Starting to think I'm doing the wrong thing

Hi everyone,

I'm religiously collecting miles, have about 160,000 in the bank, and am aiming for 300k in about a year's time. I've been very successful in the past getting UC G's for me and my wife, but now we have a little one.

We'd probably like to travel again when she is about 3.5 / 4, before school when we are stuck in the dreaded expensive months.

Have I any chance of bagging 3x G's realistically? I usually book when seats are released etc but haven't heard many getting 3 on the same flight... return?

Should I put my energy elsewhere?

We got 4 Gs in August LHR-LAX partly down to virgin cancelling our MAN-LAS flight but we still had the same seats on this one. As long as your flexible with departure dates e.g like traveling on a tuesday, I think you will be fine especially out of school holidays. Good luck.

Depends on your proposed destination which you don't mention.

But being flexible helps as philh says. Go for the less popular days of the week. Go for a 6 or 8 day trip rather than 7.

If it's to a VS destination with more than one flight a day consider you going with your daughter but your wife on a later flight.

I've been thinking the same

A year ago (flew last month) I managed 2 UC returns to Hong Kong on exact dates we wanted with no bother

Recently I wanted 2 PE to Vegas and despite being super flexible on departure airport/ dates etc we had a load of trouble finding anything, there were loads outbound but next to nothing back, even trying vis SFO and LAX didn't help, eventually managed something but had to make a few extra compromises

I've managed to get 4 UC reward seats LHR to JFK for the 2nd week Dec 2017. I wanted to get return seats JFK to LHR for Jan 1st 2018 but Virgin Atlantic haven't loaded any reward seats for that route for dates after 29th Dec 2017. Instead about an hour ago I've managed to get 4 Delta One reward seats which actually cost me 7,500 less miles per person and only £4.40 each in taxes. As per a previous post we can use the JFK CH and the LHR Revivals Lounge so it's a big win all round as far as I'm concerned.

I've also got MAN to BOS reward flights in UC during the summer holidays this year and previously had numerous flights to New York and Hong Kong during school holiday times. It is possible to get the flights you've just got to be quick off the mark and maybe look at indirect routing. Our actual destination for our December trip is Orlando but with no reward flights to there or Miami or Atlanta, New York seemed a good way to go especially as the internal flight will be fairly cheap.

We've managed 3 G's to San Francisco (April), 3 to Dubai (February) and 3 to Hong Kong (October), each time on the same flight.

Never had too much trouble, just have to be flexible and keeping checking availability.

3 is very doable if you're flexible especially outside of school hols.
Having said that we managed 5 Gs from LHR-JFK returning SFO-MAN in July
I suspect would be trickier to the Caribbean

Thanks everyone for your replies. You have encouraged me to keep on going. I think I'd like to get to Hawaii, so getting flights as far as LAX or SFO would be good. Thank you all!

Hi everyone,

I'm religiously collecting miles, have about 160,000 in the bank, and am aiming for 300k in about a year's time. I've been very successful in the past getting UC G's for me and my wife, but now we have a little one.

We'd probably like to travel again when she is about 3.5 / 4, before school when we are stuck in the dreaded expensive months.

Have I any chance of bagging 3x G's realistically? I usually book when seats are released etc but haven't heard many getting 3 on the same flight... return?

Should I put my energy elsewhere?

Got 3 G's LGW-CUN during summer holidays, we're coming back via NYC so didnt check CUN-LGW availability.

Hi there

We did Hawaii with our then 4 year old in 2013, getting G's to LAX was tricky. In the end we had to leave a day earlier on a later flight to get seats. We returned via SFO and were initially in PE, but Gs were available when we got to the airport.
As everyone above has mentioned, flexibility is the key. Grab them when you see them and go for PE if all else fails.
Oh and make sure you have good internet access throughout your trip so you can keep checking VS site for Gs

Hope that helps, you will love Hawaii, we we stayed on Maui - highly recommended.

also , now the mileage has gone up - in some cases dramatically - it should be easier to get G seats but will cost you more.