How does Qantas know when to disallow an immediate upgrade? Does Qantas have a “check the news” team?

[cbreeze]

I recently booked economy MEL-ADL for April 2023 and requested a points upgrade to business. It’s sitting in “upgrade requested”.

I have had flights in the past that went through immediately when I requested an upgrade but this did not. I guess it’s one of those now we have to wait until a few days before departure to know.

Subsequent to booking, someone told me there’s an entire AFL round in Adelaide that week so that’s probably why the airline won’t upgrade us?

I am curious how airlines figure out reasons to disallow immediate upgrades. Is it someone’s job at Qantas to just read the news every day and put blocks on upgrades when big events are announced? (That and raising the classic reward base price).

 

[AusTraveller]

I recently booked economy MEL-ADL for April 2023 and requested a points upgrade to business. It’s sitting in “upgrade requested”.

I have had flights in the past that went through immediately when I requested an upgrade but this did not. I guess it’s one of those now we have to wait until a few days before departure to know.

Subsequent to booking, someone told me there’s an entire AFL round in Adelaide that week so that’s probably why the airline won’t upgrade us?

I am curious how airlines figure out reasons to disallow immediate upgrades. Is it someone’s job at Qantas to just read the news every day and put blocks on upgrades when big events are announced? (That and raising the classic reward base price).

If there are business reward seats on the flight, I would cancel the request and try again. I had this happen a few months ago. When I requested the upgrade the second time it went through immediately. It might have been a glitch. YMMV

 

[ChrisMars]

I think for domestic upgrade, it is immediatly confirmed IF there are some award seats at the time of upgrade request. Note that if reward seats appear after the request, I believe you would need to redraw and resubmit your request to get the seat.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Tip on here is there must be QFd U class for it to go through.
Probably all J seats on the flight are classed as subclass of J, excluding U.
Edit: ask on here for someone to check Expertflyer to see if there are U class seats on your date of travel.
Expertflyer is a $ website, am not a member.
More in-depth features charge $3.99 a month I think.
Basic features are free but have to join.

 

[tdimdad]

Tip on here is there must be QFd U class for it to go through.
Probably all J seats on the flight are classed as subclass of J, excluding U.
Edit: ask on here for someone to check Expertflyer to see if there are U class seats on your date of travel.
Expertflyer is a $ website, am not a member.
More in-depth features charge $3.99 a month I think.
Basic features are free but have to join.

A random Expertflyer query shows that Mon 3/4/23 MEL-ADL has zero award availability in J (booking class U) or Y (class X). But on other days between 1/7 - 7/4 there's plenty of availability. If the OP can specify the date or a short date range and flight they are looking at, it'll be easy to query it in EF.

 

[cbreeze]

Thanks so much for your help everyone! The specific flight is MEL-ADL QF683 on 14 Apr 2023

 

[tdimdad]

Thanks so much for your help everyone! The specific flight is MEL-ADL QF683 on 14 Apr 2023

That particular flight has 1 * U available. All direct MEL-ADL flights on the day have 1-3 U's available. Perhaps resubmitting the request might work.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I recently booked economy MEL-ADL for April 2023 and requested a points upgrade to business. It’s sitting in “upgrade requested”.

That likely means that there is no "U" space available. Generally if the flight you are booked on is showing Business classic award availability, you should be able to request an upgrade and have it clear then and there. Hence, if you want to ensure you are immediately upgraded into business class, when booking your flight check to see which flights on the dates you are travelling have business classic award availability and book that flight in economy as normal.

I have had flights in the past that went through immediately when I requested an upgrade but this did not. I guess it’s one of those now we have to wait until a few days before departure to know.

For domestic it's entirely dependent on if there is U (Business Classic Award) availability. If yes, then instant upgrade. Otherwise, you'll be waiting to OLCI or even gate to see if upgrade clears.

Subsequent to booking, someone told me there’s an entire AFL round in Adelaide that week so that’s probably why the airline won’t upgrade us?

There is no rhyme or reason to it. I've booked a direct cheap $99 red eDeal fare from MEL back to SYD during the Australia open and it cleared right away (since I ensured there was business classic award availability before I booked)

I am curious how airlines figure out reasons to disallow immediate upgrades. Is it someone’s job at Qantas to just read the news every day and put blocks on upgrades when big events are announced? (That and raising the classic reward base price).

That's not how it works. Qantas will release a certain number of seats on each flight they operate as business and economy saver awards. Once people book those seats out then they are gone.

-RooFlyer88

 

[RichardMEL]

For reference:

QF uses historic data and obvious knowledge of known events to assess demand for any flights. This includes things like school holidays, potentially major events (the Adelaide AFL round hasonly recently been announced so hard to know if that is a factor or not) but mostly historic demand for the same flights/periods to define rules for inventory to maximise yield. This includes any availability for reward seats, sale fare seats etc and they can and do change based on projections and updates (so things like booking patterns linked with the big AFL event will have an influence.. maybe not right now, but early into next year as people make plans and book etc). This is yield management 101 and is as much art as it is science (as a YM manager for a US airline once described it to me as).

So in a way yes there is a person (well team) who do profile flights, markets etc with models and monitor booking atterns and the like.

Anyway as someone noted there was a seat when they looked. Perhaps the upgrade request did not clear immediately if it was submitted before full ticketing (this is a common problem) or a fun bug. You could try resubmitting the request as suggested or potentially have to call QF to get it manually done (I had to do this the other week for a booking that just wouldn't go through no matter what, but was quickly resolved by the VIP team). For domestic flights like this - if you see the flight as showing classic reward seat in Business Class, then the upgrade request should clear.

good luck.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

There is a slight possibility too that maybe QF wants the flyer, or anyone to bid now upgrade, ie, they want extra money,
Points upgrade is on on request, bid now upgrade too is on request, but there is more chances for QF to make more money by doing a bid now upgrade.
Can be quite a pricey option, one time, I saw offer bid BNE - ADL was asking for a starting bid of $399, was a while back now.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

QF uses historic data and obvious knowledge of known events to assess demand for any flights. This includes things like school holidays, potentially major events (the Adelaide AFL round hasonly recently been announced so hard to know if that is a factor or not) but mostly historic demand for the same flights/periods to define rules for inventory to maximise yield. This includes any availability for reward seats, sale fare seats etc and they can and do change based on projections and updates (so things like booking patterns linked with the big AFL event will have an influence.. maybe not right now, but early into next year as people make plans and book etc). This is yield management 101 and is as much art as it is science (as a YM manager for a US airline once described it to me as).

All of that may be true, but that shouldn't impact the two seats or so they are supposed to release from every flight for awards, should it?

Anyway as someone noted there was a seat when they looked. Perhaps the upgrade request did not clear immediately if it was submitted before full ticketing (this is a common problem) or a fun bug.

This has happened to me before, where I saw U>0 booked the flight then requested the upgrade only for it to not clear immediately. Inevitably I would wait 15 minutes, cancel the upgrade and re-request the upgrade and it would clear.

There is a slight possibility too that maybe QF wants the flyer, or anyone to bid now upgrade, ie, they want extra money,
Points upgrade is on on request, bid now upgrade too is on request, but there is more chances for QF to make more money by doing a bid now upgrade.
Can be quite a pricey option, one time, I saw offer bid BNE - ADL was asking for a starting bid of $399, was a while back now.

My understanding though is that Bid Upgrade and Classic Upgrade Awards operate differently in the sense that if U>0 your Classic Upgrade will clear whereas for Bid Upgrade all upgrades clear closer to check-in (presumably implying that they use the broader J buckets in determining which offers swim). In terms of which one is a better option for QF, I suppose both have their merits for them. A classic upgrade means points removed from the liability asset whilst at the same time absorbing a classic award seat from FOTSGs trying to use their hard earned QF points for a family vacay to Brizzie.

-RooFlyer88

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Heh, if I was running the QFF side hussle, I would put the bid now upgrade ($) as of more importance than reducing FF points liability, bid now rakes in the extra revenue.
Of course, I don't run any thing of significance in real life.

 

[RooFlyer]

All of that may be true, but that shouldn't impact the two seats or so they are supposed to release from every flight for awards, should it?

-RooFlyer88

It's exactly the same mob. Key word 'supposed'; If anyone believes they really release 2 award seats on every flight, I've got a bridge they may be interested in

 

[RichardMEL]

All of that may be true, but that shouldn't impact the two seats or so they are supposed to release from every flight for awards, should it?

I'd never seen anything about a guarantee or anything regarding a specific number of seats released in inventory on every flight?

Of course, in theory, when a flight opens for sale 355 days out there's always going to be a "default" inventory rule applied I assume (for want of more specific terms). After all schedules at this point are never usually set but more of a guide and flights will be changed depending on demand profiles closer to travel (IIRC usually schedules are more firm during the prior schedule period (ie the broad "Summer"/"Winter" windows). At least this is how it USED to be pre-pandemic when demand and such could more reliability be forecast with no major events like this getting in the way. These days things are far more fluid - and this is why we are still seeing things like schedule changes, flight cancels(consolidation) happen much sooner to flight time - which may have multiple factors such as demand changing or even issues like aircraft availability and other things.

For example I think it was in August this year AA made a huge schedule cut for November, so that was only 3 months out and some thousands of flights were affected IIRC. So this isn't just a QF thing, but an industry issue - it is much harder to forecast with so many events one can't predict - wars, pandemic waves, staff shortaes, airframes (AA 787's for example) and so on.

Anyway if there is a minimum set amount of award availability then no I suppose it would not be affected, but honestly while it may hold true for most flights it probably does not hold true for all. I honestly don't know either way so happy to be corrected by a knowledgeable source.

This has happened to me before, where I saw U>0 booked the flight then requested the upgrade only for it to not clear immediately. Inevitably I would wait 15 minutes, cancel the upgrade and re-request the upgrade and it would clear.

yup, exactly. And then there are the times trying that doesn't work (as per my experience).. but yeah generally that is the first thing to try

 

[RichardMEL]

There is a slight possibility too that maybe QF wants the flyer, or anyone to bid now upgrade, ie, they want extra money,
Points upgrade is on on request, bid now upgrade too is on request, but there is more chances for QF to make more money by doing a bid now upgrade.
Can be quite a pricey option, one time, I saw offer bid BNE - ADL was asking for a starting bid of $399, was a while back now.

Cynical much?

No. I do not think so.

Upgrade Bids are dealt with close in to departure and come after classic upgrade requests are processed, and this is separate for any initial (or other) allocation of U inventory.

 

[RichardMEL]

Heh, if I was running the QFF side hussle, I would put the bid now upgrade ($) as of more importance than reducing FF points liability, bid now rakes in the extra revenue.
Of course, I don't run any thing of significance in real life.

And if that was the case then QF points would have far less value to the punters and QF has a longer term interest to keep the customers engaged. If we see there's even less point (pun intended) putting in for an upgrade with points if someone will pony up $100 to get it, then we'd look elsewhere. Plus, remember the status game which does give priority to upgrade seats (and many on domestic flights are upgrades with points).. it reduces liability, gives the punters a bone and think "Hey yeah having Silver/Gold/Plat" (or even NB on some routes) is worthwhile to get that upgrade.

Plus if one thinks about the pricing of upgrades at say 10k (I'm rounding the value for simpliity) points from a discount Y->J on a short MEL-SYD or MEL-ADL flight, valued at 1c a point, then you're looking at that $100 or so in "value" anyway to the airline. While QF may try to extract a bit more by bid upgrades to anything left, the points used to pay for a classic upgrade reward still have a value to QF which shouldn't be forgotten.