Upgrading with Points

Hi

Does anyone know if there's an easy way to calculate the cost to upgrade with points (the miles cost)?

I assumed it would be the website difference between the two cabins but the call centre agent I spoke to, who was rather unhelpful, seemed to calculate a mileage figure which made utterly no sense with what the website showed.

This is a cash booking I want to upgrade with miles and use a CC Voucher.

AFAIK prior to T24 (online check-in opening) it’s the difference between the saver amount and the current selling amount, minus a small credit for the fare you already have. It’s quite hard to work out, I’ve only ever been able to guesstimate it.

On the day, VS staff have an app that shows the one way amount of points based on route. Even that doesn’t have a huge amount of logic to it. It’s not entirely dynamic I know that. But for example; not all east coast routes are the same, as you would have expected. VS don’t publish these amounts, probably for two reasons. 1) deter people from on the day points upgrades. 2) they can change these amounts on a very regular basis. I’ve seen the app in person but given it’s an internal VS tool there’s little about it floating around.

I spoke to VS today to upgrade some flights. The price I was given was extortionate in miles. I was looking to upgrade from 4 economy seats which had cost 250k when originally booked to PE outbound and economy return, same route same flight.

The upgrade for all 4 was another 300k miles, even though the outbound in PE was currently less miles than I had paid ironically for the original outbound leg in economy, the return was now more miles than originally paid.

She explained that when you change the redemption booking, upgrade or change flights etc they effectively cancel the original miles booking, and then recalculate based on today’s dynamic miles price.

So there no set amount needed to upgrade anymore just a recalculation of the miles needed.

Thanks both for your thoughts. In the end it proved very complicated to try and book with cash and then upgrade with points, none of the quotes they provided made any sense.

It was easier to find a different route home which had much cheaper miles and use the voucher as a companion - less than ideal but better value