V-Flyer

I will shortly break through the 100k miles barrier (& obtain Au for the 1st time!).

We like to fly to Montego Bay each year (in UC if possible), would it be better to spend 100k miles on a straight UC return rewards seat or spend 50k each year for an upgrade from Econ to UC, or 25k miles to upgrade from PE to UC, what do the experts think?

I guess it depends what you mean by 'best'; for one thing, it really depends if you want to burn up all your miles, or whether you'd like to keep some leftover.

Remember that miles can be devalued by VS at any point (i.e. by increasing the redemption amount for a particular route), so some people view keeping lots of miles in their account for the long-term as a risk.

Aside from that, it tends to be M-G (i.e. Economy to UC) upgrades which provide the best value for money, pending availability of course.

Personally I think buying an M economy fare and using miles to upgrade to G delivers the best value as you achieve a huge saving on the regular UC fare and still earn substantial miles & TPs.

gumshoe wrote:Personally I think buying an M economy fare and using miles to upgrade to G delivers the best value as you achieve a huge saving on the regular UC fare and still earn substantial miles & TPs.

I'll second that.
The last leap to Upper gives by far the best value for money.
I will shortly be booking next years trip this way hopefully.
Dick D

I try to spend miles as soon as we have them, but we travel fairly frequently so I like to do M > G upgrades in order to earn TP and miles, as well as benefiting from the upgrade.

assuming your collecting using a credit card, dont forget about your upgrade voucher.
So you could book PE on miles, then use your voucher to upgrade to business class for one way & fly the other first class. They may let you redeem PE to business one way for 2 people if you ask nicely.

Thanks for the consistent advice. Mrs T also has ~50k miles so we can both do M-G (if available). We collect the miles by flyig (no credit card ) so can't take that upgrade route.

Am I right in saying that you have to call FC to find cost & availability of M fares & that you can check if Gs are available by selecting "spend your miles" on the booking home page?

You can use ITA matrix to find availability and cost of M fares (click "Advanced routing codes" and put "VS / f bc=m" into the routing code box), which, yes, you can then match against the "spend your miles" booking function online to find available G buckets.

You will eventually have to phone up FC to make the booking, though, and they will give you a total cost (underlying M fare revenue ticket cost + G bucket fees & tax).

The only thing I would bear in mind is NYLON's point about devaluation -- especially given what BA have just done to their Executive Club.

I usually go for PE then if the upgrade does not work out at least you have a nicer seat.
Plus you earn more miles and use less miles to upgrade.

I do both.

As for the credit card if you don't want or need one why not do the Amex charge card. 20k points at the moment for a 2k spend in 3 months, times that by the two of you....little bit of Shops Away, clubcard vouchers, Top Cash Back conversions.....the list is more than miles alone.

Eggtastico wrote:assuming your collecting using a credit card, dont forget about your upgrade voucher.
So you could book PE on miles, then use your voucher to upgrade to business class for one way & fly the other first class. They may let you redeem PE to business one way for 2 people if you ask nicely.

Is this possible, I thought you could only use vouchers for Econ to PE?