Seat Upgrade at the Gate

Many airlines are now auctioning unsold business class seats starting a few weeks out. If you book directly with the airline, you may get an email asking if you want to put in a bid. Last trip on Swiss, I made the next to lowest possible bid. The "dial" on the email indicated "fat chance". 3 days before departure I got an email that my bid was accepted. The one way upgrade cost more than the original r/t ticket in steerage, but it was a nice experience to see how the half flies.

As soon as you make your reservation they'll start asking you if you want to upgrade. Use the approach Sam mentions, even though they'll try to "shame" you into bidding a higher amount.

Coming back from Munich they were pitching Lufthansa upgrades at the gate pretty hard, but in this case it was only premium economy to business. Lots of econ passengers were interested but they were turned away. It was several hundred euros and we almost bit but didn't, prem econ was just fine.

Two years ago I got a notification from KLM as I was checking in online 24 hrs pre flight asking if I wanted to upgrade from No frills Economy to Business Class for the one long haul leg of 10+ hours.
The fee was huge, but not nearly as huge as it would have been if I’d actually booked BC in the first place.
I hemmed and hawed for 5 seconds, then took the offer.
I had never flown BC before and may never do again.
Totally worth it.
Coming home, back to Economy and it was truly awful.
I blame all this for now only trying to fly in more comfort in Premium Economy. ;)

Haven’t had any more offers like that, but I live in hope!

I’ve received business class “bidding” emails from Aer Lingus and Condor.

I'm flying back to Europe next week. I've received a couple of emails asking me if I wanted to upgrade and the price. The note is also in the airline app.

I'm in business and I checked the seating chart today. Four of the forty seats are still vacant. They won't be by flight time. If not sold they may be offered to FF with status. There is no first class on my flight over.

You can ask. You should ask. I firmly believe if you don't ask, you don't get. But nicely.

It depends on the airline.

Delta is a decent example, not long after I book, every time I go on the app, with my trip is an offer to upgrade separate legs of the itinerary. Prices range from the rare attractive price, to astronomical.

Same at online Check-in, offers might pop up.

You can ask at the check in desk, they would be able to do it, see if the price is within your budget.

At the gate is probably a little more troublesome. They are busy, lots of questions, and by then, many of the seats have been granted to frequent fliers as complementary upgrades.

You also need a ticket class eligible for upgrades, some of the cheapest "economy" tickets with no frills, are also not eligible to upgrade seating.

Ad has been pointed out, You really need to know what your airline is doing. Delta, for example, does not sell upgrades at the gate. The gate agents are not empowered to do that. They also generally don’t send you emails about upgrades but if you go and look at your reservation quite often you see an upgrade offer. I tracked the upgrade offers for my flight to Paris. They went from a high of over $4000 to around $1100 and it would very by day. So if I checked in on Monday it might be $3000 and if I checked it on Wednesday it might be $1000 and I checked it on Thursday. It would be $1500. There was no rhyme or reason that I could figure out from tracking the pricing

I know some airlines like virgin do the bidding for upgrade and there are places on online where people track what they bid and what’s happened

One other note, you need to be aware of. The refund and credits policies can be different for upgrades. A lot of times when you pay for an upgrade if you cancel the flight you don’t get credit for that upgrade, that money is just gone. If you change the flight you don’t get credit for that upgrade, that money is gone. Make sure you know what those terms are before you spend money on upgrade

And on some airlines empty seats will not go to people with status, they go to employees. I know flight attendants who have flown in first or business on trips just because that was what was available and they actually go ahead and paid upgrades for passengers on some airlines. My status on Delta is one of the top and I am not entitled to free upgrades internationally, ( if you’re the 360 tier you might be but no one really knows because it’s a secret )

I've never had an offer to bid for an upgrade. I usually fly BA and on the app I typically have an option to upgrade for business if I'm not already flying that class and it's usually a fairly good price. I've never been offered an upgrade at the gate however my son's have been upgraded without notification on one occasion when I was flying business and they were in PE, we only found out when we went to check in.

Thanks for the responses. If I'm flying United, and I can get an upgrade, can I use my miles to purchase? or do they always want money money?

The ability to "upgrade" your ticket to a higher class depends on the kind ticket of you bought. (Every ticket has a code that characterizes your ticket class; this code is visible to the gate agents, cabin crew and other employees). The cheapest tickets (eg "Basic Economy" or whatever they call it) usually can not be upgraded.

If you are flying on United, you can find all you need to know about their upgrade system(s) here:
United - All about upgrades

FYI: There's always competition for seats up front (sometimes heavy competition). Your best bet is to 1) have some level of elite status, 2) get your request in early (before the competition does), and 3) bring plenty of miles/money to the game, and 4) be willing to apply it. Waiting until the last minute, hoping that you'll get "picked" because you dressed nicely, and/or not being ready/willing/able to jump on an offer...are not great strategies for success.