Upgrade at airport

If I want to try for an upgrade at the airport tomorrow, should I avoid doing OLCI? Or can I check in but not print my boarding pass? Some reward UC have come up today, which would be great, but I fear the cost of upgrading my X class EC ticket may be prohibitive, just want to find out tomorrow.

I would phone them now if it were me. Hopefully they will be open.

Phone them now if you can and find out, the reward seat might not be there tomorrow when you arrive.

Just rang them and they can't do it because it was booked through our work travel agent, so I will have to take a chance at the airport. He did say the flight was quiet and there were reward seats available in both PE and UC, so fingers crossed the price to upgrade to an upgradeable fare isn't too much. UC would be great on an 11 hour flight! I might try our travel agent tomorrow morning and if no luck then the ticket desk at the airport.

Just rang them and they can't do it because it was booked through our work travel agent, so I will have to take a chance at the airport. He did say the flight was quiet and there were reward seats available in both PE and UC, so fingers crossed the price to upgrade to an upgradeable fare isn't too much. UC would be great on an 11 hour flight! I might try our travel agent tomorrow morning and if no luck then the ticket desk at the airport.

Unfortunately as it is a travel agency issued fare, the odds are low that you'll be able to change it in order to upgrade with miles. Changes must usually be made with the travel agent.

Whilst the check-in desks don't always have the full info behind the issuance of a fare, they will need to contact FC to process the upgrade who will be able to see the fare history from their side.

Good luck and please let us know how you get on, this is a problem I run into occasionally myself so if you find a way around it...

I spoke to the travel agent and they reckoned it was going to be £350 to get it up to an upgreadeable fare (plus you would then need to add on the additional taxes for the class you upgraded to), but I didn't take it any further than that. They were going to speak to VA to find out if that would work.

I might ask at the ticket desk at the airport, but I am not holding my breath. Looks like the flight isn't busy anyway, still reward seats available in all classes. I'm going to leave OLCI and check in when I get to the airport then I can see where the empty seats are.

Update on this.....despite what FC said about being able to do it at the airport, both ticket desks (out and inbound) said you need to get the travel agent to upgrade your ticket before they can do anything. Didn't bother in the end and got 4 EC seats on the way out and paid for an exit seat on the way back, so not too bad.

If anyone is interested the "on the day" upgrades between LHR and JNB were £360 (PE) and £1700 (UC) - that is a straight cash upgrade and appeared to be from any EC ticket, but not 100% sure.