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Am about to get to Gold and have a few redemption tickets I’m going to be booking for the rest of the year. Normally, I go for Economy as I can’t bring myself to pay the higher taxes and Avios for long-haul WTP, as I don’t value the incremental improvement.
But as a Gold, I guess there is a higher chance of a free upgrade to Club World, on long haul flights?
Would love to hear from other Golds what their success rate has been to get upgrades. As then, IMO, the extra Avios and Taxes for WTP redemption might be worth it – for the possibility of getting CW sometimes.
BA does not upgrade Golds just because there is space. It’s very much a ‘want club / first then pay for club / first’ airline.
And even when it does need to upgrade because of overbooking then they have an algorythm to determine who to upgrade of which status is only a small part of it’s calculations. Things like fare bucket and previous and future travel also get included as do how many people are on the same booking (large parties are unlikely to be upgraded for example (as they cause issues with seating)
Basically don’t have any expectations and you won’t ever be dissapointed.
Upgrades are unlikely, maybe one in 100 flights would be my personal upgrade tally. Never been upgraded WTP to Club , only ever Y to CE on SH , Y to WTP and J to F.
I would not expect anything to be honest.
Edit :- I am a gold
I’ve had several years as BA gold out of twenty where I flew a fair bit for work. In those twenty years I’ve been offered upgrades twice. The first was from WTP to Club flying back from Miami with Mrs Froggee. Great you might think but we were actually both lowly blues at that time.
The second was from Club to First flying to Hong Kong. I turned that down as I had my preferred window seat with direct aisle access on the upper deck of a 747 and the privacy offered by that beat First any day of the week for me. I suspect I would have been silver at that point.
So no BA upgrades as Gold. Cathay Pacific on the other hand, showered me with upgrades although they were generally short haul ones from Hong Kong so less exciting. But work had an idiotic policy of <4 hours was economy class (because HKG-SIN was just under 4 hours) and the frequency of Cathay upgrades meant I chose to fly CX over SQ which on a like for like in economy I would not have done.
But BA upgrades as Gold? None. Nada. Rien. Zilch.
The only caveat is I stopped flying anything other than business class long haul a very long time ago. But I’ve literally never been upgraded even on a LHR-EDI. By contrast KLM regularly bumped me up on short hauls when I was gold/platinum with them.
So as Roberto says expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.
It’s quite route dependent as well. Dubai is good for upgrades in my experience as is anything to America in the summer hols, especially on an A380. But as the others have said it’s not related to your status and I certainly wouldn’t book WT+ only to be in with a chance for an upgrade
It’s well known that BA doesn’t upgrade golds. You would be most likely to get upgraded if you fly on flights which are known to be overbooked. BA won’t necessarily overbooked economy with the expectation of pushing people in wtp to cw so that people in wt can be pushed to wtp.
However with the wtp cabin being small, it does probably have the highest chance (though still a small one) of getting an upgrade. Also I believe higher fare classes may be more likely to get upgraded and avios is probably lower on the list.
I never got an upgrade when I was gold for 4 years. Previously got upgraded twice as silver and twice as blue (including on a redemption) – apparently these were “taster” upgrades to see if you will book higher cabins in the future, and you may not get them after your account stops being so new – and it is possible that I was upgraded while golds were not.
We have never been gold and have been upgraded twice from WTP to Club World. Both were on busy half term flights. 3 out of 4 of us got upgraded coming home from Barbados at the end of an October half term. We would have been blue, possibly my husband was bronze at the time. Redemption flight.
We also got bumped up travelling as a family of 3 from Boston at the end of a February half term, cash tickets.Not a frequent traveller – always been Blue – and I have only ever been upgraded once. Flying back from Boston to LHR, from economy to world traveller. I thought it had something to do with us being in the lounge as guests of my parents (who had status) – I was already checked in and my name was called by lounge reception to tell me I’d been upgraded and given new boarding passes. Perhaps it was just chance!
Remember that you won’t be upgraded if you pre-order a special meal.
Had to book a last minute CX flight in Y as OWE (flight companion is OWS) … will report if there is any luck in upgrades as we have 4 flights in total.
Was a while ago (2016) but got upgraded from WTP to CW as a lowly Blue flying back to London from Montreal on a paid ticket. I think the flight was overbooked in Y and everyone in PE was moved forward. The upgrade was at the gate when a whole group of us were called up to the desk and given new boarding cards. We had paid to sit together in WTP but were happy to be separated for flat beds in the dormitory.
WTP most likely cabin to be upgraded from as it’s small and overselling algorithm most likely to fail.
Reasonably established the algorithm favours low/no status, as BA don’t reward status here, they treat upgrades as a teaser to encourage future business.Two of us got upgraded from WT to WT+ on the outbound LHR to BOS leg of our return 241 flight in June 2022 (both of us were Blue at the time). In this case I think we got bumped as the earlier flight was cancelled and they rebooked everyone onto ours, which then became full, so the combo of our blue status and it being our first 241 redemption made us prime candidates for the “have a taster of a nicer cabin” algorithm.
I have gold guest list BA since being with BA holding the various statuses not once been upgraded
Have good star alliance (TG) often get upgraded , Virgin gold , often get upper when booking premium even if flight not busy (don’t often get a choice of meal but that doesn’t bother me) I always ask at gate and never been a problem for me and the wife (I ask the flight supervisor at the gate)
Wow. Looks like BA is super stingy with upgrades for Gold. And possibly favouring lower status and less frequent travelers. Astounding.
Might look to change my status strategy going forwards, now than Virgin is in Skyteam. I fly often to USA in Biz.
VS has the same policy – no upgrades just because there is space. It’s very much a US thing.
And just because an airlie is in the same alliance it does not mean other alliance airlines will add you to the upgrade list (if they even run one) and will upgrade their own elites first.
The reason BA upgrades (and only when it needs to) less frequent flyers / lower status flyers is because they are trying to turn them into more frequent flyers who will hopefully pay for a higher cabin. After about 3 upgrades if you don’t start paying for a higfher cabin yourself BA drops you like a hot brick.
It really is a quite clever system that works for them.
OH is gold. Only ever booked WTP twice over the last 10 years. Both booked as reward flights using Amex 241 vouchers when there wasn’t any CW reward availability. Once to St Lucia and once to the Maldives. Upgraded both times, so 100% record here. (In both cases we had booked CW one way and WTP for the leg that had no CW available.)
Slightly different experience to most.
Would say about 5x upgraded from WTP to CW when flying long haul (LHR>TOK) out of 40 legs.
Always when gold or silver and always when WT/WTP was full. Also always on cash tickets for work.
Only time upgraded on a reward ticket was on Iberia from Economy to Business, also when gold.
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