Miles Upgrade to NYC in January?

After my first great UC flight earlier this year, I am now planning to visit a friend of mine in the USA in January.
The sale fare of 1400 GBP in UC is expiring on Tuesday and I'm not sure whether I should spend that or use some miles. I don't fly with VS that often and a combination of one Z and one L is 1000GBP, the L return trip is 540GBP.
So is this worth the miles or should I book the Z return until tuesday? I have thought about it too much the last days and am pretty helpless, so what would you do?

[buns]

Hi Birdie

One thing you do have to take into account is that if you upgrade the L Fare with miles, you also have to then pay the higher taxes associated with the premium cabin[:0]

On one I have just booked, the taxes came in at a whopping 300!!

So compare the entire fare before you decide

buns

That's a good point, although I think the difference is quite small because the tax and fees on an economy ticket are already pretty high! I recently did a one way upgrade from L to Upper, SFO-LHR and the extra taxes/fees were about 30 per person.

Ben

[Neil]

Only just noticed this thread. Jan is generally a quiet time for leisure pax to NYC and looking previous years, there have been quiet a few G seats available, so getting one shouldn't be too difficult. I think an L/Z combo is a good way to go (providing you do get a G upgrade) as you still earn a good chunk of miles, if that is important, but the saving is quiet significant. 1400 isn't a great sale fare for NYC, when you consider there were just over 1000 in the last sale, of course YMMV.

Thank you for your help guys, I didn't know about the taxes[y]
And the friend I'm going to visit is going to come with me on the way back anyway and as she cannot cannot afford UC, we'll both book PE.
So I'll keep on saving my miles[:)]