V-Flyer

Hi there,,in the next few days I'm hoping to book a holiday through Virgin Holidays to Barbados, is it possible to upgrade to PE using my air miles, or can you only do this if you book a flight directly with VA?? Apologies if this question has been asked before

The news isn't good I'm afraid: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=289342

You might want to consider booking the flights with VS directly (just watch that they book into an upgradeable class) and then book the hotel with Virgin Holidays.

Not all types of ticket are upgradeable. Virgin Holidays won't book you on an upgradeable ticket unless you ask.

If you aren't in a rush to book, it may be worth getting some tips here.

I'm off to Barbados in a few weeks and have booked upper class flights using miles and the hotel direct, much cheaper than the economy package offered by Virgin Holidays.

How many miles do you have. When are you hoping to fly, which route and how many of you.....

Hi Marshy and Stuart, thanks for replying

There will be 2 adults and 2 children flying (hopefully!) on 1st January 2017, from Gatwick to Barbados for 10 nights. We have around 40,000 miles at the moment but hope to have a lot more in the next few months (we both have the VA credit card) even they paid for the upgrade one way?

Thanks

The upgrade table is here: http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/fr ... _table.jsp

I'm not sure what age the children are but assuming they are occupying their own seat you will need 50,000 miles to upgrade all 4 of you from Economy to PE and a further 50,000 to upgrade from PE to UC. These numbers are each way. If you bought an upgradable Economy class ticket and wanted to put all 4 of you in UC in both directions you would therefore need 200,000 miles (50,000 Economy > PE then 50,000 PE > UC and the same again on the return).

It's worth running the numbers to see if an ex-EU departure might be cheaper.
For 1 Jan 16 and a 10 night stay (1 Jan 17 is too far away to get a quote yet) gives:

LGW - BGI Economy £737, Premium £1429, Upper £2449
DUB - BGI Economy £562, Premium £1458, Upper £1377

Don't go PE from DUB, that's a terrible deal! For economy this probably still doesn't make much sense once you factor in positioning flights, a hotel, food and entertainment. For UC it really pays - for your family you would save £4288 if you were buying cash fares.

Basically you have to decide if an extra ~£600 each to sit in UC is worth the hassle of a trip to Dublin vs the cost of accumulating enough miles to make it happen using M fares from LGW (which will be more than the discount economy £737 quoted) + the extra taxes for the premium cabin.

I hope that makes sense. Of course the whole "upgrade with miles" is a non-starter if you can't find reward availability for 4 on the dates you want.

Thanks Stuart, that's very helpful and i'll certainly have a look at all the options you've mentioned

Many Thanks