I should have read the small print

Ok, been saving miles for ages. As I have found out from this forum, reward seats can be difficult to come by, especially if you want UC from LGW or you have a group who want to travel together....

So, we were delighted when we discovered there were 4 UC reward seats for our planned trip to SFO next February. The pax will be myself, 2 kids and wife.

Now I have the lions share of the miles, 340k and wifey has just over 70k......

But at the last moment when completing the booking on the phone, I am told we cannot pool miles

I can buy a seat outright for her with mine (I need 400k, not got) but cannot add the 30k she needs.

After saving miles for 7 years and eventually finding a flight we want to use them on, we are screwed by the system.

Any ideas or are these the rules and thats that?

Col

The only way round this I can see is if you buy 10k miles yourself so you have 350k miles. You then book 3 x return tickets and 1 one way. Your wife then uses 50k miles to buy the other one way ticket to make 4 returns in total.

You should be able to do all of the above in a call to Flying Club.

James

[Darren Wheeler]

You can buy miles on-line too. 10k is 165

quote:Originally posted by Darren Wheeler
You can buy miles on-line too. 10k is 165


And it should be instantaneously credited - as said, you can book a reward one way at a time so if you spend the 165 quid (less than the taxes and surcharges per person) you'll be able to sort this out pronto. Good luck [y].

Talking about BUYING miles, I recently found out that apart from the 19,000 miles you buy yourself, and the miles that your wife can buy herself, you can 'gift' her (ie you pay for and she gets)another 19,000. And of course you can get her to 'gift' you 19,000

So that's 76,000 miles you can get between you. Admittedly it will cost you 1200, but often it can me much cheaper than, for example, paying for a business to first upgrade on long haul

(I used to think it was buy OR gift - but found out you can both do both...)

As has been said i would buy the 10k miles, then with 300k miles buy 3 seats from your account.

Then you are allowed to pool miles of equal amounts to buy a ticket ('ve done it) from no more than 2 accounts, so 50k from each of you and your wifes account's.

Your wife needs to be with you when you phone or she needs to ring FC and have you addedd to her account as an authorised user.

I'm suprised the agent didn't suggest that.

Thanks for the advice. Buying the 10k will work.

quote:Originally posted by chumba

Your wife needs to be with you when you phone or she needs to ring FC and have you addedd to her account as an authorised user.

I'm suprised the agent didn't suggest that.


That interesting Chumba, I didn't know you could have an authorised user of someone elses account. Do you just ring the flying club to organise that or do you have to do the dreaded 'writing in'?

[Neil]

quote:Originally posted by SNOMO
quote:Originally posted by chumba

Your wife needs to be with you when you phone or she needs to ring FC and have you addedd to her account as an authorised user.

I'm suprised the agent didn't suggest that.


That interesting Chumba, I didn't know you could have an authorised user of someone elses account. Do you just ring the flying club to organise that or do you have to do the dreaded 'writing in'?


The person whose account it is, just needs to call FC and tell them the name of the person who they want to be an authorised user on their FC account. Of course you will need to know their personal details (password etc), but then it will allow them to have full use of their account, so they can spend the miles etc.

quote:Originally posted by SNOMO
[quote]Originally posted by chumba

Your wife needs to be with you when you phone or she needs to ring FC and have you addedd to her account as an authorised user.

I'm suprised the agent didn't suggest that.


That interesting Chumba, I didn't know you could have an authorised user of someone elses account. Do you just ring the flying club to organise that or do you have to do the dreaded 'writing in'?

My kids have access to mine and it does save time when you just need to get them on a flight or upgraded quickly.

Quick phone call to FC and they arranged the authorised user for us both on each others accounts. Only thing is you can only be an authorised user on 1 account at a time, and if you pool miles it can only be from 2 accounts and of equal amounts.

You can't do say 70k& 30k for UC or 5 accounts of 20k miles

(rememebr if someone is an authorised user they have full access to spend your miles so make sure you trust em !)

I've got access to my Husband's account and it makes it much easier when booking flights, as I work from home I am the one who organises these things. We have just rejigged some reward flights and the agent said that the sector that we changed had to be fully refunded in points and then reallocated; worked fine in the end we refunded the lot and started again. Not sure if you need to know that[:o)]

Thats great, thank you all for your knowledge. I will ring them today