V-Flyer

I've got what I consider to be a fairly obvious mileage earning/spending pattern: accrue lots of miles and tier points from expensive D/J business travel and then redeem on holiday flights which have historically been to the Caribbean. And even when we cannot get award seats we have often managed to find cheapish Z fares.

However, it seems that (a) there are now few/no award seats ex-LGW in Upper Class and (b) Z fares are rarer than a very rare thing indeed. For example, I've just looked at LGW-ANU in Feb 07 and the price is £3.5K.

Clearly VS can fill these seats with paying customers, some of whom are likely to be Virgin Holidays punters. But what of the Cat and the Kitten? At the moment it looks as if I would be better off putting my miles into BA (not exactly lucrative, but at least there are reward seats) or *Alliance if I want to maintain the Kitten in the sun-drenched luxury to which she has become accustomed....

What to do? [:?]

BC

PS. May go Lufthansa to Dallas in a couple of weeks (cheap business class) which might reinvigorate my interest in *Alliance... help!

Put it down to revenue management - they wanted an aircraft packed with PE...

Alternatively, can business flyers like you and me persuade our manageent that they need to send us to the caribbean, MCO, LAS etc. in J and D more often, thereby increasing loads and perhaps forcing them to create another UCS cabin on the LGW planes.

Originally posted by csparker
Alternatively, can business flyers like you and me persuade our manageent that they need to send us to the caribbean, MCO, LAS etc. in J and D more often, thereby increasing loads and perhaps forcing them to create another UCS cabin on the LGW planes.

Would that I had some clients in the Caribbean! Unfortunately not that many chemical/defence businesses have any offices in Antigua (well, maybe for money laundering ).

Incidentally, I didn't realise it but I have enough BA points for another MFU from CW to FIRST for my Dallas trip, so it's off to LGW once more in a couple of weeks. More BA miles -- CW to the Caribbean is becoming more and more tempting.

BC

Originally posted by csparker
Put it down to revenue management - they wanted an aircraft packed with PE...

Got an offer in the snail mail yesterday for $400.00 off PE, OohMy!

Kind of on topic.

I think that as more 346's come into the fleet the LHR 744's will be rotated to LGW,now do you think that they will be re-configured for more PE seats,maybe take out the top deck suites but leave the bottom deck alone?

I suspect they will be reconfigured as LGW 744s, unfortunately.

BC

It's a pity because I think they CAN fill the extra UCS seats on routes like LAS, as well as the Caribbean, but perhaps not on the MCO routes though. Keeping the B zone downstairs, but converting the upstairs UC to PE sounds like a good "in-between" config and allows them to keep the IFBT station and larger bar.

You have to try all kinds of tricks to get an upgrade to UC these days - getting to the airport obscenely early is a start.