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Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 10:18
by mediamonkey
I think this is a no-no, but can I buy a cash economy fare, upgrade with miles to PE then use the Credit Card upgrade voucher to take it to Upper (assuming there's space available?)

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 10:29
by CommanderB
You can do that with points so it may be allowed - worth asking and seeing if one of the agents will do it. Pretty sure the Ts&Cs explicitly say one cabin upgrade but it is a bit vague about the technicalities of that.

But you really shouldn’t do this anyway. It’s going to cost an obscene amount of points and you’re going to pay a TON of taxes and fees to do it. It’s unlikely to be the best value for points.

If you want to use the voucher, buy a premium fare and then use the voucher. It’s simple to do and you can often get a decent deal for it.

Honestly, I can’t stress enough that going from Y to J using points is quite often a really bad deal.

One final tip regarding those vouchers, the companion use case offers more theoretical value than the upgrade use case does.

In case you don’t know… The voucher can be a companion voucher, upgrade voucher (return or two one ways), or clubhouse voucher. You pick what you want when you redeem it.

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 10:33
by mediamonkey
Thanks - in a frustrating situation where the company will pay cash but for Y only. Yet I've expiring vouchers to use and would like to try hit 400 TPS to retain silver so considering my options

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 11:23
by CommanderB
mediamonkey wrote:Thanks - in a frustrating situation where the company will pay cash but for Y only. Yet I've expiring vouchers to use and would like to try hit 400 TPS to retain silver so considering my options


Ah that old chestnut! :-D

Any scope for you to pay the difference to Premium direct with VS?

The vouchers are giftable as well FYI. It won't change the expiry date but it may allow another way to "use" them before they get wiped completely.

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 11:24
by mediamonkey
If they were to book it through their TA and then I were to contact Virgin in theory I suspect I should be able to pay a cass upgrade to PE?

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 11:33
by CommanderB
mediamonkey wrote:If they were to book it through their TA and then I were to contact Virgin in theory I suspect I should be able to pay a cass upgrade to PE?


Unfortunately not. If it's a travel agent ticket, VS won't touch it until T24. At that point you will be allowed to do an airport upgrade.

If they're booking with a travel agent this would preclude you from doing any points upgrades (including using the voucher) until you're at the airport.

I haven't dealt with a travel agent booking in a while (over 18 months) but that was what it was like last time I had this situation.

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 11:52
by philsiu02
Without wanting to contradict some of the posts above, my last two experiences of upgrades seem to have let me do things against the rules...

Last August I had economy seats booked through a travel agent. I called virgin and got an upgrade. I had to ask the travel agent to request ticketing on that flight early but once that was put through, I could upgrade from economy to upper (with points).

This coming August I am using a companion voucher. Originally we booked two seats in PE (one paid in cash, the other using the companion voucher). I later upgraded to upper. This seemed to cause a problem though and a couple of weeks later I realised only one of the seats (the one paid in cash) was ticketed, the other was not. I called them up and apparently they weren't allowed to process the companion voucher upgrade. They did suggest an alternative and to be honest I'm not sure what the process was, but it was effectively changing the companion voucher so that it was an economy ticket, then that was upgraded to upper. I'm not sure if the companion voucher was used for the economy purchase, or one of the upgrades but the result was it could a couple of thousand more points than the original plan, and oddly less in taxes than the original... I was a bit nervous about this going through but it seems to be properly ticketed now with the 932 code.

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 12:56
by mikethe3rd
CommanderB wrote:But you really shouldn’t do this anyway. It’s going to cost an obscene amount of points and you’re going to pay a TON of taxes and fees to do it. It’s unlikely to be the best value for points.


I’m not sure this is correct. I get the impression you’d like to use points to get from Economy to Premium and then a CC voucher up into UC? I also don’t see why fees would be anymore than a standard UC reward flight plus your original economy ticket. I might be missing something!

Re: Double Upgrade

PostPosted: 29 Jun 2023, 13:03
by CommanderB
philsiu02 wrote:Without wanting to contradict some of the posts above, my last two experiences of upgrades seem to have let me do things against the rules...

Last August I had economy seats booked through a travel agent. I called virgin and got an upgrade. I had to ask the travel agent to request ticketing on that flight early but once that was put through, I could upgrade from economy to upper (with points).

This coming August I am using a companion voucher. Originally we booked two seats in PE (one paid in cash, the other using the companion voucher). I later upgraded to upper. This seemed to cause a problem though and a couple of weeks later I realised only one of the seats (the one paid in cash) was ticketed, the other was not. I called them up and apparently they weren't allowed to process the companion voucher upgrade. They did suggest an alternative and to be honest I'm not sure what the process was, but it was effectively changing the companion voucher so that it was an economy ticket, then that was upgraded to upper. I'm not sure if the companion voucher was used for the economy purchase, or one of the upgrades but the result was it could a couple of thousand more points than the original plan, and oddly less in taxes than the original... I was a bit nervous about this going through but it seems to be properly ticketed now with the 932 code.


That's good news. I always thought that TA rules around doing this kind of thing were a bit stupid and punitive. If thats changed and what I said was wrong/outdated - happy to hear it!

As for the value of the points.

The best way to work this out is to compare the cost of each of the available options. Straight reward flight, Premium + Upgrade, Economy + Premium + Upper Upgrade and see which is best once you have price quotes for each option. (I normally do this in a spreadsheet so it's easy to rank). If you don't care about the value of the points this is less of an issue.

VS Points are worth roughly 1.1p each. So 100,000 is worth about £1100.