I would say that the only way you'll get them is to pay for them. You certainly won't get the upgrade for free on a first come basis as they'll hope that people who check in later will pay for an upgrade. People have been lucky to get them on occasion but I would say your chances of getting them for free is almost zero. If the flight was not sold out they would certainly rather leave the seats empty rather than give them away and annoy everyone who has paid £300pp.

In my experience, the premium cabin is usually always sold out anyway so upgrades are usually out of the question in any case.

I agree with Cynical you will be lucky to get a free or discounted upgrade especially on a flight where most of the seats are cattle class, we have booked with 1st choice this year as their flights have extra legroom as standard, if we were to book with any of the other tour companies we would definitely upgrade

Unless you are well known to the airline, there is a zero chance of a free upgrade at check-in. Chances are, all the premium seats will have been sold. As cynical says, they usually get booked up months in advance. Even on schedule airlines, unless you are a known customer, eg gold card member, frequent traveller, whatever the particular airline call it, there is a very, and I mean very, slim chance of a free upgrade. In this day and age where airlines are working on ever tighter margins, the days of anything for free are long gone.

Darren

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Thanks.

Pippy