Just have to share this here because of how unbelievably tone-deaf it is.
I have an upcoming flight with Lufthansa, booked cheapest economy class. Now I get a mail that says I am eligible for an upgrade.
Correction, I am eligible to make an offer to maybe maybe get an upgrade. When I click that link I get to the page above in the screenshot where I can now choose an amount between 90 and 300-ish EUR per passenger, per flight, to maybe upgrade to business class.
Just look at the slider, it is almost hilarious that it says poor when you leave it at the low amounts. Is any other airline doing that?
And you even pay for the chance so i guess no refund if you were unlucky? ( I hope its a april fools joke, but in such times it is realistic )
If you don’t succeed then you presumably won’t pay.
I still hate it though. The “colour coding” of the offer dial too, encouraging you to make an overpriced offer in the “green” range.
Get fucked. I hate this blind bidding nonsense. Offer me a price upfront, and I’ll tell you if I want it or not.
No, I am pretty sure it says somewhere if you don’t “win” the bid you don’t pay. Also not an e-mail from today but couple days ago.
This isn’t really that uncommon, some airlines do similar (American I believe gave me this option on my last flight) and a lot of hotels and cruise lines do it. You are essentially bidding on available upgrades. The email wording is pretty tone deaf and the labels on that graphic are not the best (it’s trying to show if your bid has a high chance of winning an upgrade or not) but on the whole it’s a decent system to fill unused upgraded seats/rooms and in theory opens up lower seats for folks to use that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them.
This wasn’t a thing when I used to travel a lot for work before the pandemic. Getting people to bid on seats is a ridiculous attempt to wring as much money out of people as possible, nothing more.
It’s likely not coincidental that this came post-pandemic - with virtual meetings largely replacing business travel, the business class seats no longer reliably get filled. These seats also paid for basically the whole flight, so airlines are looking to monetize them through alternative means.
I’m honestly not really against this, it doesn’t really matter that much.
Hey it’s just like Amtrak’s PoorBid system of selling business/first class seats (the real name is BidUp).
If you feel like it you can just put the minimum bid and see what happens. If it’s off peak and mid week chances are pretty good.
It’s a 1 hour and a half flight. The cheapest offer I can select is 1/3 of my current ticket. I just don’t see how that’s worth it at all.
It reminds me of gambling and i don’t like it.
“oh we don’t make enough money if we just tell you how much it costs, we need you to overpay”
