UC upgrade with Virgin Holidays

Off to Orlando in 5 weeks time but already planning for next year.
With the possibility of booking with VIrgin Holidays for next year on the horizon, my current thoughts are.
Pay for the holiday and an ecommy flight included then use my accumulated miles ( at time of booking would be approx 100,000) to upgrade myself and wife to UC using companion miles for her.
Being reasonably new to the scheme is this possible on the dates for the holiday that I will choose.
Are there any other options?

Iain

Unfortunately you can't use miles to upgrade VH bookings, only bookings made direct with VS.

You'd need to establish whether there's UC reward availability on your chosen flights (this can be done online, with a dummy miles booking) and, if there is, call VS to book an 'M' class economy fare and upgrade to UC with miles. As a rough estimate you'd probably be looking at £750-950 each.

Hotels would need to be booked separately.

[Nottingham Nick]

At a very quick first glance, I can see several problems with your plans.

1. I have never used them, but I have always understood that it isn't possible to upgrade Virgin Holiday flights with miles.

2. Any upgrades on Orlando flights are quite rare (but not impossible to find) - especially getting towards peak holiday time.

3. Not sure what you mean by companion miles - The companion vouchers awarded with the credit card and gold renewal can only be used in Upper when bought with a flexible (expensive) fare.

Forgive me if I have misunderstood your post, it was read in haste.


Nick

You cannot upgrade with Virgin Holiday using miles directly. You can either wait until the flight booking is handed back to Virgin Atlantic (which is a matter of days before the flight) and try then, or you can buy VH vouchers with miles - but that will work out more expensive.

Secondly - I'm also going to Orlando also in around 5 weeks --- what date and flight number are you on?

You can only use miles for a companion flight when you book the most expensive fare bucket. You would have to buy a J upper class fare at around £7000 in order to be able to take advantage of a companion miles flight, then pay taxes of about £500 on the companion flight, It would be cheaper to buy two discounted upper class fares.
As others have said if you book direct with Virgin Atlantic you could purchase an m class fare and upgrade both flights for 50,000 miles each and the extra taxes. Your best bet would be to phone Virgin Atlantic and book the m class and upgrade all at once to ensure that reward flights were available.

We are going to vegas in July and for the first time in years have booked a package holiday. I have phoned Virgin holidays 3 times to see about upgrading to PE on the return and they want to charge me £850 each for economy to PE - we have declined

Thanks for all the replys. Kinda get my options now.

Jr, off to Orlando May 9th VS07.

Make that VS071

Jr, off to Orlando May 9th VS07.

How strange - we also fly on the 9th May! But we're on the VS075 which is from Manchester at 11am.

[mitchja]

We are going to vegas in July and for the first time in years have booked a package holiday. I have phoned Virgin holidays 3 times to see about upgrading to PE on the return and they want to charge me £850 each for economy to PE - we have declined

Shaz
Try you luck at the airport on the day of travel. VS do usually allow VH booked flights to be upgraded at the airport using cash at their standard airport upgrade rate.

We are going to vegas in July and for the first time in years have booked a package holiday. I have phoned Virgin holidays 3 times to see about upgrading to PE on the return and they want to charge me £850 each for economy to PE - we have declined

Shaz
Try you luck at the airport on the day of travel. VS do usually allow VH booked flights to be upgraded at the airport using cash at their standard airport upgrade rate.

Also - check the VS website every day for the costs of the PE flight and see if they drop. If/when they do, go straight to VH and get a price.

We upgraded our return leg from PE to UC for May. VH wanted an additional £1,300 EACH just for the return leg. I seen that Virgin Atlantic dropped the general sale price considerable so went to VH online chat, to find that this had dropped from £1,300 each down to a staggering £512 each! So more than half of - just for checking daily.

Thanks Shaz, also got a good deal on the flight this time. Booked PE last June and was able to upgrade to UC for 4 adults and two children for £86 each in February by doing just that by checking daily. An offer I could not resist although this is for the outward journey only. All full up for the return.

Jr 10:15 from Glasgow, hopeful no delays and our paths don't cross at immigration making for a long check through process.

We are staying at Coronado Springs for two weeks.