Redemption flight upgrade

[Mynki]

Hi all

Quick question. If you have booked a redemption flight using an Amex 2 for 1 voucher in Premium Economy. Can you later upgrade ‘IF’ business class seats become available at a later date and just pay the additional points and fess in cash etc?

I assume they’ll also be an admin fee.

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

[NorthernLass]

Not an upgrade but you can cancel and rebook, either online or on the phone if you want BA to grab the seats for you. It’ll cost £35pp whichever way you do it.

[Retron]

I did it from Club to First earlier this year, but it was a gamble: the choice was to phone, wait in a queue for a while and hope the seats were still there when I got through, or to cancel online, wait for the Avios and 2-4-1 voucher to return, then rebook.

I chose the latter, but suffice to say it was a *very* long three minutes or so until the voucher was returned. I fairly raced through the booking screens!

In the cold light of day, I really should have phoned You First instead: they would have answered almost instantly. That only works if you’re going to upgrade to First, mind you!

[Mynki]

Thanks for the replies.

I’m not confident of scoring business seats when they go on sale. So thought I’d grab premium economy and hope for an upgrade. I know there is no guarantee at all And PE will suffice. But I note on this route, a fair number of J and sometimes even F class seats come up within a month of departure.

I’d definitely call though. Cancelling online sounds very risky. 🙂

[SamG]

If you call you can “change” the booking to the higher class without anything getting cancelled. It’s not an upgrade so don’t mention that word or things may get confused! If it’s a route where seats often open up then it’s worth setting up a seatspy subscription

Note though that if you try to mix F with another class it will make the taxes go crazy high as F isn’t on RFS

[The real Swiss Tony]

Last time I did this, from J to F, I called up and the agent didn’t even charge an admin fee which was appreciated.

“Note though that if you try to mix F with another class it will make the taxes go crazy high as F isn’t on RFS”

Also I don’t think this is accurate. It can do that, it can have next to no effect at all or it can make them drop like a stone. Last summer, I booked LHR-LCA in CE then AUH-LHR in F. Cost was £295 and 52125 Avios, plus a 2-4-1 voucher.

[SamG]

Fair enough – “can” make them crazy then 🙂 But I think that’s an unusual example. On something like a USA return if you mix F & J then the taxes will be very high from what I’ve priced up

[NorthernLass]

@Swiss Tony – That’s an interesting open jaw routing. I’m thinking, though, that you paid RFS for LHR-LCA then local departure tax for AUH, which kept the cash element so low? Was it one PNR or two?

Alarm bells should ring if they start talking about sending the ticket to the back office to recalculate taxes!