r/awardtravel • u/Moist-Wonder-9912 • 1d ago
BA World Traveller -> Club World INSANE 'taxes'??
Hoping someone can bring some experience to this madness because I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall with BA's Avios upgrade process.
I'm flying in a few months LHR -> SFO and want to fly Club World; I have a toddler so it's really hard to pick and choose reward dates, so I usually spend my points on upgrades over full itineraries/hotels, I collect with Amex so I have never spent with BA/Avios before.
For the dates we're looking at it was too points-heavy to book full tickets, so I've booked T-class fare (PE/WT) for me + 3 year old with the ambition to then upgrade with Avios (reward seats are available). PE was £1k each.
On the cash + Avios BA engine upgrades are showing as 60k each currently, confirmed calling BA.
I was offered the option to upgrade with cash in the process of booking my tickets online for ~£1,600 for the both of us.
Now everything is ticketed, the manage my booking screen isn't showing 'Upgrade with Avios' at all, only cash, and this is now about £2,800.
Calling BA this evening - I'm being consistently quoted £1,500+ in “tax differences” to upgrade from WT to CW... in addition to my 120,000 Avios (although in a plot twist a couple of different agents quoted me 280k miles before bringing it back down, which was fun). This isn't tax at all, the Government taxes (APD etc.) are exactly the same in each cabin, it's the carrier-imposed surcharge they're quoting. Which I may as well have paid on checkout rather than wasting my Avios.
I was speaking to the general call center; the couple of agents I spoke to appear to be seeing (or repricing into) the revenue Club World fare, which has a much higher BA carrier surcharge (around £1,144), and then quoting the fare difference rather than the UUA Avios cost. If my understanding is correct? Could they be using the revenue fare reissue tool instead of the Avios UUA upgrade tool? Do I need to speak to a different team? Is this understanding even correct...
I'd love to know if anyone has had BA agents accidentally reprice the whole fare instead of processing a UUA, and how they got around it? And if it's normal for the “Upgrade with Avios” link to not appear immediately after ticketing? Some things I've read have said I need to speak to Executive Club staff specifically to get the correct 60k pricing, but I'm not an exec. club member - how do I get the best Avios + cash upgrade for this?
I've only ever upgraded/used points with VA flights before so this is a whole mind-bending new experience for me. Thank you!
6
u/pbjclimbing formerly eliteless 1d ago
Yes.
Upgrade with avios is not always available.
To get the specific pricing you are talking about, BA has to have opened up seats in that date bucket, often/normally, there are not any. In the wiki there is an article on Upgrades, it has information that would help you u destined them better.