UUA LHR – DXB upped in Avios and taxes massively

[The Original Nick]

I have been UUA on the LHR – DXB (vice versa) route for 10 or more years now and it was always 24,000 Avios + £51 in taxes. I am being told now that the amount of Avios to upgrade from WT+ to CW is 37,500 Avios and the taxes can be anything between £90 – £160 depending on which agent you speak to. I spoke to 3 different agents in one day and they all told me different amounts of Avios and different amounts of taxes. It’s all very weird.

Has anyone else had any other experiences of this recently?

Thanks
Nick.

[Anna]

Might it be to do with the (newish) RFS pricing and the variants thereof? Also there have been other posts recently about BA agents quoting wrongly – you might need to speak to a supervisor and get the price you think you should be paying confirmed and booked.

[The Original Nick]

I could be. The agent I have just spoken to told me that they use to have a different chart and have been told to go by the new pricing calculator they have been given. I have just booked an upgrade but I’m going to chase this. My parents were in Dubai 3 weeks ago and they both paid 24,000 to upgrade so it seems to be what agent you get.

[The Original Nick]

Anna wrote:

Might it be to do with the (newish) RFS pricing and the variants thereof? Also there have been other posts recently about BA agents quoting wrongly – you might need to speak to a supervisor and get the price you think you should be paying confirmed and booked.

I’ve now spoken to someone at the BA Gold BAEC who knew his stuff. It should be calculated on a commercial ticket upgrade which then calculates to what I said it should be at 24,000 Avios. The tax element has been sent to the finance department to be double checked.

[SamG]

I just had the same problem with the Avios, they calculated it as the difference between the highest prices. So 30k vs 20k for JFK to LHR. I didn’t want to lose the space so I went ahead and I’ll chase up for the difference.

Amusingly the example they give on https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/upgrading-with-avios is my exact route so I will be interested to see if they try to talk their way out of it!

It is a little tricky though as it isn’t written down anywhere that they should use the “middle” value, the agent is actually calculating it per the text. It’d be better if they published an upgrade chart or calculator.

The YQ difference you can calculate yourself in advance if you get your eticket from finnair website and then price up your new flights on ita matrix. Always good to do it yourself as agents often get this wrong