Have heard from several people, including a woman I sat next to on the Seattle - Gatwick flight recently, that you can bid on a seat upgrade, often at significant savings, to premium (which I found very nice). You buy the ticket for the cheap seat and then bid on moving up to sit with the big kids.
Has anyone done this? How well did it work/what did you end up paying?
Have not done this, but AerLingus also does this. To keep the bids high, they use the Priceline method of giving you a range that is "likely to be accepted". Wasn't tempted, as it was still higher than I wanted to bid.
Almost every year we fly Norwegian nonstop from Orlando to Europe, usually Gatwick. Always buy economy seats for $200-300 each way. About a week or two before departure Norwegian sends an email offering us to bid for Premium upgrade. My bids of $200-250 were never accepted. Last year I bid $320 and got the upgrade. It was so nice! Big seat. Not lay flat but way better than economy. For reference it cost about $700 each way to buy Premium in the beginning on the Orlando Gatwick route so there is some savings, but it’s not extreme or guaranteed with bidding.
I have upgraded once from economy to premium on Norwegian, on the Seattle-Gatwick run (now history). I bid the minimum and it was accepted. I saved a couple hundred dollars over the premium price. I am sure it helped that I was flying in January and there were a lot of empty seats. I would suspect that Norwegian was thinking a little extra revenue is better than no revenue!
Flying Premium is definitely better the Economy!
They will send you an email a week or two before your flight asking if you want to bid for an upgrade. I have bid twice on international flights between Europe and the US but neither have been accepted. The first time I bid the minimum and the second time I bid twice the minimum...no luck! Maybe next time. :)
I am not using Norwegian at present, as their financial position looks dicey.
For reference it cost about $700 each way to buy Premium in the beginning on the Orlando Gatwick route so there is some savings, but it’s not extreme or guaranteed with bidding.
You can probably get BA business class for that price in their regular sales.
I haven't. Friends have. It's based on how many unsold seats they have. My friends said they researched what the average winning bid was and bid slightly higher than that. I have a flight to Dublin on Aer Lingus in May and received an invitation to bid for a business class upgrade. I doubt I'll do it, I just don't care that much about added services I don't use. The space would be nice but it doesn't get me to the destination faster.
