Airlines have gotten much better at monetizing their premium cabins over the years, and that comes in a variety of forms, including increasingly selling upgrades for cash as the departure date approaches, much to the chagrin of elite members trying to take advantage of their upgrade perks.
Upgrade costs can be all over the place, and in some cases, they’ve become pretty attractive. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this before…
In this post:
On 7-13, pricing went north to $2661. It went down to $1812 the next day, the 14th. Some time during the evening on the 14th, I changed the HKG-JFK flight to ICN-JFK via LAX to fly on Korean Air’s 747. That changed the booking codes for return flights to Z while LGA-ATL was repriced to Comfort W and ATL-ICN was repriced to PS A. Upgrade pricing at this time went down to $1671.
It stayed there until this morning at 8:13am, when I went into the seat map for ATL-ICN and saw $17.34. I didn’t cancel out of the screen in case it never returns. Got to the purchase confirmation screen and the charge is also showing on my card.
Currently, I’m about a month and a half out from checking in and flying. I was hunting for the elusive $699 upgrade offer but I’m not complaining at all with $17.34. Book asap, celebrate later.
Was this price the best deal ever, a glitch, or what?
Airlines don’t publish how they come up with their upgrade pricing, though they seem to take into account a massive number of factors. This may include everything from your originally booked fare, to your elite status, to how many seats are remaining and in what fare buckets, to how close to departure it is.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
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