Paying To Upgrade On FlyDubai: My Experience

Have experienced a FlyDubai operational upgrade on a flight from Dubai to Tbilisi 2 days ago, I have a silver Skywards membership.

There were only 4 other people in business cabin, seems like at least one more of them got upgraded as well. The economy cabin was full.

Sweet lord you spent how much money on a flight from Dubai to Serbia?

It should be noted, generally speaking Plusgrade can be programmed to decline your bid outright, even if you're not outbid and the space ends up going out empty. It's a crappy practice but some carriers may set a reserve bid that's actually higher than the minimum bid.

Flew FlyDubai in March DCB - MCT, and also bid for business class. Flight was $500 in coach (I thought that was expensive) and then a $100 for bid upgrade, which two of us got. It was the old 737-800 recliner style cabin, similar to domestic F. I thought the flight was pretty good for an hour long Middle East itinerary.

Honest question, it seems like you’d never fly economy on a flight of this length - what was your plan b if the bid wasn’t accepted? Use miles and fly a different carrier? Or cancel this ticket and repurchase a biz class ticket outright on FlyDubai? Curious your strategy in these scenarios. Thanks

The option to redeem miles is an utter joke with Flydubai and I really wonder who would even do that in his proper state of mind. I used the bid for upgrade option on my flight from Tel Aviv to Dubai and pushed the slider to the lowest value and it was accepted 36 hours before departure. My business class upgrade gave me a flatbed and some of the grumpiest crew I ever met and a very average meal. In any case, I was happy my bid was accepted bearing in mind I opted for the lowest value.

flydubai (not FlyDubai), as it is properly spelled, is not a low cost carrier by any definition. For starters, it's expensive. On routes where it replaced Emirates, the flights cost as much as they did or would with Emirates, if not more. It provides business class with proper lie flat seats, which is better than any business class on European national airlines and an airport lounge. It provides proper meals and in-flight entertainment in economy, as well as decent luggage allowance (included in higher economy fares, at additional cost in basic economy). It earns you Skywards miles. It flies into main airports complementing Emirates network (and sometimes overlapping with it). It rarely cancels flights.

Hello, I think you are pretty much spot on with this post. The only thing that I think might also factor in is not only the number of available premium seats, but how full the plane is overall (ie: your bidding competition).

During the pandemic I flew a nearly empty 787 Canada to South America. Before bidding the plane had about 5 people booked in first and 50 or so in economy. I figured odds were in my favour but I bid slightly over the minimum, especially since the minimum bid was very low.

My bid was accepted - but the once-empty 15 first class seats were now full, while economy remained empty. Given the amount of selfies taken I presume it was many people's first time in First (mine too - just getting further into the points game beyond hotels - so no shame) also winning with their bids. I'm pretty certain my flight had a high uptake on the bidding system - but again likely due to the travel situation at the time, the minimum bid was low on tickets that were already pretty cheap. I am glad I bid the extra 20 bucks over the minimum as I am sure some people got denied.

Now my problem is that I never want to go back to economy and the points offers aren't as generous up here in the great white north 🙁

I had the same qn! Was the backup to sit in economy for 6 hours? I can’t remember the last flight you took over 2hrs in economy. No shaming but if the bid had been rejected then what? Seems even for small flights in the USA you pay up for first. Again all credit to you!!! No blame! I love the reviews

Incidentally we are now catching trains rather than planes around Europe. So much easier. How about some intra europe train reviews? I can provide some family reviews :))))

I used to work at Plusgrade.

Once you submit the bid, Plusgrade apply several factors based on the airline's rules behind the scenes to actually evaluate the bid. This can (but does not necessarily) include: a minimum accepted bid higher than the minimum bid amount, a multiplier for loyalty status or booking class, a negative multiplier for having received an upgrade before, a positive multipler for having bid unsuccessfully before, a conversion rate for points/cash/cash+points bids for those that allow it, etc.

Also, the thermometer is tied to absolutely nothing, most especially historical data on bid outcome likelihood. It's just intended to get people to bid higher.

I think your intuition is correct and a minimum bid would have been successful in this case.

Check-in seatmaps are not a reflection of the airline's inventory, this is always posted here but in no-way reflects the actual inventory situation (especially far out).

For what it’s worth, Hawaiian Airlines has the same “bid up” to first class for North America and international destinations. I’ve had successful bids at the “lowest” bid amount.

What if you book a connecting itinerary with Emirates + some FlyDubai codeshare, in business class, would there be any chance of sensible pricing?

if it doesnt reflect the inventory then why have it? of course it has to reflect it lol otherwise they'd be selling ghost seats? come on

Just had a bid accepted - bid just above the minimum, and got the e-mail about 48 hours in advance. I assume it is going to be a quiet flight.

Mine declined even through there were available seats when we reached the check in desk