V-Flyer

Initially when I joined here my partner and I were saving for a full air mile redemption on a round trip to Tokyo, but having read everyone extolling the virtues of the M Class upgrade we decided in the end to opt for that instead. That means that in a few short months we'll be heading to Tokyo in UC! Changing the dates slightly also meant that we saved an extra £400, almost, which brought our overall saving to around £4000 (versus buying the cheapest available UC fares outright). Thanks to everyone at V-Flyer for all the valuable information I've learned along the way, it would not have been possible without you We're extremely excited. Now I'm trying to figure out the best seats for us on the most likely aircraft (the Airbus 340-600). I have a few ideas from looking online, but would love your suggestions.

For anyone else looking, availability for roundtrip upgrades from LHR > NRT still seems to be excellent as we had many dates available to us, which is great for redemptions but also a little worrying; I do hope it's a reasonably profitable route for them.

Congratulations on your first UC booking. I am excited for you !!

Enjoy - I know you will.

That's great news! I know you said this morning that you were going to get it booked before 13th in case the rumours were true, but haven't you got this wrapped up quickly! Well done and enjoy

Thank you so much, both. My OH was initially rather uninterested in the miles, but is now very happy. It'll be a nice reprieve from our usual economy trips across the Atlantic.

mrsw, hearing about the potential disappearance of the M Class upgrade lit the fire under me, so to speak!

Well done, fantastic news. You'll have a wonderful time and the build-up, counting the days, is great too.

Ah yes, I think most of us all have other halves that are less interested in the miles, but wouldn't complain about the results of our hard work :p

Yep I'm in that club! Hubbie not interested in miles but he is very chuffed to be taking our first UC flight in 58 days....not that we're counting or anything!

spacedog wrote:Initially when I joined here my partner and I were saving for a full air mile redemption on a round trip to Tokyo, but having read everyone extolling the virtues of the M Class upgrade we decided in the end to opt for that instead. That means that in a few short months we'll be heading to Tokyo in UC! Changing the dates slightly also meant that we saved an extra £400, almost, which brought our overall saving to around £4000 (versus buying the cheapest available UC fares outright). Thanks to everyone at V-Flyer for all the valuable information I've learned along the way, it would not have been possible without you We're extremely excited. Now I'm trying to figure out the best seats for us on the most likely aircraft (the Airbus 340-600). I have a few ideas from looking online, but would love your suggestions.

For anyone else looking, availability for roundtrip upgrades from LHR > NRT still seems to be excellent as we had many dates available to us, which is great for redemptions but also a little worrying; I do hope it's a reasonably profitable route for them.

Well done on the upgrades, the economic downturn has hurt VS on these routes, [NRT, PVG and SYD before its demise], good news for us PAS as there is great availability but prices are beginning to sneak up.
Its a double edged sword, I want VS to do well, I would like to see the return of a second flight to HKG, but having more bums on seats will lead to less ugrade availability

The A346 is a great aircraft, I personally would go for 9A & 10A, great privacy, midway to the bar/Wcs etc, and for dining sharing the same table [one of you in the seat and the other on the ottoman] is quite romantic

Great news, I'm really chuffed for you. I did this route on Gs in May upgraded from PE, and have rebooked for next April M to G upgrade, what a saving!

Like others I have an OH who isn't interested in the miles, and indeed mocks me for taking any opportunity I can to earn miles shopping, using the Amex, even buying a case of wine because there were 3000 miles in it (and I love wine). He's an FC member but only accrues miles from his flights, and I occasionally pay to boost them.

Let me tell you he really doesn't mind travelling UC and now balks at the idea of travelling in a lower cabin, and he's not known to be ostentatious. So I have to remind him it's a result of my bloody hard work accruing the miles. In fact I had to show him photos of PE seat and cabin to convince him to try this out so I can use my PE upgrade Amex vouchers!!

Good seats on a 346 are 3-9K (we had 4-5K) or 9A up as these have a wall separating them from the middle row and it means you don't have to stare at anyone opposite you! Seats on the K side also give a nice view of Tokyo and Mount Fuji on the approach if you can twist your head to look through the windows.

Happy travel

Hey Spacedog,

That's great news! I know how you feel as I booked M to G flights to NRT a few months ago. We are not flying until April though so a long wait yet!

What are your Japan plans? Are you staying in Tokyo or travelling around? The more I read about Japan the more fascinated I am.

wiltshire296 wrote:Yep I'm in that club! Hubbie not interested in miles but he is very chuffed to be taking our first UC flight in 58 days....not that we're counting or anything!

Well my OH had to coaxed to get Virgin credit cards for the points. Now she's far better at it than me.
After booking next years hold I was left with 16000 and she had 20 or 30000, Already she's up to 60000 and I'm only up to 23000.
I think I've worked it out. She spends more money than me!!

Back to Spacedog. Congratulations but you do know there's no going back and you have to do this every time from now on.

Dick D

I love the collective excitement your G has given us all!

Enjoy, savour and smile. You'll feel even smugger on board! Lucky you!

Getting those reward upgrades really hits the G spot!
Simon wasn't interested to start off with, now he loves UC.
We've got the CC and are quickly amassing the miles for another reward.
Seats 14 and 15 A for me!

hey spacedog
nice one on the upgrades, after getting our first G last year i became a proper miles junkie and this year managed to book two Gs for me and the missus to Tokyo next spring with the help of 60k miles from my amex.
looking forward to your TRs

Thank you, whiterose, wiltshire296, mrsw and marshy11 for sharing in my excitement! I think everyone here understands the feeling, but also knows how much work and effort goes in to figuring out all the fine details and collecting the points.

International Hitman, yes, those are my (and I am sure many other's) thoughts on upgrade availability. I was thrilled that we had so much choice, but I hope that the route continues to be profitable for VS as obviously we'd like to continue flying there with them!

Thanks so much for the seat recommendations, they sound perfect!

Bretty, it's the exact same scenario with my partner. He mainly only earns miles from flights, but with prompting will happily use the Shops Away portal. Glad your other half now appreciates all your efforts

Thank you also for the seat suggestions, I am making notes and will hopefully make a good choice when T-60 rolls around.

Maximus, we went to Tokyo last year and loved it! Last year it largely ended up being for work, but as we love our work that wasn't an issue. We'll be staying in Tokyo for most of the stay (the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi was our home away from home last year and we can highly recommend it, we hope to book there again), but we will try to get out of the city this time to some more rural areas, too. We'd like to take the bullet train and are waiting on some suggestions from a friend who knows Japan well as to where to go. We love the food, and also do a lot of shopping for art books, action figures and other oddities. I could say it's all work related, but we also never grew up, so... If you're staying mainly in Tokyo definitely go and see the Meiji Shrine, it's beautiful. We were lucky enough to see two weddings when we were there last time, one more modern and one very traditional. There's so much to see and do, it really depends on your interests. You'll definitely not be bored! Have a wonderful time.

dickydotcom, I can't wait until my husband takes a similar view and we're competing for who has the most miles! As he didn't have enough in his account we used some of mine for his trip this time, so now I've been cleaned out and he's well ahead of me. Give me a couple of months and I'll sort that

ultreen1, thanks ever so much for the seat recommendations! Hope I choose well.

gfonk, my mother-in-law said that once we flew UC we'd have a hard time going back! Sadly the reality is we will have to endure a few more years of EC (with the occasional PE thrown in for good measure), but we should be able to accrue enough miles for a couple of upgrades a year (availability allowing, of course), I hope

Will do a TR as soon as I figure out how to do it properly!

Thanks again, everyone.

spacedog wrote:Initially when I joined here my partner and I were saving for a full air mile redemption on a round trip to Tokyo, but having read everyone extolling the virtues of the M Class upgrade we decided in the end to opt for that instead. That means that in a few short months we'll be heading to Tokyo in UC! Changing the dates slightly also meant that we saved an extra £400, almost, which brought our overall saving to around £4000 (versus buying the cheapest available UC fares outright). Thanks to everyone at V-Flyer for all the valuable information I've learned along the way, it would not have been possible without you We're extremely excited. Now I'm trying to figure out the best seats for us on the most likely aircraft (the Airbus 340-600). I have a few ideas from looking online, but would love your suggestions.

For anyone else looking, availability for roundtrip upgrades from LHR > NRT still seems to be excellent as we had many dates available to us, which is great for redemptions but also a little worrying; I do hope it's a reasonably profitable route for them.

Fantastic. The great thing is that you will earn miles on the M class part of your booking too.

I would recommend DTCI - you can arrange it with an ordinary taxi.

Your book your slot (allowing for as much time as is polite in the Clubhouse) and en route to Heathrow call them with the reg number and make/model of the car you are in.

The taxi follows the sign for DTCI, and when you are there, the Virgin UC experience really starts. Be warned. Once you've done it, you'll never want to check in normally again!

exactly as sealink said.
DTCI is great. love it!

ditto on DTCI, aka rock star access

Dtci all the way !!!

Sealink, earning the miles and TP was a big part of our decision making process. We'd planned on saving up the full 200,000 miles for the two of us to go UC to Tokyo next year as it would only be about £1,200 in fees and taxes, but as we're travelling so much for work in the end the 6 TP was just too valuable to pass up. That and we wouldn't have had enough miles for redemptions for both of us... maybe by the end of the year, but I was worried about losing out on availability.

I love the idea of DTCI, but we'll be driving ourselves down from Yorkshire and I'm not sure about how it would work (if at all) when we have our own car. We usually just book the short stay parking at LHR for convenience. We're also toying with spending the night before in an airport hotel so we don't have to rush in the morning and have plenty of time in the CH!

gfonk, Bretty and Blacky1, evidently it's amazing!! We'll see if we can make it work for us

Thanks again, all! I'm sure I'll have more questions as the date approaches. Really appreciate all your input.

Edit: I already thought of my first question If we're flying UC on a G class upgraded ticket, am I still able to invite a guest into the CH?

we also stay at a lhr hotel the night before to maximise time in CH.
the radisson offers good stay, park and fly.
but next time we are going to try a london hotel on the A4.
and i think you can still invite a guest in to the CH but they should be on the same flight.

I feel your excitement, we've recently booked our first UC (miles upgrade) flight to Miami. I've had a countdown on the phone from 200+ days out and currently at T-43 days. It seems a long way until your flight now but the time does pass, although I swear it's passing slower as we get closer to take off :-)

It's only the fact that I have a very busy couple of weeks coming up that make it bearable at all!

gfonk, thank you, that's good to know regarding the Radission. I think we're definitely leaning towards staying at a hotel the night before.

RexNoctis, congratulations! I hope you have a fantastic experience.

OK, we decided to spread the love a bit--it's my sister's 30th in December and we're taking her and her boyfriend to Tokyo with us I'm sadly out of miles, so no upgrades for them, but they will get to go into the Clubhouse with us, so it'll still be pretty special for them! They've never been to Asia and are suitably excited!

spacedog wrote:OK, we decided to spread the love a bit--it's my sister's 30th in December and we're taking her and her boyfriend to Tokyo with us I'm sadly out of miles, so no upgrades for them, but they will get to go into the Clubhouse with us, so it'll still be pretty special for them! They've never been to Asia and are suitably excited!

Fantabulosa that's a wonderful treat.