Upgrading With Miles

I've now accrued a significant enough number of miles to consider using them for the odd upgrade here and there.

Can anyone give me some advice as to how this works. How can I check if the flight I want to book (paid) into has space for me to upgrade (with miles) to my cabin of choice. Also, this would probably be one way (the over night return segments from west coast)...

I'm generally pretty flexible about my dates so it would be a matter of choosing a different one to get myself an upgrade option.

Also, just to check, I still earn tier points and miles for the class I have paid for, right?

And is there anything else I need to know about upgrading?

Thanks

Emma

[Neil]

Hi Emma, welcome to the world of using miles and all the many variables that go with it.

The first thing to do is check if any reward seats are available in the class you want. To do this you can either do a dummy rewards (miles) booking on the VS site, or give FC a call (I prefer to call, as the website can be difficult to find reward seats on.

Once you have found a reward seat, you need to make your original booking in an upgradable fare class. L is the lowest economy fare you can upgrade, and S is the lowest PE fare you can upgrade, again, to book these specific fare codes you are best giving FC a call, as they will be able to do this for you and also do the miles upgrade at the same time.

Yes, you will still earn miles and TP's for the original fare code you have paid for with money.

It isn't always easy to get the rewards, but with a bit of time spent looking at all the possible options, and being flexible, you can make some very big savings on premium class travel.

Neil

Emma, to add to what Neil has said:

- to check availability on the Web site, go to book a flight and choose the 'Spend Miles' option, put in your dates, the class of travel you want to upgrade to and see what comes back
- the site will show availability in your preferred cabin - for Upper it shows G fare class availability, which is the same fare class used for upgrades, for Premium it shows U availability, again the same used for upgrades
- this is sometimes called doing a 'dummy' booking but will give you dates available, though as Neil says, ringing can work well too.

Then, of course, you need to buy a ticket in your original class of travel that is upgradeable. VS make this tricky since not all fare classes are upgradeable (unlike BA) and it is most sensible to do this on the telephone rather than the Web site.

Yes, you always earn miles and TPs on the original booking BUT VS's computer systems have a flaw in this regard and they don't post automatically. So you need to fill out a missing miles form on the Web site to remind them to post the miles and TPs.

Lastly, if you don't see your dates and you still need to travel, don't despair. VS release seats for upgrading at different timelines before each flight. Long term there are a set number available according to the date of travel (e.g. summer holidays less than other times), then, if a flight is looking like it won't be full the VS revenue management department may release additional seats in stages before the flight, lastly at one week before. Even on the day, seats in other cabins frequently become available for miles upgrades and you can even do this on check in.

Oh, lastly, lastly, when you upgrade, you are likely to need to pay more tax ...