Bizarre upgrade pricing

Just had a look at my booking for SFO next month and they want to charge £1,300 for a PE seat, but just £819 for UC!

How do they work out those pricing algorithms?

Pay more, get less!
UpgradePricing2.jpg (27.4 KiB) Viewed 1742 times

[Neil]

Maybe because PE would be a W and UC a Z? It is not uncommon for a fully flexible fare in a lower cabin to be more expensive than a discounted/non flexible fare in a higher cabin.

Neil

I understand your logic, but I have never seen this before. Also, I would have thought the purpose of this upgrade opportunity was to extract a few more ££ from the pax to fill spaces in a premium cabin, not to get people to change to a flexible ticket. It just seems wrong to me.

It is done by an automated system with a set of rules and it can only work within those rules.
This is why you need a human brain to tell you it is wrong and stupid!

I started a thread a while ago to try to deduce some of the rules behind exactly this process, but nobody really took the bait and I didn't make much progress myself.

I had theorised that the system removed the upgrades once the lowest fare buckets in the higher class sold out, so I am surprised by what you are seeing. The flight is S0 K0 so I guess it is indeed offering W.

Also, generally speaking the VS booking engine upgrades you automatically to a higher cabin if it would be cheaper for you to travel in it (unless you have requested a flex fare), so it would be interesting to see what happens if you try to book the PE upgrade!

Incidentally, I am doubly surprised that it is offering an upgrade to a fully flex because if you only take that option for that sector, then the more restrictive conditions of your return sector still apply, so you lose a lot of what you are paying for!

Yes but maybe there aren't any non-flex available in PE?

[preiffer]

More importantly - did you hit the button on the Upper option..?!

Yes but maybe there aren't any non-flex available in PE?

Only W is available in PE for Martin's flight, but the question is why the system is offering it (see above).

[buns]

If we could understand the vagaries of the VS Reservation system then we would have the key to predicting the Lottery numbers each week ):

I have adopted the mantra of constantly checking on line and occasionally calling VS - this surprisingly enough can often reap results

buns