Want an upgrade on your flight? Here’s what works (and what doesn’t)

3 months ago 18

“You’ve been upgraded” are the sweetest words you’ll ever hear at the check-in desk. It’s honey to a bear, entry to the gates of heaven, a place among the rich and powerful … and it’s about as rare as a lottery win.

You might have a mate who knows someone whose cousin got an upgrade. A couple of them, actually. They arrived at the check-in desk for their economy class flight suited up like they were heading for the Birdcage at the Melbourne Cup and a miracle happened. Instead of economy, their boarding class bore the magical words “business”. Legends!

Expecting an upgrade because you’re sharply dressed will do nothing except amuse the check-in staff.

Thus adding fuel to the myth that says if you dress nicely, you just might get an upgrade, but honestly, this is a furphy. Dressing in designer wear and asking for an upgrade will only provide temporary amusement for the check-in staff. They do not have discretion to offer upgrades, and by themselves, charm, a genuine Louis Vuitton case or a pearly smile won’t get you a seat at the pointy end. Likewise, claiming it’s a honeymoon trip, a special anniversary, a birthday or a first-time meet-up with your Facebook love interest. Don’t even think about it.

What gets you that upgrade

In a word, loyalty. Loyalty is everything when it comes to air travel upgrades. Airlines have long memories and big databases, and they know exactly how often you fly with them and how many points and status credits you’ve accumulated, and those are the metrics that will help you get an upgrade. With a purse bulging with points and status credits, you’re at the front of the queue when upgrade opportunities come your way.

Travellers on fully flexible fares are next in line. They’ve paid for the privilege, and airlines are more inclined to look after them when seats need shuffling. Beyond those, the pool dries up quickly. Between loyal frequent flyers and full-fare passengers, there’s usually no shortage of contenders when an upgrade is on the cards, leaving little room for hopeful glances or whispered charm at the gate.

When points are not enough

Even when you’re sitting on a zillion points, getting an upgrade is not a shoo-in. I recently requested an upgrade to business using points on a Singapore Airlines return flight from Sydney to Delhi. I paid full price for a flexi premium economy seat, the highest category, which is a points-upgradeable ticket. When I submitted the request via the airline’s MySQupgrade website, the response was no-go. I called the airline’s customer service and was told yes, I could upgrade with points, but not on the flights I’d booked. I’d have to switch to a flight leaving Delhi the following day, at an inconvenient time with a much longer stopover in Singapore, and that wasn’t going to work.

Lesson learned. Although you can see the flight tickets that are upgradeable with points, and even if there are empty seats in the class you want, that doesn’t mean they’re available to you. If the flight is still some time away, the airline’s booking algorithm might expect those seats will be filled with fare-paying passengers. If not, the airline still has strategies to earn revenue from those seats. Only when those strategies do not produce results will the seats become available to passengers using points. Next time I want to use points for an upgrade, I’m calling customer service before making a booking and asking which flights are going to get me that precious seat.

I’ll also check to see how many seats are available on various flights on different days, and this is a tedious process if I do it through the airline’s own website but there’s a better way. Expert Flyer enables travellers to search for frequent flyer award and upgrade availability, check how full flights are, track flight status and delays, and view seat maps. To unlock the full toolkit, you need a subscription, but the free version lets you check which seats in which class are still vacant on the flight you’re planning to take, and that’s valuable information for anyone looking to upgrade using points.

Bidding for an upgrade

A couple of days before your flight, you might be offered the chance to bid for an upgrade, but how much should you pay? It’s a blind auction, so no indication of what other passengers might offer for the same seat, and the airline isn’t offering any guidance. The Points Guy suggests: “Calculate the regular cost of a business-class seat. Subtract what you paid for the economy fare, and aim for around 20 to 40 per cent of the remaining price.” Better still, find out the availability of seats in the cabin you’re aiming for. If it’s relatively empty, you could try at the lower end of that range but if there are only one or two seats free, you probably need to go higher. At the check-in desk, you might also be offered the chance to upgrade. Not all airlines do this, especially not the legacy carriers. It will be a cash transaction, and the price is fixed.

The auction process is often facilitated by Plusgrade, an agency that helps airlines maximise ancillary revenue by auctioning off empty seats. Individual airlines can specify who gets priority, giving a higher chance of success to passengers with more points and status credits, for example. Plusgrade now partners with more than 70 airlines, including Qantas, Japan Airlines, Qatar, United, Air New Zealand and Garuda Indonesia.

SeatBoost is another agency that also auctions last-minute upgrades to premium seats. Unlike Plusgrade, SeatBoost conducts its auctions via an app or website. The only airlines that participate in its auctions are Air Greenland, Condor, LATAM, WestJet, Avianca, Iberia and TAP Air Portugal. That’s not a group likely to appeal to many Australian travellers unless South America or Spain and Portugal happen to feature in their flight itineraries.

Upgrades can happen when they’re least expected. Last year, my wife and I were upgraded from premium economy to business on a China Eastern flight from Paris to Shanghai. We’d changed our booking at the last moment, when premium economy was already full, so the airline bumped us up, an operational upgrade in airline parlance.

And just for the record, while passengers once dressed up for flights, those days are over. If you want to see a bunch of flyers who look like they just got out of bed and crawled into whatever happened to be lying within arm’s reach on the floor, that’s mostly what you get in business class. Not all, but some clearly prioritise comfort above class. And that should put a nail in the coffin of the upgrade-for-the-well-dressed myth.

The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.