Do you ever dream about flying in business class? No, not crappy European business with the middle seat blocked off and a free drink of you’re lucky. I mean, turning left on a premium international carrier with flat beds and legroom for days. Restaurant-quality menus and proper wine lists. Champagne and lounge access. Yes? Me too! However, outside of some work trips in the way distant past – when someone else was paying – a dream it was going to stay. I travel on a budget, I could never afford it. Until I found out I could actually bid for a business class upgrade at a fraction of the cost. How, you might ask? Come closer, let’s have a chat…
Dear Diva, you are eligible for an upgrade…
Six days before my first flight on Oman Air, they sent me an email letting me know I was “eligible for an Oman Air Easy Upgrade to [their] award winning Business Class”. Naturally, I ignored it because it sounded a little scammy. A couple of days later, they reached out again. “This is your last chance to upgrade“, the email was headed. OK, I’ll bite…
Because my flight consisted of two legs – Paris to Muscat and Muscat to Manila – I was offered the chance to upgrade each leg individually. The Oman Air Easy Upgrade page offered three easy steps to bid for a business class upgrade:
- Check your flight’s eligibility for an upgrade – upgrade bid function is only available on certain routes. Also, only certain ticket types might be entitled to bid. Some discounted fares may be ineligible. The page offers a checker for you to verify your status using your booking reference,
- Place a bid to move one cabin class higher
- Enjoy your upgrade
My standard economy class ticket purchased via American Express travel was eligible. I was in.
Why would airlines offer the chance to bid for a business class upgrade?
Good question. The most likely reason is money. Airlines run on data. They know which aircraft to best fly each route on any particular date. They know how many passengers are likely buy each particular class of ticket so they will always operate at optimal capacity to maximise revenue. If they are likely to have extra capacity on any route in a premium class – for that is where they make the most profit – they are going to do what they can to claw back any potential lost revenue. The easiest customers to acquire are ones you already have, so incentivising existing economy passengers to upgrade to business class at a competitive rate? It means making some money on seats that would otherwise be empty. The plane’s flying anyway, so hey…
The auction model allows them to set a minimum bid price. This means offers have to be serious – you couldn’t offer them £10, for example. This should allow them to cover their overhead (premium food and beverage, staffing on the ground an in the air etc.). Anything over and above is a bonus.
So would bidding for a business class upgrade be a good idea?
Why should you bid for a business class upgrade?
Doing some quick research on Flyer Talk and with my other usual airline bloggers and YouTubers, Oman Air has a generally well-regarded business class product. Ben Schlappig at One Mile At a Time ranks the apex suites that Oman Air use on their 787s as 4th in his top ten business class seats in the world.
What makes these seats superior is the window seats, as they feature an unrivaled amount of privacy and personal space. The window seats have a private walkway leading to the seat, and you can raise or lower the partition between seats for full privacy.
Ben Schlappig
Nice! They also offer great onboard amenities, à la carte dining with champagne, premium lounge access.
Fantastic! The question was, how much was I willing to pay for a business class upgrade? What was it worth to me?
It was time to do some sums.
Crunching numbers
I paid £499.20 for my two-legged flight: CDG-MCT-MNL. Let’s call that £250 per leg for the purpose of this exercise. The CDG-MCT business class upgrade was being offered at minimum bid of £630 – you have to clock through via the website to discover this. It is likely one of their flagship routes and, as an overnight flight, you would get to take full advantage of their ginormous flat bed. Add the economy base fare for a MINIMUM of £880…pass. Not even something I would consider.
I had almost written off the entire process, but thought I would just check the minimum bid for the MCT-MNL leg. £350. I’m listening…
It was for a day rather than overnight flight (more on that later…), but it was 8h 40 (vs 7 hours from Paris) for a minimum of £600. I decided to compare with the full cost of the flight:
Looking at the trending price for this flight, it had been pretty consistent at £2,307 for the months leading up so looking at the fare just a few days out had no impact on the price. The minimum bid could see me securing this flight for about a quarter of the price…I was tempted enough to try. I spend a lot of time online scouting all the flight forums for flight bargains and this was a deal. When would i ever get such a chance again? To maximise my chances, I was willing to bid the minimum + 10%, so rounded up my offer to £390.
Tip: if you have access to ExpertFlyer (free trial available or may require a subscription) you can possibly check how many business class seats are available, and adjust your bid accordingly . I didn’t learn this until after the fact!
Bidding for a business class upgrade
One click and my fate was sealed. My confirmation email stated the following:
Your bid has been successfully submitted and we will inform you whether your offer was accepted in the hours leading up to your flight.
- If your offer is accepted, we will notify you by email before your departure and you will be charged the amount you bid, which you can see below. Once you check in for your flight, you will receive your upgraded boarding pass.
- If your offer is not accepted, you will retain your original ticket and no further amount will be charged to you.
Note, you provide your credit card details at the time of bidding and, if you are successful, they charge it immediately. No backsies.
Two days before the flight, I received confirmation of my successful bid. Business class, baby!
Turning left, flying up front
As was the theme for my entire trip, come departure day there was drama. A ten hour delay was maddeningly inconvenient, but a least I got the full benefit of the flat bed on a night flight.
I was ‘allowed’ to use the swanky dedicated first and business class check-in suite and hang out in the gilded departure lounge pre-flight. On-board, I was greeted with my new favourite, ‘Kahwa’, the traditional Omani coffee and dates, followed by Laurent Perrier in a flute – yes, an actual flute! Dinner was pure elegant theatre, the way my mushroom soup was served from a tureen and then garnished with fried potato and a herb oil. The generous – yet refined – plating of my braised lamb shank with rice and vegetables . How they made my simple fruit salad look like a work of art. Flawless.
No pyjamas, but I did receive a lovely amenity ‘box’ with super-lux Amouage products. The staff were lovely, the bed was comfy, I had acres of room for all my limbs. I slept well, spoiled as hell. Was very annoyed to be woken up before 7am knowing I had hours to wait in Manila airport for my rearranged flight to Siarago. On Cebgo. The Filipino equivalent to Ryanair. No business class. Back to earth with a kick in the face.
Was bidding for a business class upgrade worth it?
At the right price, as a treat…yes. I am generally a get me from A to B girl, on any decent airline and not on any version of the 737-MAX. I have no problem sitting at the back of the bus. Ultimately, I am driven by value so, if I can run the numbers and make a determination that what I would get in return from my overall experience would be worth it, I’m in. Similarly, if my bid had been unsuccessful, no big deal.
Full disclosure, I think I was more open to making the bid as the ‘centrepiece’ of my trip was my very first self-funded business class flight. I had booked the longest flight in the world, SIN-JFK on the Singapore Air A350-900ULR, and at 18h 40, I thought it deserved some extra comforts. However, I did originate that flight in Manila in order to save a significant amount on the fare (a paid a little over a third of the price of the flight departing Singapore that day – I spent ages looking for the cheapest option).
Would I bid for a business class upgrade again? Never say never…
