What will it cost to upgrade from flexible PE?

Hi all,
I'm sure this has been discussed before many times, and I did try to find the answer first but not doing very well with that...

Mrs. Clubman is booked in PE to ORD next week and traveling out on a Fully Flexible fare.
This was booked through their cooperate Amex TA, and I assume being a flexible PE it is booked in W (?)
Does anyone know what it would cost to upgrade her to UC from a W fare at Check in at LHR?
Trying to price this up on the website booking system when choosing a W fare, it is asking for a staggering 1,738.00 to upgrade one way!
I see somewhere on thsi site that upgrading from a lower fare would cost 599, but nothing about upgrading from a higher more flexible fare.

Also, she's traveling on an A343, is there still one of these aircraft that hasnt been re fitted with the new PE?
And if so, are the chances of her ending up with that one as good/bad as on any other route?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[mitchja]

The upgrade cost will be quite expensive so I'd say the website is correct, as you can only upgrade flexible fares to a higher cabin flexible fare (ie in your case, a full J fare).

All the A343's except one (G-VSUN) have the new PE seats so the changes of getting SUN will be slim, although not totally out of the question as she has visited ORD twice in Feb.

Regards

Originally posted by mitchja
The upgrade cost will be quite expensive so I'd say the website is correct, as you can only upgrade flexible fares to a higher cabin flexible fare (ie in your case, a full J fare).

Many thanks James!
So does that mean the price to upgarde cheaper PE fares to UC is less then upgardeing more expensive PE fares?

If she has miles or you have some spare, 20K will get her from PE-UC providing there is G availability. She will still earn miles for flying PE, so the net loss of miles will not be too bad.

[Pete]

So does that mean the price to upgarde cheaper PE fares to UC is less then upgardeing more expensive PE fares?

Bizarrely, I have been told this is the case at an airport ticket desk in the past (although calm reasoning by the agent figured out how to get me a more reasonable price).

The most cost-effective upgrade from a flexible PE fare is to throw some miles at it. 20K gets you into Upper.

[mitchja]

Originally posted by clubman

So does that mean the price to upgarde cheaper PE fares to UC is less then upgardeing more expensive PE fares?

Often yes, this will be the case.

The reason why you can only upgrade fully flexible fares to other fully flexible fares is to stop people who get their travel paid for by their companies (which is often booked as a fully flexible fare) upgrading to a higher but more deeply discounted fare, which often works out less than the original fare paid and then pocketing the difference in fare.

For example your company books you in a fully flexible PE fare (W) to JFK (£1755.70 return) but then you 'upgrade' to a discounted Upper fare (Z) which is only £1298.70 return and so pocketing the £457 difference. So to stop this, you can only upgrade to a J fare from a W or Y fare.

Regards

And you can buy 19k miles for £300 so you don't need to have that many knocking about already

The most cost-effective upgrade from a flexible PE fare is to throw some miles at it. 20K gets you into Upper.

Thanks guys!