Ticket upgrade advice

I'm looking to buy 2 return flights to Sydney, leaveing Dec 10th 2010 and returning Jan 8th 2011

Both passengers have Red flying cards, with 120,000 miles on.

What is the best way to go about booking 2 upgrade flights from Ecconomy to Upper?

You'd need to buy an upgradable economy fare (L,B,Y - I believe) and then add 30,000 per person, per sector to get them up to Upper (120,000 each return).

Be warned though, I believe rewards on the HK/Sydney route are like hens teeth.

I assume that the fare will be available 11 months hand, so assuming I call up on the day, what do you think the chances are?

Also, do I have to wait till 11 months before the departure, or return flight?

I think the best advice is sooner the better as your dates are around the popular Christmas season so I would imagine upgrade seats will be limited in number. You might have to be a little flexible in your dates say might have to leave a day or so ealier or later.

You would need to book in one of the upgradable fare bucket too.

Yo can do this online but ISTBC the easiest will probbaly be to phone flying club. Will help if you have permission from the other pax to access their account - again they will need to speak to VS.

Can I call FC and give permission for one account to access the other one then?

I know about the fare buckets, I've researched all that part but I was more curious as to the avaliability of upgrade fares as like you say, it's over the Christmas period.

yes, the person whos account it is needs to phone FC to tell them its ok for you (or vice versa) to access your account etc. This happens all the time so its something VS are used to.

Re the avaiabilty of upgrades you could just try the booking engine - after logging into your account - and seeing what comes up but it is probbaly easier to phone them. As Clarkey says upgrades are hard to get on this route and you may get them for say LHR - HKG but not on the HKG - SYD leg and vice versa etc.

If they are hard to come by, is it possible to upgrade the 4 legs seperatly? Say 2 of them upper and the other PE if available, or does the fact it's a 'direct' flight make this not possible?

I had this problem every xmas until I stopped using VS. You have to wait till your return date is available. This was useless for us, as those booking a two week holiday always nabbed the outbound seats before us as we usually have a three week break and had to wait an extra week before booking.

How do I check the availability of these reward seats then?

I assume I go to the 'Spend Miles' section, and enter a Ecconomy trip with the qualifying classes, and then call up and upgrade using the miles?

[Neil]

Just do a search on the VS site for UC seats and click the spend miles option. This should then give you the dates available. As others have said, rewards on this route are very hard to come by so it might be easier to call VS who will be able to review the availabilty over a period much easier than you can.

After spending a while looking trough various options, what are your thoughts on this?

Book a one way outbound flight, UC to Sydney using 90,000 miles and the 327 tax it will cost.

Then, wait until Jan for the return flights to become available, and then just book a one way ticket back. Hopefully I will be able to get a reward ticket in PE which will set me back 63,000 miles plus tax.

Worst case scenario is that I have to pay for a standard PE coming back, which I can live with.

Or, will Virgin let me change my original booking to make it a return flight, and if so, what is the price likely to be?

[Nottingham Nick]

Have you looked at the price of one way flights?
Worst case scenario could be quite a costly scenario IMHO.

Nick

[Neil]

Agree with Nick, you don't want to book one way flights, as the cost will be very high. One way flights are priced in the full fare code buckets, so you more often then not end up paying more for a one way ticket, than for a discounted round trip ticket.

Well I looked at flights just before Christmas, and they were circa 2200 for PE, but hopefully there will be reward seats available.

Failing that, I just got a price for Ecconomy with Singapore for 775 each.

TBH, I'm more bothered about flying outbound UC than anything, and If I wait until Feb when I can buy the return ticket, I don't think I'll have any chance of a reward seat in UC.

I have travelled out to Sydney over your dates on a number of occasions and have always been able to upgrade at the airport when seats were unavailable beforehand. You have to wait and repeat the process in Sydney on your return date.

I appreciate you may not want the uncertainty but if all else fails .....

Thanks Jacki. I assume in that case then I'd be better off buying PE tickets, and then using my miles to upgrade.

Do I have to do this at the airport, or can I keep an eye out for reward flights that come up?

Upgrading at the airport is never guaranteed and really is only a last chance option - but it can sometimes work for you

Just one more question. Does upgrading to UC allow you access to the Clubhouses?

Yes, once you have an UC ticket - no matter how (legally) obtained - you get access to the CH for the journey the ticket covers. But if say you went LHR-HKG in UC then HKG - SYD in PE then ISTBC you wont get access to the HKG clubhouse prior to the leg to SYD.

The HKG part is clubhouse is fine, as according to the Virgin website, it closes before the flight we will be getting arrives.

I also just priced up a flight using the multi city service, Outbound UC and inbound PE which wasn;t too badly priced.

If all else fails, I may do that, earn some more miles, and keep my existing miles for another trip.

I did make a comment once to the Flying Club desk that I found my house purchase a lot simplier transaction than booking 6 seats at xmas with a combination of reward miles and bought seats on a VS flight.