I’m looking for a bit of advice on forward planning with regard to the most cost effective way of getting a flight in UC to SYD and returning from NRT. Basically am I better saving up all my money and paying, or should I be looking at trying to take cheap transatlantic flights to bump up my mileage and by an upgradeable PE ticket.
To give you a bit of background, I’ll be headed out to Sydney in December 2007, to take part in the Clipper RTW Yacht Race. I’ll be sailing from Fremantle to Singapore, spending a few days there before getting back on the yacht to head up to Qingdao, China. The plan then is to see a bit of China, fly over to Japan and then head home from there in March 2008.
I have friends over in Mobile, Alabama who I’ve usually gone over to see every year in Sept/Oct, but given the amount I’m going to be spending on this trip of a lifetime (I got my kit list last week - ouch!), I was resigned to the fact that I’d probably have to shelve these trips until after the yachting adventure. However I’m now wondering if by purchasing cheap tickets to Mobile (they seem quite reasonable in Nov), and racking up the miles it might actually work out cheaper in the long run. At the moment I have 20,000 FC miles and each trip to MOB usually gets me around 10,000.
I’ve tried pricing the trip as if I was headed out this Dec and returning in 2007 and the UC prices seem to fluctuate between £3,000 & £5,000 depending on the dates. £5,000 would be out of the question (unless SRB wants to be my sponsor!), but £3,000 would be doable, and given that I’m flexible with the dates, I would imagine I’d be able to shift them around to make sure I got the cheaper fare. Also on the va.com site I don’t seem to be able to mix classes when arriving and departing from different locations, so I wonder whether UC out & PE back with a mileage upgrade might work out quite reasonable - as I’m guessing I’d only need the 20,000 to do that, which I’ve already got.
Basically any help or advice on my options would be great.
To give you a bit of background, I’ll be headed out to Sydney in December 2007, to take part in the Clipper RTW Yacht Race. I’ll be sailing from Fremantle to Singapore, spending a few days there before getting back on the yacht to head up to Qingdao, China. The plan then is to see a bit of China, fly over to Japan and then head home from there in March 2008.
I have friends over in Mobile, Alabama who I’ve usually gone over to see every year in Sept/Oct, but given the amount I’m going to be spending on this trip of a lifetime (I got my kit list last week - ouch!), I was resigned to the fact that I’d probably have to shelve these trips until after the yachting adventure. However I’m now wondering if by purchasing cheap tickets to Mobile (they seem quite reasonable in Nov), and racking up the miles it might actually work out cheaper in the long run. At the moment I have 20,000 FC miles and each trip to MOB usually gets me around 10,000.
I’ve tried pricing the trip as if I was headed out this Dec and returning in 2007 and the UC prices seem to fluctuate between £3,000 & £5,000 depending on the dates. £5,000 would be out of the question (unless SRB wants to be my sponsor!), but £3,000 would be doable, and given that I’m flexible with the dates, I would imagine I’d be able to shift them around to make sure I got the cheaper fare. Also on the va.com site I don’t seem to be able to mix classes when arriving and departing from different locations, so I wonder whether UC out & PE back with a mileage upgrade might work out quite reasonable - as I’m guessing I’d only need the 20,000 to do that, which I’ve already got.
Basically any help or advice on my options would be great.
. Expect congratulations are in order though....
, but the flex ticket expertise would be very handy. I had planned to have quite a bit of padding either side of the leg - arriving at the beginning of Dec and returning sometime in the first 2 weeks of March, however this years race has shown that things can be very unpredictable, so I need to be prepared for anything! 
