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#919056 by walesflyer
22 Mar 2016, 12:46
Hi all, been a lurker and very occasional poster for a good few years. Family reasons have kept us grounded for a good few years, but we are now in the position to book some long haul travel again. During this time, I've amassed almost 400,000 miles through a combination of credit card use and shopping-online. We are keen to burn some of these and book a great holiday with upper flights either later this year or any time next year. We are quite keen on Miami and driving down to the keys... but is this a notoriously hard route to get reward/upgrade seats? So, are there any times of year that we will be more likely to use out miles for Miami? We are also open to other destinations and are flexible with dates and also flexible in how we use the miles, i.e. reward seats/upgrade. we are not too bothered where we go, just want some nice flights and a good holiday after a difficult time.

On another note, I met a Virgin CC member on the weekend in a social situation.... she advised me to try and use the FC miles sooner rather than later as they think they will be bought out completely at some stage.... :-(

thank you in advance for any advice.
#919057 by mikethe3rd
22 Mar 2016, 13:00
Given your flexibility I doubt you'll have an issue. It's harder getting reward seats on the return leg for obvious reasons but I can't imagine you'll have that much of an issue if you avoid school holidays. I'm assuming there are only two of you travelling?

Did you have any dates in mind and do you know how to check current availability? I've looked at September for you as a starting point. This is for 2 adults.

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/bo ... =1/09/2016

You need the purple line to show availability in UC.
#919060 by moodyblue
22 Mar 2016, 16:19
We've just had to change UC flights we had for April due to an unexpected hospital admission coming up. We changed them to LHR to MIA out and return from MCO 3 weeks later with no trouble. We fly out mid September and return 1st week in October.
Good luck booking!
#919064 by dickydotcom
22 Mar 2016, 17:21
Since there are 30 upper seats on the 787 to Miami you should have more chance of reward seats for that flight than MCO from Gatwick with only 14 seats in Upper.
Having said that, we have managed to get to MCO and back in Upper, three times now so it is possible with persistence.
Do lots of checking to see if you can spot a pattern, we found a Sunday was a good day to make our return journey.
I have been known to check 6 times a day when I thought seats were about to be released.
As for booking soon, the cost of reward upgrades has already done a massive hike, but with 400k I would guess you will be looking for full reward seats which are still good value.
Best of luck with your quest.
Dick D
#919073 by Maximus
23 Mar 2016, 00:25
We are flying LHR<>MIA in 2 weeks and there were several dates we could have chosen in April to fly (which is end peak season i would think), so you should certainly be able to get some UC seats. We are also driving down to the Keys. Can't wait!

Let us know what you book :)
#934512 by jr17
18 Apr 2017, 08:37
moodyblue wrote:We've just had to change UC flights we had for April due to an unexpected hospital admission coming up. We changed them to LHR to MIA out and return from MCO 3 weeks later with no trouble. We fly out mid September and return 1st week in October.
Good luck booking!


I've been looking so hard for a trip that is exactly what you have booked. LHR-MIA out with MCO return, but cannot seem to get this to show pretty much any date at all that I can search in the whole open calendar. How did you do this? (Online or Call?) and how far in advance?
#934530 by walesflyer
19 Apr 2017, 10:51
Hi,

Looking at the dates of the original post, looks like we booked in March and our flights were in October. I don't recall having too much difficulty, but we were reasonably flexible with dates.
This is contrast to the G's we got this year, as we are going to Seattle in August, whereas we were originally planning Sept/Oct for our West Coast US trip - we were also keen to get them booked before the increase in miles needed. We could only find G's for August to Seattle (and return)) and nothing from SFO which would have been an alternative.
#934534 by Turquoise
19 Apr 2017, 13:41
We have just returned from America - did outward LHR/MIA and return JFK/LHR with an internal Jet Blue flight RSW/EWR. Got the Gs with no problem at all last November. We did the drive down to the Keys and thought it was fabulous - well worth doing, although the return journey is a bit of a slog!!
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