Paid for PE & BA holiday in Dubai for Jan: guess how much to upgrade?

[sxparkin]

I asked as an experiment hoping it was £ 500 or so as per past experience – BA are truly on a drive for revenue/ profit it seems – a whopping £ 3,900 each to upgrade to Business return …no thanks BA I’ll keep the £8k and spend it on something else ! Wow Wow Wow ! I flew to Dallas return BA First for less than that a few months ago – about £ 3,800 each – cash fare ! Yes I know its all algorithm based but….this is getting very silly in terms of price of a flight ! ps yes First is £ 1400 some days back – Business over £ 3k one way on lots of days next week…..BA will be happy as flights full.

[NorthernLass]

That is insane, did you look for award availability- you can upgrade a BAH with avios?

[NorthernLass]

*This is also a classic example of why someone should take the Barclays upgrade voucher and not 7k avios!

[Cranzle]

NorthernLass wrote:

*This is also a classic example of why someone should take the Barclays upgrade voucher and not 7k avios!

Not really, as you can’t use in the same manner described by the OP. Obviously the BA fans on here will claim it’s really easy to use and they use it every year. I mean it’s so ‘easy’ to use that I’ll leave this quote here by a certain Rob Burgess (aka Raffles) “Let’s get one thing clear. THIS. IS. NOT. AN. UPGRADE. VOUCHER. I call it an upgrade voucher. Barclays calls it an upgrade voucher. It is NOT an upgrade voucher.”

[LD27]

@sxparkin. You can upgrade at the airport if seats are available – which we have done. As far as I’m aware, airport upgrades are a set price, so it doesn’t matter whether you book a holiday, or just flights.

[ChrisBCN]

Maybe the flight is full, so they price it this high so you go away, or so you take it and they have ‘compensation’ to bump somebody else.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Unless it’s a fixed price offer you’ve had made to you (called a POUG but these aren’t usually done for BA Hols bookings) the cost of an upgrade is based on fare difference at the time you asked.

If you had booked and asked months ago it would have been a lot cheaper. Asking days before the flight it will always be a high cost because the only fare buckets available will be the high cost but high flexibility ones.

That’s not just flight only but also BA Hols.

So if the fare diifference is a lot of money then that’s what the upgrade will cost.

If you repriced your trip now using Club my betting is that a club trip will be a lot more than a PE one.

If you ask on the day an AUP (airport upgrade) will be a lot cheaper but that depends on them being offered.

And BA doesn’t always make these offers even if there is space in the cabin.

[NorthernLass]

@Cranzle, Rob’s assessment of what the Barclays voucher is has nothing to do with my post!

I made 2 completely separate points (in separate posts): 1) that the OP might be able to upgrade the BAH with avios, and 2) it would probably have been much more cost effective to book award seats using avios plus the Barclays (or indeed BAPP) voucher.

I used this year’s Barclays/upgrade/whatever voucher to book seats to Dubai over next New Year, which will undoubtedly be similar to the dates commanding the crazy cash upgrades.

[Ihar]

sxparkin wrote:

I asked as an experiment hoping it was £ 500 or so as per past experience – BA are truly on a drive for revenue/ profit it seems – a whopping £ 3,900 each to upgrade to Business return

Supply/demand. You can upgrade, but they’ll have to bump someone in a lower fare bucket and pay compensation/hotel costs.

A couple of years ago I had 3xF LHR<->SFO for £7k total (inc double TP via BAH). The cash cost was then £17k per ticket (£51k for 3xF). If you need to get the flight, they will bump me in a heartbeat. And, reluctantly, I’d applaud them for it!