V-Flyer

Has anyone been able to upgrade using miles at the airport sucessfuly? Am about to book a Vegas trip via lastminute.com but am not able to find out what booking class the flight tickets will be in......

It will depend on if they are wanting/needing to move people, if so, your offer of miles just might be accepted. Of course, it could and is more likely to be the opposite, and they will ask you to pay cash to an upgradable fare code first.it certainly wont harm to ask, worse they can say is no.

It is unlikely that Expedia will be booking you in an upgradable fare code.

on-line travel sites generally book you in the lowest fare bucket available and with the most restructions - (lack of) miles and upgradeability etc.

Even the VS website will put you in the lowest bucket unless you search for an upgradable one (but can't remember how to do that that the mo!)

On the one occasion I booked with a travel agent rather than VS direct, they booked me on a K code (as I expected).

However, when I later tried to upgrade this to an S at the airport, VS said they said they couldn't because the system didn't show how much I'd paid - hence they couldn't calculate the fare difference between the K and the S.

Why not just book the flight in the class of travel you want?

If you book through a travel agent and they use their discounted rates, even if you are in the correct fare code, you can't upgrade using miles.

They have too boko the full published fare (i.e. exactly the same as vs.com) and then add a service charge to make it more expensive rather than using their cheaper contracts.

The only reason I ask is becasue I have sucessfully upgraded using miles at the airport after booking through an online site before, but that may have just been pure luck. Reason for not booking flight directly is last minuite has a good deal on normally I book direct with Virgin Atlantic.

The aiport have the flexibility to do whatever they want as long as it is good business practice and either makes them some extra money or takes miles out of circulation.

If one cabin is overbooked then they would rather have people, instead of being bumped, using miles or cash to upgrade so everybody wins.

Due to meal loading they have to already have made the commercial decision that people will be moved to Upper long before you get to the airport and thereafter it is just getting people to pay for it.