Bilt Palladium to Air France Gold: Claim It the Day You Qualify
Air France charges for seat selection even in business class. Flying Blue Gold waives that fee, but the Bilt upgrade is not instant. I nearly learned that the expensive way.
When Bilt released its new card lineup, I could not make sense of it. So I put the decision off, and I kept putting it off until every good sign-up promotion had expired.
Once I finally worked it out, I opened a Bilt Palladium with one goal: push it to Platinum status and take the Air France Gold status that comes with it. Flying Blue Gold carries across SkyTeam too, so it also covers Delta and a few other decent airlines.
To get there quickly, I made the card the main business card for one of my US entities. Rent stayed on it as the only personal charge each month.
A few months later I hit the target. Then I made my one mistake: I sat on the Air France upgrade. My reasoning was that status pays off in economy, so I would claim it the first time I had to fly in the back. In business class, status rarely changes anything.
Do not do this. Here is why.
The $227.50 surprise
A few days ago I planned a trip to Italy. I found a good business class option on Air France for 60,000 miles and booked it.
At seat selection, Air France told me that picking a seat in business class costs money. And not a token amount: $227.50 for the Orlando to Paris segment alone.
Why the seat was worth arguing about
Seats in this cabin are not equal. Nine were still open in business, and only two of them were the right ones: 8A and 8L, the window seats where a side console sits between you and the aisle. Maximum privacy, minimum traffic past your shoulder. Exactly what you want on an overnight flight.
If you care about this kind of detail, sitting in the wrong seat feels almost like a downgrade to economy.
The three day upgrade
Sergey pointed out that Gold status makes seat selection free. And I had the Air France upgrade sitting unclaimed in my Bilt account.
That is when I found out the upgrade takes three days to process.
Not fatal in my case, since I still had about two weeks before the flight. But it opened a window in which the two good seats could go to someone else.
It worked out. The upgrade came through in a little over two days: I applied on July 28 and the status landed on July 30.
Then I picked 8A, for free.
The takeaway
Claim your Air France upgrade the moment you earn the status in Bilt. Processing is not instant, and the reason you will suddenly want it, a specific seat on a specific flight, shows up with no warning.
Next on my list is the free Blade helicopter transfer from the airport to Manhattan, another Bilt Platinum perk. Now I just need a reason to fly to New York.