Advice on using flying club miles for seat upgrades

Hi all.

I was wondering if any of you could give me some advice/information regarding using flying club miles for a seat upgrade.

Over the past 6 or 7 years I’ve made a habit of taking an annual trip out to Las Vegas. I joined the flying club a few years ago so I’ve been very slowly accumulating miles (I only tend to travel once a year). As I hadn’t really got a lot of miles I never really thought about them – until last year when Virgin sent me an email telling me that I had enough miles to upgrade to premium economy on my next trip. I then started to look at the whole miles thing and decided to get a VA credit card to boost my mileage – as my old credit card was not giving me any rewards at all.

I’ve now started looking at booking my flight for this year, and this is where I need a bit of advice. Naïvely I thought I’d be able to do what I’ve always done and book the cheapest possible flight (usually around £700-£750) and apply for an upgrade. I’ve since found out that this isn’t the case – as I need to book a seat with a Y, B, R or L fare code – which are currently around £250 more than the lowest price ones for the time I’m looking to go.
The extra cost in itself isn’t an issue as I’m happy to pay a little extra to get a lot more. However, my concern is that I pay the extra, phone up for an upgrade and then they tell me that none are available. I was just wondering if this is likely to happen – or if it’s actually happened to anyone else? I’m planning to book up at least 4 months in advance; I travel on my own and never during school holidays. So, in your collective experiences, would you say that I’ve got a good chance of getting my upgrade? I appreciate that upgrades aren’t guaranteed and I could be leaving myself open to paying extra and not getting an upgrade – but if the possibility of this is fairly slim then I’m happy to chance it. Also, do you think that if I phoned the flying club before I book, would they be able to advise me as to how many upgrade seats are available for the flight?

Sorry about the lengthy post – I very much appreciate anyone who has got this far. One more question, do you know if you can upgrade just one leg of a journey? As the flight back from Las Vegas is overnight, I find it a lot more uncomfortable coming back than going. So, instead of upgrading both legs to say premium economy, ideally it would be nice to go out on economy and pile all of my mileage into the return leg and upgrade from economy to upper class. Is this possible?

Thanks very much in advance for any help you can give me. Sorry again for the lengthy post – but I wanted to get all the information across.

Kind regards, Colin.

Best to call flying club, as they can check upgrade availability and tell you how much extra you'll need to pay as well as process it - all on the phone.

Yes, you can do an economy outbound and upgrade to upper class on the way back.

Only thing is, if you've already bought the ticket, there may be complications as you tend to need to be a ,little flexible on dates to get reward flights, and your lowest fare economy you've bought may not be flexible.

However, the scenarios you've outlined are all do-able, and the best advice from me would be to call up flying club and be set them the challenge!

Good luck!

Welcome,
Spread your options..

Look at LAX, cheap quick flights then over to Vegas, plus better flight and LHR lounge.

Look for reward seat, then ring to get breakdown on costs

NH

You've asked the same question that I've been trying to figure out in my head for the past few weeks. I fly to the States once/twice a year and have just got a Credit Card to get more points so I'm some way behind where you are.

The way I understand it is when searching for a flight, you need to select Economy Flexible in order to be able to upgrade. The flights are significantly more expensive though than Economy Lowest which is my only concern and I'm starting to wonder if it's much of a saving...

To use miles for upgrading, you are best calling up flying club without booking on line, this way they'll help you to find availability etc.

In terms of worth it? All subjective, but if you look at the cost of premium economy or upper class, you'll see that the economy flexible ticket is far cheaper!

The way I understand it is when searching for a flight, you need to select Economy Flexible in order to be able to upgrade. The flights are significantly more expensive though than Economy Lowest which is my only concern and I'm starting to wonder if it's much of a saving...

Not quite right. Economy flexible will bring up the 'full Y' fare which is the most expensive economy seat going.

To get the cheapest upgradable fare you need to get an 'L' fare which you can find on the VS site under:

Flying Club - Spend Miles - Upgrades/Companion Flights.

I appreciate that upgrades aren’t guaranteed and I could be leaving myself open to paying extra and not getting an upgrade – but if the possibility of this is fairly slim then I’m happy to chance it.

It's my understanding that upgrades (once confirmed and purchased through Flying Club) are guaranteed upgrades. You get a ticket in the class that you upgraded to, and you can select a seat.

I had the same question last week when I called up to book. They told me that it is a confirmed upgrade. I went to the VS website after I made the booking and selected my seat and everything. This was an upgrade from economy to upper class.

[honey lamb]

Welcome,
Spread your options..

Look at LAX, cheap quick flights then over to Vegas, plus better flight and LHR lounge.

Look for reward seat, then ring to get breakdown on costs

NH

The OP was looking to travel in PE so therefore no lounge.

Colin,

Welcome to V-Flyer.

Just to re-iterate what others have said, your best option is to call Virgin Atlantic and discuss your options with them rather than try to do it on line. It does no harm to have a look at the calendar by doing a dummy booking and selecting the Use miles option. It may show availability but there may not be L availability on that date. Really the best and easiest option is to call. Be prepared to be flexible with your dates and hopefully the upgrade gods will smile favourably upon you.

The other option is to consider flying into either LAX or SFO and taking an internal flight from either airport (or the reverse if you want to upgrade your return) Because of the different configuration and the fact that LAX has two flights a day and SFO will have two flights a day three times a week in the summer there is the likelihood of more availability

Best of luck

Now you've got the Virgin credit card(s) you also get a premium economy upgrade when you use miles to book an economy reward flight if you spend £5000 in a year or 2 if you spend £10000.
Much easier to build up the miles than flying. There's also online shopping, hotel partners etc.

You need to be a little flexible but if you're travelling outside school hols I would suggest your chances are quite good. For the last 3 summers I've got the PE reward flights I wanted to the US for my wife and 2 kids (buying a revenue fare for myself). Your chances are better with routes that have more than one flight/day ie LAX, JFK/EWR.

Fully agree contacting flying club best way to search for availabilty - they are much better now call centre is back in UK and last 2 bookings I've found them superb, helpful and very friendly.

Good luck!

Hi all.

Thank you all so much for you replies - some excellent advice there.

I’ll definitely be taking your advice and calling the flying club before booking, to discuss all my options.

Thanks also to all who suggested going via LAX as I’d not thought about that – potentially gives me a bit more flexibility.

Happy travelling to all of you