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15th Jun 2018

Mum claims using these two words always gets her a flight upgrade

Keeley Ryan

It’s worth a shot, right?

We’ve pulled out all the stops before in an effort to get an upgrade on a flight.

Whether it’s pulling out birthdays or anniversaries as a bargaining chip, nothing has ever really seemed to work.

Ever.

Sometimes, you get lucky and can get moved to a “better” seat which…let’s face it, isn’t too far off from the one you had before.

 

But it turns out that there’s two simple words that could make your next plane journey much comfier: revenue management.

Tilly Bagshawe, author and frequent flier, said that she uses the phrase when she asks about flight upgrades with the airline she uses, Virgin Atlantic.

She told Bloomberg that the people working in revenue management need to make sure that the flight sees a profit, and will therefore be the ones telling the reservation agents what is or isn’t possible.

She advises holidaymakers to ring up reservations and ask:

‘”Have revenue management released any first-class seats for miles upgrades yet?”

She continues:

“When they say no, ask them to check or just be put through to revenue management so you can ask when they will release some, as well as how many seats are left.

“Politely respond like this: ‘You have 20 seats unsold?  Why aren’t you releasing them?’

“Often by the end of the conversation they say, ‘OK, we’ll release one for you,’ or they might tell you to call back tomorrow.

“Doing that, we’ve had a pretty much 100 percent success rate.”