BA upgrade with cash or money at check-in

[yonasl]

I have not been able to find a proper thread with prices people have paid at the airport to upgrade to Premium Economy or Business class with BA.

I thought we could exchange prices paid here so people can exchange past experiences.

Other One World members:
JAL, in very Japanese fashion, does have a list of all prices to get premium economy: https://www.jal.co.jp/en/info/inter/apopyug.html and also allow to bid for further upgrades to Business https://www.jal.co.jp/jp/en/inter/service/optional/b_upgrade/

Iberia, I sometimes get the option to pay for an upgrade with them at check in (never with BA for some reason). I wonder if using the App or Website changes your changes to get this offered

[yonasl]

I really should have had a coffee before typing that subject line haha…

BA Upgrade with Cash/Money at check-in is much better!

[WaynedP]

Agreed. I was tempted to say that perhaps you should look at the spelling in your search for threads as a factor in why you can’t find any.

I rap my pedantic fingers to avoid commenting on misspellings that pepper some comments, but we all have to take particular care when compiling a thread title whose purpose is to be available for future reference. Sad to say now that anything remotely useful that is added to this thread will have been compromised by your carelessness, however inadvertent.

Nevertheless, my own opinion for what it’s worth is:

1) MY experience is that upgrade at check-in desk costs are so affected by such a wide variety of factors that it’s almost impossible to forecast, probably even with a shared experience database. Personally, I prefer this to the more formal JAL approach because it means that I’m the one who sets a maximum budget in my own head for an upgrade.

2) If travelling alone on Y or PE, I always ask politely at the check-in desk for the person to check the availability of any upgrade promotions, and I have more often than not been pleasantly surprised. One one occasion in JNB the check-in agent took their time to dig around and succeeded in finding me a promotion that slashed the cost of a business class upgrade to LHR to just over £400, less than half the rack rate and about £100 less than what I would have been prepared to pay. Even she was genuinely surprised at the deal and would have been unaware of it had she not been motivated to make an effort on my behalf.

3) I value my ability to establish an unaffected rapport with the person and engage them to purposely seek the best terms for an upgrade more highly than any pre-published formula of costs, and I have not yet had cause to be disillusioned by this approach, although admittedly my experience is significantly less than many posters to these forums.

4) An App offer can sometimes be a great deal (I’ve had one or two of those) but I would never rely solely on something as impersonal as an App as a substitute for the human approach.

Best of luck with your endeavour to get a good deal on the upgrade that you have in mind.

[ChrisC]

You can always email the site and ask Rob/Rhys to edit the thread title.

hello@headforpoints.com

[yonasl]

Thanks @WaynedP will try to see if Rob can change the title of the thread for future reference!

[yonasl]

yonasl wrote:

Thanks @WaynedP will try to see if Rob can change the title of the thread for future reference!

Fixed by @Rob, … thank you!