V-Flyer

am I doing the right thing?
we are a family of 4 and I am using flying miles to travel as cheap as possible to get to florida and back.
at the mo it's the 25% offer.
we have to fly in the school hols so the flights are just being released. availablitly is good to get out, but we can't get home for 2 reasons, at the mo we only have 120k miles and there are no reward flights.
I can get the flights out, two pe free upgrade and 2 with miles only. cost will be £260ish each. which I am pleased with.

or
should I just wait and book a cheap flight with a stop over and use all the miles next year? (just picked up the amex gold charge card) so hopefully we will have enough for returns. or just suck it and see. i might have enough miles and availability might be still good on the next offer!

hmm tricky
you can get 20k bonus miles on amex gold charge card if you spend x amount in first three months which is possible. then just keep going.
as to the current flights, thats also tricky. availability especially during school holidays is not going to be guaranteed so i would go for it and keep saving airmiles.
but its your choice at the end of the day. right or wrong answer, i couldnt say.
sorry if i wasnt helpful. i understand your predicament.

As Gfonk says, only you can decide whether to go for it and burn what miles you can this time and get a good deal, or keep collecting for another year. Reward availability fluctuates and there is no logic to it, no algorithm that appears to govern it. The more reward seats you're looking for the more difficult it can be, but then others seem to find them, it just depends on flexibility. I only ever have to look for 2 and so far have done well.

To some degree it probably also depends on the cabin you choose, with UC sometimes more difficult to find on the west coast routes, especially the return sectors. You might have to concede to using rewards outbound and revenue seats return to get the dates you want, unless you can wait a little longer for the return flights to open up. But then I don't know how long the reward sale is on so its horses for courses really.

Best of luck though.

Hi stinky minky

Good luck trying to make a decision.

You say that there's no availability for reward flights inbound, is this based on dummy bookings or 'phoning FC? If based on dummy bookings, I suggest 'phoning FC.

I have just had a similar dilemma regarding flights LHR to MIA. Whether to book M or S (availability for both) outbound & use miles to upgrade to G, & Z inbound, or Z both ways. My problem was no G class showing for inbound.

I 'phoned FC on Saturday morning & was able to hold the flights for 72 hours whilst miles booster went through for Mr Roxy -Popsy, to enable him to have over 25,000 to play with (we've just returned from UVF & miles booster has 25% extra sale on).

When the helpful agent rang me on a booked call back this morning, she checked again for availability of G inbound & low & behold, her system was showing availability so have booked S class for both outbound & inbound using miles to G's.

I had done a dummy booking this morning & there was no availability showing on the website!

Let us know the outcome.

TTFN

Roxy-Popsy