Absolute beginner – Reward flight?

Hi,

Hopefully someone can help me. I’ve found your guys from searching around on the web and I’m more confused than ever.

Basically my husband and I have built up 75k miles each and we’re looking to put these to good use for a trip to Las Vegas for our 40th’s next year. We don’t mind when we go we’d just love to experience upper class.

So I’m after the best way to do it. Do I book a ticket and get a companion flight, buy a ticket and try and upgrade or buy more miles to get a reward flight?

Any help (as basic as possible!) for this confused lady would be great.

I would do a "spend miles" search on the VS website around the rough dates and this will tell you if there are available reward seats. You can then opt to purchase an M fare and upgrade to a G. Or if you miles are sufficient you could use all for a reward fare, remembering ofcourse that you still need to pay the UC taxes on a reward fare or a G. Hope thats ok?
Probably the best way though is to give VS a call and see what they come up with. They are usually really good. Plus if you are flexible with dates that will increase your chances.

Another vote for giving VS/Flying Club a ring. We've always found them really helpful. Reward flights are a dark art but gfonk's advice puts it very succinctly. You'll find it's really helpful that your dates are flexible. Do let us know how you get on and good luck.

Hi and welcome.

As gfonk says, the most efficient way of using miles tends to be buying an upgradable 'M' class economy fare and using miles to bump you up to Upper.

You will have to call Virgin to ascertain the price and availability of the 'M' fare but a ballpark figure would probably be £800-900 including the extra taxes & fees for Upper.

There also needs to be reward seat availability in Upper ('G' class) and that's likely to be your problem: the Upper Class cabins on the 747s used on the Vegas route only have 14 seats so reward availability is scarce.

If you're very flexible with your dates you may get lucky, otherwise consider going via LAX or SFO and book a cheap connecting flight to LAS. Even then, reward seat availability may be scarce, you just have to keep checking - daily ideally - and pounce if they come up which they can at any time.

Good luck! It can be very frustrating but the key is flexibility, patience and persistence.

ditto to what Gumshoe said.
I cant speak for the Vegas route but I have just done it for MCO next year.
I bought the tickets as soon as I could, i.e. 11 months before the return date. I was able to upgrade straight away to PE for both legs. Daily checks for reward seats in Upper showed they were getting released a day at a time and 3 days later I got our outbound Upper upgrade. This was about 10 months from flight date. The inbound was more problematic because we had chosen a Saturday to fly and these just weren't getting released. Then I saw Sunday flights available so about 6 weeks after getting my outbound I changed the return date and got Upper coming back.

Checking for reward seats: Do a dummy booking for a miles only ONE WAY for the date you want. You'll have to do two checks but if you try for a return and one leg isn't available it won't offer you any. Don't forget to put Upper in the search. More than once I got all excited being offered economy because I'd left my search on economy.
Dick D

PS Have a great 40th. Ours will be down on Burgh Island where my avatar picture was taken.

Just to add that I learnt all this information from my fellow v-flyers.
and hope you have a great 40th. GOD mine is next year!!!! eeeeeschk!!! no way!!!! lol
PS-good luck with the upgrades/reward seats. as gumshoe said it can be very frustrating at times but patience, persistence and definitely flexibility should win the day.

thanks all for all of your advice. Just checking now and you're right las vegas is non existant (from my quick search). I'm seeing availabilty for SFO upper both ways for 10k miles and fees of £553.

Adding on the £300 odd I would need to add to buy 25k miles this appears that we'd get a first ticket for £850 odd. Is this a good use of miles or am I better getting the M fare and upgrading?

[honey lamb]

thanks all for all of your advice. Just checking now and you're right las vegas is non existant (from my quick search). I'm seeing availabilty for SFO upper both ways for 10k miles and fees of £553.

Adding on the £300 odd I would need to add to buy 25k miles this appears that we'd get a first ticket for £850 odd. Is this a good use of miles or am I better getting the M fare and upgrading?

Call Flying Club immediately and ask the price on the M fare with an upgrade to UC and then decide which is the better for you. Do it quickly! UC reward fares can be in the realm of hen's teeth and rocking horse poo! You snooze, you lose!

id echo what HL said.
let us know how you get on.

id echo what HL said.
let us know how you get on.

Also let us know how long you had to wait in the call queue? There are some incredible stories on VA's FB page of hold times more than 2 hours. Yesterday someone posted that a VA rep on Live Chat actually confirmed the wait time was 2 hours 20 minutes - truly shocking!

If you haven't done it yet ring the Upper Class number
01293 473600
It seems to get answered quicker and even if they can't deal they will transfer you to someone who can.
Dick D

How did you get on tinkerbelleuk? Hope it is good news?

Turning 40 is no biggy, 60 is the new 40 (says I hurtling towards 50!).

Hope you get to do the trip.