Shanghai UC sorted. But...

I'm still not sure if I/flying club went about it the best way.

You may have seen my previous post when I was deciding what to do. The objective was always to make my miles the most cost effective, rather than focusing on earning miles.

I originally booked an all out economy reward, and the plan was to use miles to upgrade this later.

A reward became available on the outbound leg soon after, but I realised my error in that to purchase the necessary miles for this after depleting my account completely was going to be expensive, on top of what I'd already paid in the taxes.

I called flying club and they said it wouldn't be a problem to start the booking again.

The various options were:

Combi-fare: M class outbound, reward economy return (Needed to purchase approx 2000 miles extra)
Combi-fare: G reward outbound, lowest economy return (Purchased extra 16000 in sale)
M class outbound, discount economy return (both revenue - ruled this one out in the end as the most expensive option)

After some deliberation, I called back and was sort of funnelled into going for the 2nd option, as the cheapest option overall, in contrast to what I'd been told before. Total cost, including purchasing extra miles etc. was approx £1500 for two of us... 100,000 miles spent.

So... I can't remember the exact prices for the others, and I don't want to call them back as I keep pestering them, but have I gone for the most cost effective option? It's non-refundable anyway, but for future bookings perhaps I have a way to go before I graduate from the School of V Flyer lol

Hi
This is my first post in the world of vflyer and my experience is VERY limited but for what it's worth here goes

I have recently done something similar by purchasing two flights to Hong Kong in M class at a cost of £800 each then used 120000 to upgrade both to upper

Because of tax increases total amount spent was £2200

Hope this is a useful comparison

Ps now I have done my first post it was quite painless so I will now be doing more

Firstly, welcome to the forum cks9865!

I guess that was to upgrade both ways for both of you? If so that seems like a good deal to me.

There's so many different options it can be very confusing - although i'd say if you want to earn miles and aren't worried about the cost, M class is always the way. I did the same on my last UC flight to JFK.

If like me on this occasion using miles to cut costs is the aim, it seems combi-fares are the way to go, but as below working out the cheapest possible way can be a headache, as you can include M class fares on a combi.

I won't have the option of upgrading on the way back as that sector is the cheapest non-upgradeable economy fare :(