Now upgrade seats on Air Canada through auction on select flights

The upgrade program will be available across the sectors, whether tickets are booked directly through Air Canada’s official website or mobile site or a call center or travel agents. During this process the customers would be sent an email 10 days prior to their departure date inviting the customers to take part in the online seat upgrade auction in business class or premium economy.

A spokesperson of Air Canada while explaining about the bidding process said that the customers would be required to visit the airline’s website and make use of its sliding minimum/maximum scale, or what the airline calls its “strength meter”. When a bid price is selected by the customer then they will be informed about the ranking or status of the bid in comparison to other customers booked on that particular flight.

Apart from this, Air Canada has also made arrangements for encouraging regular check-ins. The customers would be updated on their bids after they visit the airline’s official website and insert their flight numbers. The customers will be intimated approximately 48 hours prior to their departure whether they had actually won the bid or not.

The seat upgrade auctions are not something new. It may be recalled that Air Canada is only following suit because in the past other international airlines such as Qantas Airways, Swiss International Air Lines, Lufthansa and Air China had also introduced upgraded auctions. Travel experts have said that the upgrade auctions concept is going to become popular and more widespread in future. The simple reason being that the airlines see it as a great opportunity for increasing their revenues and profits significantly prior to departure and try to fly to the capacity as far as possible. This will also prove to be a boon for the customers as they will get added space and amenities by spending extra few bucks.