On the day discounts

Hi ya Everyone
What are the possibilities of turning up on the day and if available, would i be likely to get an upper class ticket for a much greater reduction than booking in advance, as these seats would otherwise go unsold?
BA offer their bussiness class seats for between 50-250 on the day according to availibility, does VS.

Many thanks

Alex

[Neil]

Are you talking about upgrades or buying an actual seat? If the later then the price will be much higher than buying a discounted fare in advance because they all have rules stating a minimum period in advance that you must purchase them so you would only be able to buy a full fare that will be very expensive.

If upgrades, then it has been known for on the day specials to be offered but this will depend on how full the flight is in each cabin etc.

Neil

[Scrooge]

MMMM you have me a little confused here, are you saying that BA offers a NCW world seat on the day of the flight for £50-£250 on a long haul flight ?

What I have seen is BA offering upgrades at the airports for about this amount.

With VS they will sometimes offer an upgrade for around £250 from economy to PE, from PE to UC it is closer to £800 if I am remembering correctly, however you do already need to have purchased a ticket.

It's my feeling that if you go down this road you will fully experience Murphy's Law and find no upgrade offer available and I concur with the figures from Scrooge that the UC upgrade is a real 'ouch' when you remember it's one way only.

Sorry Sorry

Im a newbie and im learning that i need to be a lot sharper with my questions apologies.

I meant if i have already booked a seat in advance and turned up to check in as usual, and at that point asked if there were any upgrades to say PE or UC. If there was what would be a typical cost of either according to availibility, as i said BA actually have posters displaying upgrades to CW or CE for between £50 and upwards.

I think everyone may have answered my question that its better to advance purchase, or expect much dissapointment.

cheers[:D]

[Decker]

BA did have a CE special from LGW I seem to recall at around £50. As others have pointed out that wouldn't get you into PE with VS and you'd be closer to a grand NORMALLY for UC from Y.

Originally posted by Decker
BA did have a CE special from LGW I seem to recall at around £50. As others have pointed out that wouldn't get you into PE with VS and you'd be closer to a grand NORMALLY for UC from Y.

Quite right - and the reason is fair. If you have paid £3000 - 4000 for an UC ticket, you dont want some chancer sitting in the same seat, recieving the same service, but having paid a lot less (recognising that there are huge variations in the price of an UC ticket)...[y]

VS have a reputation that they'd prefer to fly with empty PE/UC seats then fill them and gain a bit of extra cash, although I thought BA also had this. This is when you compare to US airlines that will give free, guaranteed upgrades to status holders etc.
This is why I believe that with VS you only see these upgrade offers where Y is oversold and W, J have space. ISTBC but I don't think you will see this offers on all 7s (undersold) flights.

I flew on a very empty VS46 last year(around 100 passengers) and when we got on board they were advertising upgrades. Economy to PE was £300 and Economy to UC was £1000...

Originally posted by Decker
BA did have a CE special from LGW I seem to recall at around £50. As others have pointed out that wouldn't get you into PE with VS and you'd be closer to a grand NORMALLY for UC from Y.

They still do from LGW - ISTR it's from £59. They advertise it on the monorail from the train station. Almost universally it's still cheaper to make your mind up at the time of booking if you're upgrading both ways, and if you have status you have the benefit of picking your seat well in advance too. It's pretty easy to spot the airport upgraders beacuse of this!

Cheers, Howard

[Nottingham Nick]

I have been offered 'on the day' upgrades by VS, in fact they went a through a phase of having people walking the economy queues selling them. Without exception they were expensive and I would have been better off if I had booked that class when I bought my ticket.


Nick

Originally posted by Scrooge
MMMM you have me a little confused here, are you saying that BA offers a NCW world seat on the day of the flight for £50-£250 on a long haul flight ?

What I have seen is BA offering upgrades at the airports for about this amount.

With VS they will sometimes offer an upgrade for around £250 from economy to PE, from PE to UC it is closer to £800 if I am remembering correctly, however you do already need to have purchased a ticket.

I recently attempted to upgrade at the airport from P/E to U/C on a flight to Havana. VS wanted 1200 plus an increased APD bringing the cost to near on £1300. I stuck with P/E[:0]


Regards
Bryan

Its often £300 from LHR->SFO or SFO->LHR from Economy to PE one way when there is availability on the day. This is irrelevant of what class you originally booked in. If you start with a mega cheap N then this can be a good deal which also takes you from 1 to 3 TPs.


Dom