On many flights, traveling Business Class today is finally getting more affordable.

On a recent Avianca Flight to Lima I received an email to upgrade my flight to business class. The email was from Avianca and powered by something called PlusGrade. I had never heard of PlusGrade before. But this peaked my interest.

See the email copy below

I followed the Orange Upgrade here button and was lead to an Avianca page with my two flights listed with a price slider.

This was a bidding process on upgrading to Business Class. The starting bid for the upgrade for my flight started at $315 a person per flight. Not a bad price where I had seen upon booking the coach ticket that I would have had to pay $900 per ticket per person more to get the Business Class seat.

I bid the minimum allowable to upgrade MIA -> Lima $315 and Lima -> MIA minimum bid $280 per person + $50 taxes (taxes were not charged on the first bid).

See copy of Avianca email below

So for an additional 50% of the cost of my coach ticket I bid for my Business Upgrade.

With over 26 hours before both of my flights, my bids had been accepted for a fraction of the cost I would have paid if I would have just purchased the Business Class tickets alone.

I am now excited to try this on future flights. I see that Plusgrade is being used by a multitude of airlines now to sell unused Business Class seating.

Good luck bidding!