V-Flyer

Am feeling well happy with my recent experience: I'd spent hours working out an optimal way to fly UC both ways to west coast USA next Sept. Once again it seems that buying an L class EC ticket and using miles to upgrade to UC G is still by far the best use of precious miles and hard earned cash.

As I’m sure many folk here know the challenge often centres on finding prized G’s on your outbound flight but not being able to go ahead & book because your intended return flight hasn’t opened up yet (336 day rule). Doing dummy bookings on vs.com I found the perfect flight to LAX and then used the on screen help function to enter in to LIVE chat with an agent who confirmed that the 2 G’s definitely existed and happily offered to ‘hold’ then for me until my desired return flight opened up on the system. When my return flight opened at midnight the other night up the 2 magical G’s were there on the VS20 ex SFO....wonderful! Anxious not to lose them bang on 7am I called premier team who sorted out the whole thing instantly, pulling miles from each of our accounts. I had the e-tickets in my Inbox before I’d even said goodbye to the extremely helpful agent!

I’m more than happy with overall value for money too. OK we all disagree with the fuel surcharge but, given that I’d have paid circa £550 in taxes/fees for an outright reward costing 100,000 miles, I paid £1112 for the base L and all fees/taxes. Most importantly I only burned 50,000 miles. So the net cash cost to me for flying Upper Class to & from west coast USA = £562.

Very happy overall....even more so when I see that the cheapest Economy fare on the identical dates is £704!

Result! ^) ^)

Don't forget you'll also get the miles and TP's from the original "L" fare as well.So this netts the 50k miles down by quite a bit more!

You'll have to claim then on the phone though as the wonderous VS IT system still cant cope with such bookings when allocating miles against an upgraded revenue fare.

Again FC team in Swansea are well used to this and will do it whilst you are on the phone.

Enjoy your trip

Paul

How long did they hold the outbound for?

I did the same for a trip to NYC next year; all I have to do now is remember to claim the miles on the base Economy fare...

A fabulous deal of all deals - great find, superb patience and brilliant service y) y) y)

pjh wrote:How long did they hold the outbound for?

I did the same for a trip to NYC next year; all I have to do now is remember to claim the miles on the base Economy fare...

For 2 days, not sure if they would have done any longer had I asked?

I salute the Maestro oo) oo) oo)

buns

Nice one Vegascrazy y) y)

As long as you are happy with the result is the main thing, sounds like a good deal to me

Also good to hear the VS customer service team on form, unfortunately not many carriers offer this kind of service. More reason to keep flying VS 8D

ScubaRoo wrote:Hmmm,

Not worthwhile for NY next March.

UC full burn= 80,000 =£495
EC (Y class) 40,000 = £1470

Worth bearing in mind though.

Ji

Hi ScubaRoo,

The issue here is you've selected the absolutely most expensive fully flexible Economy fare. To upgrade always go for an L fare, it's less than half what you quote for the Y at £695. You can get L fare quotes at http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/fr ... /index.jsp

Cheers
James

ScubaRoo wrote:Can you search for L fares online?

Also doing the maths you've effectively paid and "bought" approx 58,000 miles for £562?

Hi again, yes you can search online - have pasted link on my other reply.

Maybe I'm missing something but don't understand what you mean by buying 58k miles? Basically my situation was that I didn't have enough miles for an outright (miles paid for) reward - that would have been 100k miles. I did have enough for a redemption upgrade though, so for £1114 (cash out of the door) I simply used my 50k stash to obtain an Upper Class west coast return.

The reason I think this is *the* most effective use of miles is pretty much down to the sheer amount of tax/fees that we get clobbered for regardless if going down the full reward route, along with the fact that you need twice as many miles (which in my case I earn 90% through credit card spend).

In conclusion I am more than happy because if I'd just bought an UC ticket for my dates the cheapest is £3,300! I only paid £1112 and only parted with 50k miles Furthermore even if I had an endless supply of miles and got an outright reward I'd still have parted with around £550 hard cash.

Cheers
James

EDIT: Just to add that, as my base fare is a revenue L it means I will earn miles & tier points when I fly. I don't care about the tier points as I'll never earn enough for Gold but I'll earn around 11000 miles which means my net miles outlay for the trip above comes down to 39000

Also just to add, simply by paying my £1114 bill on VS MBNA black I'll reap over 4000 miles (as you get quadruple miles on virgin related transactions), so that nets my 'real' miles outlay down to 35000. Only just realised that so even happier!

I must admit I've been looking at a way of utilising my Amex PE reward vouchers, year on year I've been awarded these but they've sat there unused. For me (for west coast trip) to make use of one of these vouchers I would have to spend 47500 miles for the Economy ticket, but also £425 cash due to the fees/tax. So I'll have forked out near on the same miles as the Upper Class trip I've just booked but will only be in PE. Of course my cash outlay is £700 more but that's paid for UC & everything that comes with it.

Cheers
James

I stand amazed and salute you Vegascrazy oo)
It all seems like a totally different language to me !

Just how much would it cost me to have you sort the same thing out for me when I want to do our West coast trip next time

Vegascrazy wrote:

ScubaRoo wrote:Hmmm,

Not worthwhile for NY next March.

UC full burn= 80,000 =£495
EC (Y class) 40,000 = £1470

Worth bearing in mind though.

Ji

Hi ScubaRoo,

The issue here is you've selected the absolutely most expensive fully flexible Economy fare. To upgrade always go for an L fare, it's less than half what you quote for the Y at £695. You can get L fare quotes at http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/fr ... /index.jsp

D'oh! Shouldn't have clicked on that link. "L" fares for the dates I chose for next April are down £150 on what I paid a few weeks ago. Mind you, as the upgrades were vanishing as I went through the multi day process it's a pretty "academic" £150..

Did the same as you James for our just returned La trip bought an "L" and upgraded to UC, the details were there as soon as i had put the phone down from the agent, did the same for Vancouver next year, and will do the same as soon as 2014 is released. As they say once you turn left thats it your hooked.