The best time to ask for an upgrade according to flight attendants – but there’s a catch
A FLIGHT attendant has revealed the best time to ask them if you can have an upgrade, but there’s a pretty big catch.
Asking for an upgrade is always a big risk, but there are some ways in which passengers can get themselves bumped up, if they’re lucky.
As well as that, there are ways passengers can increase their chances of an upgrade as well – including asking at the right time.
Bobby Laurie, a travel expert and former American Airlines flight attendant told Travel + Leisure the best time to ask is as you’re getting on the aircraft.
He said: “You should ask the lead flight attendant or the flight attendant at the boarding door. You should ask prior to door closure, but don’t be surprised if they don’t move you until after you’re in the air if they’re going to grant your request.”
The reason why you might not get moved right away is that the flight attendants first have to make sure everyone’s on the plane.
If there’s spare seats in first or business class, then passengers will have a better opportunity to make the move from economy. However, that could come at a cost.
Another former cabin crew member, Susan Fogwell also told Travel + Leisure that free upgrades are incredibly rare and passengers will usually have to pay.
She said: “If a flight attendant moved a passenger from one class to another, the flight attendant would not have a job for long. The difference in price is in the thousands, depending on the route.
“Standard procedure is to wait until the door closes to see if everybody shows up for the flight. If the seat is available, the passenger pays for the upgrade on the flight.”
Not everybody has to pay for their upgrade however.
For instance, offering gifts to your flight attendants could increase your chances.
One cabin crew member told Sun Online Travel: “We really do appreciate the thought every time, but some gifts just aren’t great, especially ones we can’t share or probably don’t care about.
“One Toblerone from duty free isn’t going to go far among the cabin crew – and we all know where you’ve got it from. You need to try harder.
“We can’t give everyone who gets us a gift an upgrade, it just wouldn’t be possible and there’s not always the opportunity to do it.
“We might have no seats left at the front of the plane, or you might not have given your gifts to someone with the authority to hand out upgrades – not all of us do.
“The best passenger we’ve ever had gave us a load of Nandos gift vouchers and it went down a storm.
“That person definitely ended up in first class that day.
“It may seem excessive to have to do that, but check out the price difference between an economy seat and first class. It’s much more than a few restaurant vouchers, so it is worth it.”
Meanwhile, one man claimed he managed to sneak into business class in the middle of the night to get a full night’s sleep – although not everyone believed him.
And in 2018, a first class passenger was booted out of a plane for trying to share his fancy drinks with some mates sitting in economy.