example:

As this flight is in ‘O’ class, it cannot be upgraded with Avios.

How can you force ba.com to sell you an upgradeable ticket?

ba.com, once you are logged in, has the ‘Book with money, upgrade with Avios’ booking option.

This allows the system to sell you the cheapest ticket in a suitable ticket bucket and immediately process the upgrade.

You cannot do this from the booking screen on the ba.com home page.  You must be logged in and searching from the British Airways Club booking page. You are looking for this:

How can you upgrade an existing booking with Avios?

This is a pleasingly simple process, as long as your ticket is in a qualifying booking class and there is Avios reward availability in the higher class.

You should go to the ‘Manage My Booking’ section on ba.com, select your flight and choose ‘Upgrade your cabin’.

Note that additional taxes and charges will be due. Part of this will be to cover higher rate Air Passenger Duty and part will be for any additional British Airways surcharges added to premium cabins on that route.

How can you upgrade a flight issued by a travel agent?

If your ticket has been booked by a travel agent, including a corporate travel agent, it can still be upgraded if it is in a suitable ticket class.

This is rarely possibly via ‘Manage My Booking’ on ba.com – it will usually throw up an error message just before the payment page – but can done be done via the call centre.

BA Holidays flights can be upgraded. However, package tour flights (technically known as ‘IT fares’, usually the ones sold by other travel agents) cannot.

What does it cost to upgrade?

To quote from ba.com:

“The Avios amount required for the upgrade is based on the Avios costs for Reward Flights in the cabins you are upgrading from and to and will depend on whether your flight is scheduled on a peak or off-peak date.

“The formula is:

Avios for the cabin you wish to upgrade to – Avios for the cabin you make your booking in = Avios required to upgrade one way

“Here’s an example for a peak one-way upgrade from London to New York, upgrading from premium economy (World Traveller Plus) to business (Club World):

Club World: 90,000 Avios – World Traveller Plus: 60,000 Avios = 30,000 Avios to upgrade”

In simple terms …. the Avios cost is the difference between the cost of an ‘all Avios’ ticket in the higher cabin and the cost of an Avios ticket in the cabin your originally booked.

All bookings must be done in advance of travel.  You cannot upgrade with Avios on board or at check-in.

However, the message above is wrong!

Whoever wrote that page for ba.com assumed that upgrades are priced off the ‘more Avios, less cash’ redemption option. To New York, for example, the headline one way peak price in Club World is 90,000 Avios + £187.50 each way. In World Traveller Plus it is 60,000 + £152.50. This is what someone used for the ba.com example above.

However, this is NOT the Avios pricing being used for upgrades, luckily.

An upgrade prices off the Avios charged to a member who does NOT qualify for Reward Flight Saver pricing. This is usually the 3rd pricing option of the six that ba.com offers you when booking a standard Avios redemption.

Here is a screenshot to prove it. You are charged 20,000 Avios to upgrade a Premium Economy ticket to New York JFK and not 30,000 points, despite what the ba.com quotation above says:

Is it worth upgrading Economy flights on British Airways?

It depends ….

On long-haul, World Traveller upgrades would only get you into World Traveller Plus because you can only upgrade by one cabin.

(Note that Virgin Atlantic does allow multi-cabin upgrades for the right sort of Economy ticket.) 

World Traveller Plus is a very popular cabin and it isn’t easy to find Avios reward space, which means it isn’t easy to upgrade.

World Traveller Plus also attracts the higher rate of Air Passenger Duty so there would be additional tax to pay.  British Airways also adds additional surcharges of its own.

You ARE getting a bigger seat and better food and drink, but you may find the combination of additional Avios and additional cash – much of which, to be fair, is Air Passenger Duty which goes straight to the Government – makes it a bad deal.

On short haul, upgrading from Economy to Business requires a different sort of trade off. There is virtually no difference in the seat (apart from having an empty middle seat) but you are getting lounge access, priority check-in, priority boarding, fast track security and a fairly decent meal with champagne. It’s up to you if this is worth the extra cash and Avios required.

At the end of day, for the general public buying its own Economy tickets far in advance, it is possible – due to the fare bucket – that they will never buy a ticket that is upgradable, let alone find that reward upgrade space is also there.

This system DOES work for a small number of people.  These are mainly travellers on expensive corporate tickets which are semi-flexible and refundable, or leisure travellers who book at relatively short notice and end up with a ticket in one of the pricier (and so upgradable) fare buckets.

You can find our more about ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ on ba.com here.