Using miles to upgrade?

I have never used my miles to upgrade my flight am thinking of using them on return journey of my next flight, from Econ to PE and understand I need to book a certain 'fare ticket' rather than just the usual cheapest I normally book online but I wondered what the availability is normally like for the upgrade, I'm thinking it's an 'U fare' i'll be needing?

It will be for around mid May and on a monday from either MCO-LGW or MIA-LHR, is availability usually better on a certain one of those flights for the upgrade? or is there really no differance?

Thanks in advance

Availabilty will depend on what the demand is from fare paying pax! The more prepsred to hand over hard cash the less reward options are available.

The thing to do is look at the 'schedules' for the flights you want in the 'tool box' and then click on 'load check'

You can then compare the letter codes and numbers to the list of fare codes.

You might find it easier to have v-flyer open in a couple of tabs to cross refer.

The minimum fare you need in Econ is 'L' to be able to upgrade into PE PLUS there needs to be availability in the 'U' fare bucket in PE.

You might find that booking a 'K' in PE is cheaper than an 'L' in econ and upgrading.

[honey lamb]

To check availability of reward seats in any cabin the best way is to do a dummy booking using the "Spend miles" option. You will need to be logged into your FC account. Another option is to use the Upgrade/Companion Flights tab on the left hand side of the VS website. That allows you to choose an upgradeable fare.

Tonty's advice though about checking the price first is good as sometimes the lowest fares in PE can be lower than the highest fares in economy

Thanks

I did have a look on VA site for availability with upgradeable fares and on both Miami & Orlando to London routes only show available for the next couple of months and then nothing, is this normal? are U class fares only released a few months before? im guessing they do that to see if they can actually sell the seats first.
Will also keep in mind about price of cheapest PE seat sometimes being cheaper, long way off yet till I will be booking anyway as I always wait for a sale.

[Neil]

No, reward seats are usually released pretty much straight away. The number released are limited, and then once the initial seats have all gone, it is quite often only a few weeks or even days before te flight before any more are released.

With regards to mid may next year, the flights are literally only being released now, so it could be a few weeks before any reward seats are released, if at all. As Tonty said, sometimes they might not decide to release any at all.

I would suggest you check on a daily basis, as PE on the MCO route is popular so seats go fast.

Neil