{"id":3614,"date":"2013-05-05T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/verygoodpoints\/?p=3614"},"modified":"2013-05-05T15:49:16","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T19:49:16","slug":"the-end-of-free-business-class-upgrades-im-excited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/verygoodpoints\/2013\/05\/05\/the-end-of-free-business-class-upgrades-im-excited\/","title":{"rendered":"The End Of Free Business Class Upgrades? I&#8217;m Excited!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px;\">Sharron Livingston, of Travel Magazine, wrote a piece this week outlining why the end of business class upgrades may be a thing of the past. I have to admit, the headline caught my attention!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Austrian, Air New Zealand, El Al, Ethihad and Virgin Atlantic have all signed up to be part of a new blind bidding process that will auction off the open seats in business class.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px;\">Not all passengers will be eligible. Selected passengers will be \u00a0chosen by technology developed by software developer Plusgrade. In order to be eligible for the upgrade, you will have already had to buy an economy ticket and meet other undefined criteria.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s chief executive Ken Harris said:&#8221;The concept came from the fact that if a flight leaves from London to New York right now and no-one is sitting in seat 2A, that seat would be lost forever&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Plusgrade is working on a project with El Al where you can bid for an extra seat next to you &#8211; so you have no seatmate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How it works: \u00a0<\/strong>When you complete the purchase of an economy ticket on a participating airline, you may receive an invitation to upgrade. If you qualify, you will be directed to another page where you can bid for an upgrade to a business class.<\/p>\n<p>If you have the winning bid, you will be notified via email.\u00a0If not, you won&#8217;t be charged.<\/p>\n<p>There is a huge risk that customers who would normally pay for business class might opt for this option if they know how to game the system. \u00a0That is why there is so much secrecy around how the software selects passengers to send an upgrade invitation to.<\/p>\n<p>The other risk is that those airlines\u00a0alienate\u00a0their frequent flyers who would otherwise have been upgraded potentially. \u00a0Personally, it&#8217;s great for someone like me who has status with an airline like US Airways but flies Star Alliance partners regularly. \u00a0I never get upgraded overseas and this would allow me to bid for upgrades. \u00a0I&#8217;m all for it and it might change the way I fly. Heck, it will change the way I fly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sharron Livingston, of Travel Magazine, wrote a piece this week outlining why the end of business class upgrades may be a thing of the past. I have to admit, the headline caught my attention!\u00a0 Austrian, Air New Zealand, El Al,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,91,92],"tags":[741,337],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.13 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The End Of Free Business Class Upgrades? 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