Help on New York Flights

I am going to call Virgin in the next week to book flights to New York in May 2014, but I hoped some of you knowledgable bods here could provide some hints or advice to get the best deal.

Its our silver wedding so we would like to fly Premium (upper class does look perhaps out of our league).

I have around 63,000 airmiles, my wife has around 20,000.

I have a note from Virgin that I am entitled to one free upgrade to Premium this year.

Should we -
Book 2 x Premium Flights and try to get upper class upgrades with points and/or cash?
Book 2 x economy flights and use points for my wifes upgrade (mine would be free) to Premium?
Save up more miles and get 2 x economy flights for free (70,000 miles) and then pay for upgrades?
Wait on a points sale between now and May?
Any other combo you folks would recommend to get best value?

We are flying Edinburgh to New York 7th May returning 20th May and it would be useful to arrive in Newark rather than JFK. Not fussy which airport we fly home from.

Any and all advice much appreciated... I've tried going through this but get all confused!

Never give up looking for UC. We have been traveling PE for the last 10+ years and never managed it - until now ...On our next outbound trip UC was only £30 p.p. more than PE. We normally spend £20 on the V.Room it is only a tenner more! No brainer. Will look forward to writing the TR. I suspect this is because it is a 'holiday' destination, so few business travellers. Different story for the homeward trip though. Back to PE and the real world.

One of the best ways is to buy M fares in economy and use 40000 miles per person to upgrade to UC

I agree with Blacky, the most economical option for you to get into UC with the current available miles would be to purchase 2 x 'M' fare economy seats, then upgrade into UC for 20K miles per person each way.. total of 80K miles needed.

I have a note from Virgin that I am entitled to one free upgrade to Premium this year.

I have a question about this though.... what kind of note are we talking about? Would it be one of the Credit card Eco-PE reward upgrade vouchers or something else?

Hi,

it was an email telling me I had earned a "premium economy reward upgrade" by using my VA credit card a LOT...

Its available to use until Oct 2014.

it was an email telling me I had earned a "premium economy reward upgrade" by using my VA credit card a LOT...

Ahh ok, that is one of the economy to PE reward upgrades and can only be used on economy reward flights as an upgrade to PE so it won't be of use to you in this circumstance.

M fare economy class upgraded to UC with miles is the way to go I would say 8D

Another a Vote for buying an M class economy and upgrading to upper with miles, 40k miles each you can use 60k of your miles and 20k of your other halfs

it was an email telling me I had earned a "premium economy reward upgrade" by using my VA credit card a LOT...

Ahh ok, that is one of the economy to PE reward upgrades and can only be used on economy reward flights as an upgrade to PE so it won't be of use to you in this circumstance.

M fare economy class upgraded to UC with miles is the way to go I would say 8D

You can only use the Amex CC upgrade if you book your flights using airmiles not money as well !

thanks for the advice folks, going to give them a call today and see what happens!

thanks for the advice folks, going to give them a call today and see what happens!

Let us know how you get on y)

Not a great experience on the airmiles phone line.
Don't know if the girl I spoke with was new, or there were just so many glitches on the system she was using, but it was next to hopeless.

Apparently no UC miles upgrade seats available.
A class M ticket will be around £1,400.
Upgrade to Premium economy can be done for £1700 plus 40,000 miles...
I could get the same deal myself online for £1760 and only 15,000 miles!

I think what I am now going to do is buy a few miles, combine my wife and my airmiles into 110,000 and get premium economy return flights.

Looks like UC isnt going to happen...

Don't worry too much yet and don't be too hasty to book anything yet , the m fares will come down in price in the new year and I've never had any trouble either with availability to New York as long as you a little bit flexible by the odd day or two , my last flight a few weeks ago was an m fare booked the night before and I paid about £800 .

Sounds really expensive for an m fare! Might be worth double checking that!

sorry that price was for 2 adults

sorry that price was for 2 adults

Ah that's more like it then y)