V-Flyer

Had a courtesy call from VA today asking if I would be interested in an Upgrade to PE on our flight on the 19th June from Manchester to Orlando. They quoted £249 pp. just wondering if it would be cheaper to do it at the airport. Thanks

I have seen airport upgrades from E to PE at LGW on long haul range from simply none available, £125, £250 and £450 through to a massive £969 plus coins when effectively they were selling a new ticket and just refunding taxes on the old one.

Hopefully a regular MAN flyer can give you a more helpful guide from there?

TBH the usual caveats apply on taking a price you are happy with and not being too grumpy if price goes down later (as it just as often goes up later) - the courtesy call gives the impression that PE is fairly empty at present while E is probably quite heavily loaded and they are trying to move some PAX around while boosting revenue - I would ask for one of the helpful V-Flyers to do a load check on your specific flight to see if my impression is the right one.

Thanks for your good advice. Much appreciated.

P.S. Not tried this on VS but the principle worked for me on BA last year: If you would be happy to pay, say, £175pp for the upgrade then no harm in being cheeky and phoning them back to recheck price, if they still say £249pp then you just say that's a great pity as you would have stretched to £175pp so invite them to call you back if it does drop in price .... they just might grab a supervisor straight away at their end to negotiate :-)

Excellent idea...didn't realise you could haggle!,

Its worth knowing the difference in Tax.
For example - miles tax on reward tickets is as follow:-
outbound
E £156 PE £260
inbound
E £63 PE £95

So thats is about £135 extra in taxes.

It may be cheaper at the airport, or it may be a case E is close to full (or their hotels 1/2 empty!) & they need more seats to sell more holidays. Hence they may offer so many PE seats around. Once they are gone, then you risk missing out.

Thanks for your excellent advice... on the hunt for a real bargain!!