This can't be right? Can it? Airmiles required for UC return

Hey all, am I completely misreading this? Surely it can't be over 400k miles for a return reward flight to MCO?

[mitchja]

Welcome to V:Flyer

Yep, it’s the new dynamic pricing system VS use for reward flights now that every seat on every flight can be booked as a reward flight.

Welcome to V:Flyer

Yep, it’s the new dynamic pricing system VS use for reward flights now that every seat on every flight can be booked as a reward flight.

Right! It's been a while since I booked anything and it looks like I'll be using a different airline from now on. That's insane! For 3 pax that would be 1.2 million miles!!

I'd have another look closer to the time. They seem to reduce 1-3 months out. There are multiple dates in April, May, and June when you can fly LHR or MAN to MCO for ~30,000 one way. Before anyone reading this gets too excited, getting back home in Upper is trickier.

There have been and will be some decent deals on there but I found it to be a lengthy process to find one - every time I thought I had found what I wanted on Reward Seat Checker for dates I wanted it then made me login again on a new tab to book only to find that fare wasn't there but a 350-450k mile fare was there :-/

Eventually just stayed away from Reward Seat Checker & kept inputting various departure and return dates around the month I wanted to go until I found a decent match.....hence off to Vegas next week in UC both ways for 155k miles (plus the dreaded £1025 of add-ons).

That was 2 months ago so I don't know if the Reward Seat Checker is now more accurate or if they fixed the repetitive login issue.

Unfortunately, Virgin has decided to lose my business with this nonsense. Over 20 years of Gold (I stupidly let a year gap in instead of having it be continuous.)

There are no flights between my home of SFO and LHR that ever have seats for less than 350K points and most are 450K. That is ridiculous. They don't dynamically price anything. The unsold UC seats at checkin are still valued at those ridiculous points values instead of the 65K-ish they used to be at checkin.

On top of that, I just spoke with the least helpful customer service person who decided to try to gaslight me about the points values. This airline is cooked.

Unfortunately, Virgin has decided to lose my business with this nonsense. Over 20 years of Gold (I stupidly let a year gap in instead of having it be continuous.)

There are no flights between my home of SFO and LHR that ever have seats for less than 350K points and most are 450K. That is ridiculous. They don't dynamically price anything. The unsold UC seats at checkin are still valued at those ridiculous points values instead of the 65K-ish they used to be at checkin.

On top of that, I just spoke with the least helpful customer service person who decided to try to gaslight me about the points values. This airline is cooked.

For LAX,SFO,SEA,LAS - LHR they are really crazy prices.
Only in the off season (e.g Jan 2026 I’ve seen some dates SFO-LHR in UC for 50k-70k per adult).

Mostly get LHR outbound for good rates from most places, depending on season and when you book. It’s the flight back the costs a fortune in points. Reason why I decided to do cash booking and upgrade with points (working out better value).

I think possibly within a year or so, some changes will be reverted.

For LAX,SFO,SEA,LAS - LHR they are really crazy prices.
Only in the off season (e.g Jan 2026 I’ve seen some dates SFO-LHR in UC for 50k-70k per adult).

This is my problem. I don't live in SFO in some vacation season. I live here all year long. When I'm traveling, it's almost always a business trip, but the entire airline's attitude is that it's vacation. I even once had a Heathrow checkin staff talk down to me as "Revivals is for business travelers" when in fact I was on a business trip and was asking why it had closed shortly before my arrival when it didn't do that the other half of the year.

JFK gets constant saver deals. We get screwed.

For LAX,SFO,SEA,LAS - LHR they are really crazy prices.
Only in the off season (e.g Jan 2026 I’ve seen some dates SFO-LHR in UC for 50k-70k per adult).

This is my problem. I don't live in SFO in some vacation season. I live here all year long. When I'm traveling, it's almost always a business trip, but the entire airline's attitude is that it's vacation. I even once had a Heathrow checkin staff talk down to me as "Revivals is for business travelers" when in fact I was on a business trip and was asking why it had closed shortly before my arrival when it didn't do that the other half of the year.

JFK gets constant saver deals. We get screwed.

I hope things get better as time goes along. When the changes happened, Jan-Sept 25 were already bookable, so I am closely following the routes I normally take to see what can of rates they’re giving for 2026 (newly released).

I’m only booking one way tickets from now on, as it gives more flexibility as if you need to change flight, they re price the whole booking not just that flight segment you want to change.

I have seen some good deals for ATL-UK, but even then it’s a good 4 hour flight SFO-ATL and added expense.

For LAX,SFO,SEA,LAS - LHR they are really crazy prices.
Only in the off season (e.g Jan 2026 I’ve seen some dates SFO-LHR in UC for 50k-70k per adult).

This is my problem. I don't live in SFO in some vacation season. I live here all year long. When I'm traveling, it's almost always a business trip, but the entire airline's attitude is that it's vacation. I even once had a Heathrow checkin staff talk down to me as "Revivals is for business travelers" when in fact I was on a business trip and was asking why it had closed shortly before my arrival when it didn't do that the other half of the year.

I really don't get VA's attitude towards the revivals lounge generally. It closes far too early to be useful for all manner of flights. I've deliberately booked a flight back from SFO earlier than I'd prefer just so I can actually use it after being disappointed last time. (A shower is always welcome as I have a 4 hour drive back from Heathrow..)

For LAX,SFO,SEA,LAS - LHR they are really crazy prices.
Only in the off season (e.g Jan 2026 I’ve seen some dates SFO-LHR in UC for 50k-70k per adult).

This is my problem. I don't live in SFO in some vacation season. I live here all year long. When I'm traveling, it's almost always a business trip, but the entire airline's attitude is that it's vacation. I even once had a Heathrow checkin staff talk down to me as "Revivals is for business travelers" when in fact I was on a business trip and was asking why it had closed shortly before my arrival when it didn't do that the other half of the year.

I really don't get VA's attitude towards the revivals lounge generally. It closes far too early to be useful for all manner of flights. I've deliberately booked a flight back from SFO earlier than I'd prefer just so I can actually use it after being disappointed last time. (A shower is always welcome as I have a 4 hour drive back from Heathrow..)

Indeed, I do not understand why it closes at midday.
I have to fly back to Switzerland so try and get an early arrival flight back so I can have a shower and a coffee. But a few times due to delays and schedule changes I’ve missed out on it. First world problems?! But the hours should be extended until at least 14pm.

More mysteries to be solved in the points valuations applied for SFO flights:

I had given up on using points for my upcoming round-trip to LHR. I bought a Premium return ticket in a fare code that yielded 100 tier points each way, so at least I'd have what I need to retain Gold this year. The UC points valuations were in the unreasonable 350K+ range. I was advised by Swansea staff to hope that a "halo fare" in the 24 hours before the flight would open up and offer a points value for upgrade that wouldn't be 4X the old values, but perhaps 1.5X-ish.

I just called Swansea because there'd been a notification that my flights had been rescheduled and I couldn't see what changed. While talking to them, we managed to upgrade one segment (LHR-SFO) to UC Z fare for $258. The upgrade valuation for that same seat was coming up as 140K-ish and £230 more for YQ.

Make it make sense, please. Literally more for just the YQ to get a G seat than the straight cash upgrade to Z. This is clearly a broken system.

Spent hours looking for some decent inbound miles prices. (Please bring back the grid )

Has anyone any idea how to find an inbound upper fare (from anywhere in the US ) back to the uk for anything less than 150,000 miles in July

There seems to be a few outbound at or around what used to be sensible miles but inbound fares seem to start at 150,000 and increase to over 300,000 for 1 seat.

Thanks

David

Have you got seatspy? Just had a quick look and quite a few options from JFK to LHR in July - 29th for 68k as an example

Have you got seatspy? Just had a quick look and quite a few options from JFK to LHR in July - 29th for 68k as an example

Sorry mistyped meant to say 20th, but actually the 29th is cheaper at 57.5k!

I know it's been done to death...but compelled to add frustration at this mess of dynamic pricing/points.

I'm also Lifetime Gold, but hadn't travelled a lot since COVID due to job change etc.

115,000 miles one-way for 1x UC from Atlanta (an upcoming booking I have) - when UC is almost empty and the gold contact centre folks agree that they're seeing far more losers than winners...

If anyone has any fantastic ideas of the best way to spend/extract 1m+ points rather than waste them on flights - then I'm all ears

I know it's been done to death...but compelled to add frustration at this mess of dynamic pricing/points.

I'm also Lifetime Gold, but hadn't travelled a lot since COVID due to job change etc.

115,000 miles one-way for 1x UC from Atlanta (an upcoming booking I have) - when UC is almost empty and the gold contact centre folks agree that they're seeing far more losers than winners...

If anyone has any fantastic ideas of the best way to spend/extract 1m+ points rather than waste them on flights - then I'm all ears

It seems you need to fly off peak. I just booked ATL-LHR for January next year for 29k UC.

You can find some good flights on AF/KLM recently.

I wouldn’t mind actually having some more points in my bank; just missed out on the last sale ;)

There are deals to be had but you have to be flexible, MCO is difficult because it's a year round destination plus the A350 in the low J config has less seats in Upper so drives the price higher for points. my parents just booked Upper for next year for 29.000 points each.

Indeed, I booked JFK return for 2 in UC for 116k for May (ages ago).

MCO are sky high, so I booked GVA-CDG-MCO and then ATL-LHR for 157k (slightly more) but £1,100 taxes. Could have booked ATL return for 128k for my dates but it made more sense with the AF flight (saving £270 taxes, a night stay at LHR and a Domestic flight ATL-MCO and flight GVA-LHR).