Optimising chance of upgrade

[scaredeycat]

Flying mid April 2024 LHR-SYD return in Y. Are there any days of the week which stand a better chance of scoring an upgrade?

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Highest chances depend/rely on your QFF status.
You will see availability the more days in advance the higher up QFF status you are.
April is also school holidays, in some parts of Aust.
Not that I have an exact science way of saying you will succeed, but if you are QFF P1/WP, ie, upper "crust", you will be able to see availability 350 days ahead, I think I saw mentioned on here.
Best of luck.

 

[scaredeycat]

Highest chances depend/rely on your QFF status.
You will see availability the more days in advance the higher up QFF status you are.
April is also school holidays, in some parts of Aust.
Not that I have an exact science way of saying you will succeed, but if you are QFF P1/WP, ie, upper "crust", you will be able to see availability 350 days ahead, I think I saw mentioned on here.
Best of luck.

Platinum. Availability applies more to award bookings rather than upgrades. Just wondering if loads tend to be lower on say Tuesday VS Friday or Saturday...

 

[Lynda2475]

Outside of avoiding peak travel periods I'm not sure that day of the week makes a material difference.

However, the type of ticket you hold (fully flex, discount, award, cabin), your status as well as how early you put in the request all play a role.

If you are after a J upgrade you are competing against not only other Y passengers but also those already in PE who will be ahead of you if they have a paid ticket and equal status.

Using expert flyer to see which flights currently have most J and F seats available may help increase the odds, but this far out no way to know if they will sell between now and then.

International upgrades on QF at least only get processed a couple of days to a couple of hours out, as they want availability in case there are last minute business travellers willing to pay $ for the seat.

 

[tdimdad]

While QF must has a formula for this, it sure would not be released into public. But I'd offer five things to consider. Whether they are true or not could be confirmed only by someone who knows the formula and other useful factors.

1) Your FF status. The upgrades seem to be processed in descending order, from CL/P1 downwards.
2) Fare paid. Flexible PE over PE saver over flexible Y over...
3) Your total bookings / volumes / commercial value to QF. This is totally anecdotal but my gut feel is that it may have a bearing when comparing otherwise equal pax against each other.
4) Busy vs quieter days. There are anecdotal stories about midweek travel, avoiding holiday periods, etc. improving your chances for an upgrade. The few upgrades I've had, have not followed a clear pattern this regard, though.
5) The number of travel classes available on the flight. Again, you find stories of a 4-class flight possibly being easier to upgrade than on a 2-class flight (e.g. QF1 vs QF81). Probably an urban legend but if you managed to collect plenty of data and normalised it for all other variables, you might (or not) find a correlation.

A extra question to ask is the marketing value to QF of giving upgrades. If you typically travel in one class but then are given tasters of the good life in a higher class a few times, would you be enticed to start booking those outright? Unfortunately, I've been conditioned now to like PE over Y (and not to resist J, either ), though QF's PE is a bit cramped compared to the other ones I've been able to test out.
E.g. the next trip to Europe I want to book costs $2,300 in QF Y and $2,800 in JL PE. The increased travel comfort might as well justify throwing more money to it. Would make commercial sense to give some (nearly) freebies to hook you.

 

[FrustratedQP]

If indeed Qantas took into account Perceived Customer Value when determining the order of upgrades, do you think that if two customers spent generally the same amount of money on flights but one flew only Y and the other only J and F, the PCVs would be the same or different?

 

[SeatBackForward]

And then there's the instance where dude in J asks the CSM if his wife who's back in Y can have the empty J seat next to him.

Once we're airborne, voila!

 

[RichardMEL]

Platinum. Availability applies more to award bookings rather than upgrades. Just wondering if loads tend to be lower on say Tuesday VS Friday or Saturday...

ah, but it IS a factor imo.

consider the status pax who would also be vying for upgrades, and the top tiers of CL/P1/WP being at the "top" of the pecking list would influence the chances for lower tiered folks to upgrade - in conjunction with paid demand in premium cabins of course.

Really for a route like LHR-SYD, the two likely go hand in hand - as those potentially flying on paid J or F tickets would be more likely to hold status, and potentially higher (note: more likely, not "all" !) and with that in mind and an assumption of sorts given April is not a high peak leisure travel time (apart from Easter/School Holidays and that may be an issue here too) - but not an especially higher demand period one would think for paid demand (vs any other time of year) then you'd probably err to the old consideration regarding Business (class) travel - that demand is usually weaker mid weak (ie: Tue-Thu) and higher weekends (say ex-LHR, Fri/Sat to arrive in AU by Monday).

So while absolutely NOTHING is guaranteed, you'd imagine demand for premium cabins MAY be less mid week. This doesn't always follow of course for any number of reasons, and the old notions of Business travel (ie the demand profiles) are probably not accurate in the current climate

so it's still going to be a lottery and dependent on the specific flight date and well, 9 months away who would know....

 

[CaptJCool]

I guess there’s a bit of a CLUE here

I hadn’t seen this presented this way before

Two opportunities for upgrade offered


Could imagine if the cabins full they would NOT BE AVAILABLE

 

[RichardMEL]

I'm more concerned about what sequence of connections (or IT glitch) makes for over 10 hours of travel between OOL and MEL

(I have seen time errors like this before)

 

[CaptJCool]

I'm more concerned about what sequence of connections (or IT glitch) makes for over 10 hours of travel between OOL and MEL

(I have seen time errors like this before)

Oh
That was me deliberately taking a long layover in Sydney and I caught up with a couple of different friends !

What bugged me about the fares was they were by booking time not available or around $400 RedE deal Syd-Mel and flexi fare = $617 20 SCs

While the flexi fare OOL - MEL Was $486! 40 SCs
And I could pick any Syd-Mel flight I liked without paying the SMALL fortune should I have overnighted in Sydney
FLY MORE PAY LESS