BA upgrades at check-in

[Raymond Lin]

Never got a free upgrade, the best I got was a £150 upgrade from Economy to PE but it was not 100% by choice....

I had bought a multi trip ticket London (2) - Osaka (1) - Seoul (0) - London.

The number in brackets was the number of check in bags allowed. You can imagine my surprise to find out about this at baggage drop at Seoul Airport on the way back. I was gievn the choice of £75 charge for the check in suitcase or £150 upgrade which comes with the check in suitcase.

 

[mattyg]

I doubt there's much rhyme or reason behind when business flights get booked but I'm sure 90% of economy/holiday flights get booked at the weekend so looking Sunday evening/Monday morning is probably a terrible idea.

A Virgin upper class departure from LHR is my gold standard and probably will be for a long while. I've been to LA quite a few times for work and I always wangled a Virgin flight for that very reason. Love getting a car to their own entrance, you're greeted by like 4 people (one to open the car door, one gets your luggage from the boot, one walks you to the door etc.). They stagger the arrivals so they greet you by name, and have everything ready for you at the one desk they have, with yes, another member of staff to hand over your ticket Then the lounge itself is famously awesome. You can get a haircut, a massage etc. It's just a lovely experience and not stuffy at all.

It's a shame BA are quite mobster-esque at stopping Virgin from getting any more routes out of LHR. I have a decent amount of miles with them now but nowhere to go. My other half is not interested in the Caribbean, we're definitely not interested in going to the USA.. there's not much choice really

The trip was let down by the return leg. New Orleans to Atlanta cancelled due to weather. So our connecting Virgin flight left whilst we were still in New Orleans. They did offer to fly us to LA and then LA to LHR, Which is mental!! So flew into JFK and onwards. Which was a let down as A: We'd paid to have the Suite on the Flight B: Its only 5.5 hrs so not much sleep so got to LHR tired before a 4 hour drive home.

I really hate connecting flights!!

 

[Penfold101]

It's a shame BA are quite mobster-esque at stopping Virgin from getting any more routes out of LHR. I have a decent amount of miles with them now but nowhere to go. My other half is not interested in the Caribbean, we're definitely not interested in going to the USA.. there's not much choice really

Fly to America on one ticket then get a separate flight up to Canada. Toronto is on the border with NY state at Niagara Falls!

Alternatively, I believe they now fly direct to the Maldives too!

 

[Penfold101]

She does have the premium Amex BA card though and have been looking at using that to get business or first Avios flights. A business there/first back is £750 but 250k points. Now looking at ways to boost my Avios including buying points and getting a Barclaycard credit card (25k points if you spend £3k in the first three months). Anyone have Avios boosting pointers?

Aside from using the BA estore which works like a cash back site and gives you extra Avios when you go to the shops through them, the quickest way is to simply buy them when on sale.

There are times when you can buy them and get up to 50% free with other partner airlines like Qatar - it’s then free to transfer between one world partner accounts.

Otherwise it’s a long slog of just buying things on the card and letting the balance build up!

 

[Jim99]

Saw that they're testing some new options around upgrades - see

British Airways letting you bid for upgrades - this is how it works

British Airways has been slowly rolling out 'bidding for upgrades' over the last few months. I now have the first pricing examples and details of how it works.

www.headforpoints.com

and the update here

Bits: British Airways 'bid to upgrade' oddities, BA Manchester T2 move

Whilst British Airways has introduced 'bid to upgrade', it confusingly hasn't removed the 'pay to upgrade' option inside Manage My Booking, with odd results.

www.headforpoints.com

 

[Scam]

Fly to America on one ticket then get a separate flight up to Canada. Toronto is on the border with NY state at Niagara Falls!

Alternatively, I believe they now fly direct to the Maldives too!

I believe VA do actually fly direct to Canada but I can't remember which cities. That's definitely an option.

I'd go to the Maldives in a heartbeat but my other half just can't do a week on a beach (she doesn't swim, which is obviously problematic). She'd get bored after half a day. To be honest, with no-one to do any of the activities with, I'd get bored too!

Saw that they're testing some new options around upgrades - see

Sounds... fun I was going to post earlier that it seems like the days of being surprised with a free upgrade are long gone. Everyone is a frequent flyer now, just to differing degrees. As with everything, the boomers had it great and now we all suffer I remember my first experience of business was when my Dad (who flew a lot for work in the nineties) got our family of four all upgraded. Madness, and apologies to our fellow passengers because I probably was like 6 years old.. You just don't hear of that anymore