British Airways Trials New Avios Upgrade Scheme

I flew 2 days ago London to new york on AA ticket business class,i can see upgrades available to first on BS executive club website,when i called executive club to enquire if i can redeem avios to be upgraded,the answer wad NO as iys AS ticket and upgrade have to ne done at time of ticketing,yeah its a ONE WORLD but they cant do any with each other booking system.

So let me get this straight. BA will make award seating available, that was previously unavailable for four times the price? So I guess the inventory was never really unavailable in the first place, right?

I hope this trial fails miserably as this is just another way for a legacy carrier to hold back or not release Saver award level inventory and making it's members not only pay more but wait until the very last second, preventing any meaningful advance planning.

Am I missing something here Lucky?

If they get people to pony up 4x, they may very well consider revising their Avios chart after all.

@ Rob -- No, you can't redeem miles for four times the price. This is just a test whereby they're charging four times as much for upgrades.

Speaking of crazy upgrade schemes. I was thinking of using points to upgrade into USAir's A330 biz class seats from Charlotte to Cancun. It was going to be 15,000 points plus $150. The actual "cash" price difference between coach and businss? $156.

fingers crossed this is a epic fail, otherwise the future of upgrades on BA is not looking good. Apart from short haul, they are the one bright spot in the EC as straight long haul redemption's are killed with YQ

I think 4x the normal cost is too much. That said, it's easier to start at 4x the cost and bring it down to 2x, 2.5x, etc if it's not proving as popular than it is to start at 2x the cost and put it up to 3x or 4x the cost because the take up is too high, etc.

To be fair, the information about the scheme -- and the 4x example -- came from a comment posting on the Business Traveller site, not an official announcement from BA. The cost of a transatlantic upgrade from Club to First is basically 1/3 of the cost of an award. I don't see many people buying a Club World seat and then shelling out 100k miles to bump up one cabin.

@John The thread on the BTUK forum may well have been from a comment by a poster, however are you aware that poster is a long serving member of BA cabin crew who only posts these sorts of things when they've been appropriately briefed. It's not Galley FM working overtime!

I fly all the time for work but my company wont pay for biz/first class so I rely on upgrades which I normally do the day of the flight at the check in counter which can range between $500 and $700 and while this is cheaper than the biz class ticket I have yet to have a flight I booked available with any avios upgrade options.....never. For as much as I fly I would hope that would improve but given on 90% of my flights I can upgrade day of - they would be going out without butts in seats.