British Airways jettisons high fares and goes for offers to put ‘bums on seats’

[Nigelinoz]

British Airways jettisons high fares and goes for offers to put ‘bums on seats’ - Times Online

British Airways has responded to mounting losses by unleashing an array of special offers and reduced fares to lure back passengers.
The airline said yesterday that it lost £94 million in the three months to the end of June and has lost more than £400 million already this year. The first-quarter loss was BA’s first in its normally strong spring months since privatisation in 1987.
Passengers are being offered upgrades right up to the check-in desk. Empty seats in the premium cabins generate no money so the airline is encouraging people to part with a bit more money. For example, one passenger travelling from Phoenix to London was recently offered an upgrade from economy to premium economy for just £90. The normal upgrade price is about £700.

Wonder if they will do that for flights departing Australia?

 

[Flashback]

Wonder if I can leverage off it to get me some cheap intra-euro flights in November...

 

[munitalP]

Wonder if I can leverage off it to get me some cheap intra-euro flights in November...

Why? Especially when there's RYAN AIR



ROTFL


:!:


Mr!

 

[Flashback]

Why? Especially when there's RYAN AIR



ROTFL


:!:


Mr!

You're a funny man, Mr!

 

[wandering_fred]

Any guesses whether this will work at the lounges at LHR?

I am connecting from PER-SIN-LHR flights to an economy seat on the BA LHR-MCT flight. I think I can guarantee that the QF checkin at PER will not know a thing about it......:shock:


Fred

 

[adrian]

Any guesses whether this will work at the lounges at LHR?

I am connecting from PER-SIN-LHR flights to an economy seat on the BA LHR-MCT flight. I think I can guarantee that the QF checkin at PER will not know a thing about it......:shock:


Fred

Look at your booking at ba.com. It might offer you an upgrade there. Mine did, although admittedly it was only a single flight LHR-TXL in my booking.

 

[Mal]

I have an offer for 150 pounds to upgrade my HEL-LHR flight on Tue... now to check my cheap Ashes ticket back to Australia

--double checked my HEL-LHR flight today, and the offer is gone... maybe they got the number of people they wanted? Also nothing showing on my other BA tickets. Any upgrade back to Australia would be nice if offered at the right price. Just can't really justify CE at 150 pounds for the HEL-LHR sector... maybe 100pounds or less?

 

[Dave Noble]

I have an offer for 150 pounds to upgrade my HEL-LHR flight on Tue... now to check my cheap Ashes ticket back to Australia

--double checked my HEL-LHR flight today, and the offer is gone... maybe they got the number of people they wanted? Also nothing showing on my other BA tickets. Any upgrade back to Australia would be nice if offered at the right price. Just can't really justify CE at 150 pounds for the HEL-LHR sector... maybe 100pounds or less?

At £100 it would be overpriced imo. the difference between CE and ET is pretty minor , the key benefits of CE is the check in and lounge access which is available for sapphire/emerald OW members anyway. The seating is pretty much the same with a better meal. Just get a seat in economy in the convertible section

Dave

 

[anat0l]

At £100 it would be overpriced imo. the difference between CE and ET is pretty minor , the key benefits of CE is the check in and lounge access which is available for sapphire/emerald OW members anyway. The seating is pretty much the same with a better meal. Just get a seat in economy in the convertible section

Dave

I'll see your GBP 100 and lower you to GBP 75. (yeah, probably not going to happen - after all, there's a profit to be had.....)

From preliminary pictures, BA's website and some reviews from the BAEC board on FT, CE doesn't look all that great. Then again, have we been spoilt by QF domestic J?

 

[Mal]

At £100 it would be overpriced imo. the difference between CE and ET is pretty minor , the key benefits of CE is the check in and lounge access which is available for sapphire/emerald OW members anyway. The seating is pretty much the same with a better meal. Just get a seat in economy in the convertible section

Definately. Although they did improve CE by having the 2x2 people sitting arrangement, rather than their previous 2x3.

I don't even think they bother changing the seats all the time to 2x2 any more, and just sit pax ACDF in J? It certainly seemed that way on my flight over (757).

The only real thing I care about by paying the upgrade is the slightly better service and the additonal status credits.

 

[Hvr]

Of course the problem BA has is how do they get people to pay higher prices once the GFC is over? They are teaching people that you can hold out for cheaper seats.

Retailers have learnt that once you go down market it is very hard, if not impossible to return to a different market type.

 

[Dave Noble]

Definately. Although they did improve CE by having the 2x2 people sitting arrangement, rather than their previous 2x3.

I don't even think they bother changing the seats all the time to 2x2 any more, and just sit pax ACDF in J? It certainly seemed that way on my flight over (757).

The only real thing I care about by paying the upgrade is the slightly better service and the additonal status credits.

Switching to 2-2 just meant that they started leaving the E seat empty and no longer widened the seats iirc. Means to me that it is just the same as economy and was a downgrade of CE rather than an improvement. I thought that I had heard that they were going to revert back to the 2-3 layout

With the hard product being the same ( other than the risk of someone in the middle ) , its hard for me to see any reason to use CE unless it is a continuation sector of a longhaul trip. If I didn't have lounge access then it would be worth some extra

Conversely, I had no qualms about paying for business around asia on AF,MH,CX and LH recently where real business class was offered

Dave

 

[Mal]

Checked my LHR-SYD-LHR booking tonight, and it is offering an upgrade from WT to WT+ on the LHR-SYD leg for £125, with an undetermined fee for upgrading the other leg as well.

Unfortunately it won't let me actually apply for the upgrade - but I suspect their IT has issues again tonight as another BA booking is playing up.

BA are still trying to offer me HEL-LHR upgrade to CE for £150

To SYD in WT+ is definately an upgrade I'm interested in, so will keep investigating. It could also be the fact my return ticket was only £215 return that is causing the dramas.

All that aside, I could be employed by then anyways, so I may have to end up cancelling that ticket...

--edit, it will let me upgrade both sectors for a total of £ 1020 (down from over £2000 when I checked this morning), but won't let me just upgrade either sector individually - just both together.

 

[Dave Noble]

\--edit, it will let me upgrade both sectors for a total of £ 1020 (down from over £2000 when I checked this morning), but won't let me just upgrade either sector individually - just both together.

Are you booked as LHR-SYD or LHR-xx-SYD. If the former, it would make sense that it would only allow both sectors to be upgraded since there is only one sector booked

Dave

 

[Mal]

Are you booked as LHR-SYD or LHR-xx-SYD.

LHR-SYDx-LHR . It will let me upgrade both LHR-SYD, and SYD-LHR, but not upgrade just one of them LHR-SYD or SYD-LHR.

 

[Dave Noble]

LHR-SYDx-LHR . It will let me upgrade both LHR-SYD, and SYD-LHR, but not upgrade just one of them LHR-SYD or SYD-LHR.

That makes sense then . since you are only booked as LHR-SYD, then you have no actual flight coupon for LHR-BKK/SIN or for BKK/SIN-SYD only for LHR-SYD

Dave

 

[Mal]

That makes sense then . since you are only booked as LHR-SYD, then you have no actual flight coupon for LHR-BKK/SIN or for BKK/SIN-SYD only for LHR-SYD

Dave

Nah, I just havn't explained myself properly.

I have a ticket LHR-SYDx-LHR.
BA have offered me a one way upgrade LHR-SYD to WT+ for £125. There is no current offer special for the SYD-LHR.

Their wording is:
"£125 per person special offer, to upgrade your flight to Sydney one way"
When clicking on the link, it offers the option to upgrade LHR-SYD and/or SYD-LHR, with LHR-SYD showing a special price, and no price for SYD-LHR.

If I select both LHR-SYD and SYD-LHR to upgrade, then it prices out at £ 1020.10 If I select only LHR-SYD or SYD-LHR and select the Upgrade option, and for the other (LHR-SYD or SYD-LHR) select "I do not wish to upgrade this flight", then it errors out.

A bit misleading IMHO if I can only use the 125 pound upgrade (LHR-SYD) in conjunction with upgrading (SYD-LHR) for around 895 pounds, when they have offered the 125 pound upgrade for LHR-SYD.

Hopefully that makes sense now.

 

[Mal]

BA have now offered - and I've accepted - an upgrade to WT+ each way for £250 (total) LHR-SYD vv.

So the upgrade for LHR-SYD vv cost about $A500 from Econ-WT+

They seem to release the upgrade opportunities about a week out from flights.

I'm still not 100% sure I am actually going to fly on these flights, and the change/cancellation rules are very unclear as to what it would cost to postpone... but if I fly, I'd prefer WT+ than WT anytime -especially at that price.

Thanks BA!

Note my ticket has had the following annotation added:
PROACTIVE UPGRADE/GGAIRBAGPOU
and fare class has been changed to:
PPOUGUK2

Wonder if that will give me any hassles with earning SC's or points.

 

[Mal]

LHR-WAW is offered at £125

Again, not really worth it, but obviously people do accept it.

 

[anat0l]

LHR-WAW is offered at £125

Again, not really worth it, but obviously people do accept it.

People accept all sorts of things. From BNE, one can fly to NZ often cheaper than flying across the country. Guess which one makes for a better weekend. :mrgreen:

Air fares are expensive usually for two reasons: one is the "lucrativeness" of a route, i.e. the cash cows; the other reason is yield resulting from low loads (e.g. typical Qantaslink routes to the small towns in the sticks).

Then again, there a lot of "expensive" fares on BA for intra-Europe compared to QF domestic of equivalent distances (with some minor exceptions on J), but I'm taking into account that some of this is also due to necessarily adjusting for 'relative standards of living' and thus price differences.

I'm taking that you've done a bit of homework so it must be cheaper to fly on, say, LOT.....