You snooze, you lose. My plan to buy a business class award ticket on Air France and upgrade during check-in was dashed by a new policy change that further tightens just who is eligible for upgrades to first class (La Première).
Air France La Première – Buying A First Class Upgrade Now More Elusive And Exclusive
It has been a few years since I reviewed La Première and I was looking forward to doing so on a flight from Paris to Mexico City later this year or next. Why Mexico City? It is was one of the cheapest routes – it costs cost about 1,645USD to upgrade from business class at check-in, which sounds like a lot but is not all that much when you can consider how high the sticker price is for first class on Air France if you are buying the ticket outright.
But as noted by One Mile At A Time, Air France has a new policy in which you can no longer upgrade business class award tickets to first class. The new policy went into effect on July 1, 2023.
Short of buying a ticket at full price (which routinely runs more than $20,000 round-trip between the USA and Europe), there are only three options left for reasonable first class tickets:
- Flying Blue Platinum members can book full award seats (prices vary from about 200K one-way)
- Flying Blue Platinum members can upgrade from business class using miles
- Revenue business class passengers may still be offered paid upgrades during online check-in or at the airport
Like Ben, I find this a personally disappointing change – that’s because it was the one “reasonable” way to get into Air France First Class. In that sense, I understand why Air France closed the loophole: it will create an even great sense of exclusivity in the cabin. And the constant vlogging in La Premiere might get tedious for other passengers.
And let’s say that because there are no upgrades, Air France gets one person willing to pay an extra $7K to confirm first class versus three people willing to pay $2K each for the upgrade. In that case, Air France still comes out ahead.
CONCLUSION
My Algeria ticket did not work out and I see no other La Première specials at the moment, so it appears if I want to review Air France First Class again, I’m really going to have to pay for it. That’s a shame. But I get it. I’m not upset.
This has/will make LP one of the most exclusive commercial aviation products. I did notice my last few LP trips spanning from October last year to March this year, the LP lounge was a lot more emptier than Summer 2022 and on these flights, I was the only passenger. It was great.
However, what doesn’t make any sense is the cash fare also increasing by more than 43%. Up to before they talked about the new LP seats, TATL flights in LP were about $7k, slightly more than LH/LX and still more expensive than BA. This price made sense considering how LP is a product that offers a lot more soft touches than LH/LX in F. However, after the announcement of new LP seats, they just made the price arbitrarily $10k even though the seats are old, very tired, and in a handful of cases, broken. As a customer who pays in full cash, I’m not dropping 10k for a broken seat covered in duct tape, which has happened to me about four times last year and started to fly LH/LX in F more. In addition, being a FB Ulti, I also looked into using miles and they used to be about 200k miles oneway. Now, most of the award pricing is usually 285k miles or more and it’s very rare to see an award at 200k miles and others on Flyertalk have said the same thing.
Aeroméxico often have great offers from BCN and LIS in business class, as they don’t serve either city you have to fly via AMS/MAD/CDG- unless you have an infinite supply of miles, you are better off with a revenue ticket.
If you choose an AM-coded flight op by AF for the transatlantic segment, you’ll still be offered the opportunity to buy up to P. I ended up in one of those earlier this year, but I am too cheap to spend a four figure sum in order to upgrade from a fully flat seat with its own window and aisle.
I’m shedding crocodile tears …
Hehe, if there was ever a time for that old troll who claims to only travel in paid F to come back…
How to show you’re jealous without saying you’re jealous
Kinda sad that you think Malik is a troll. Probably one of the very few people who’ve actually been reasonable commenters on this website the past two years.
It’s not Malik, you goofball.
It’s another guy (years ago) who says that anyone who used credit cards to game the system is basically a chump and when he mentions flying F he always says “paid, of course” or something along those lines.
I won’t name his name but believe he shared a first name with a certain 7’5” wrestler The Giant
As someone who just completed another WONDERFUL flight in LP on a paid round-trip ticket, this is wonderful news and warms my heart. On my flight, there was one open seat in LP; there was Business Class passenger (blogger type, with multiple cameras) who was pretty upset that he could not upgrade and made sure to let the cabin crew know quite a few times that he wanted to upgrade and was told NO several times by the ground staff. I love that AF restricts LP access to keep it exclusive and the riff-raff out. The lounge was empty and I loved it!