Reward Flights

I have been saving up miles for a year or so and now have nearly enough for two PE or two upgrades from PE to UC. I am looking for availability to either Dubai in the late autumn or St Lucia or Grenada in Feb/March next year.

I have never booked reward flights before and am finding it a bit confusing! When I enter dates which seem to have an available reward flight according to the matrix, I then get a box up which says I need to call VA direct. Is this normal? Any advice on how to actually find dates when flights are available would be appreciated.

On another point, I also have a Economy to PE upgrade voucher via AMEX - I know there has been some discussion on the value of this promotion, but again would appreciate how best to redeem this. My ideal would be to get a reward PE using miles and then buy one economy ticket and use the voucher to upgrade to PE!

Phew!! Hope this makes sense and thanks for your help.

I think call VA is probably the best option, to be honest. Be prepared to make a decision during the call, as the seats can be there one day and gone the next. When I was booking two straight rewards last year I seats that were apparently available had gone by the time I hit the "Buy" button. Good luck. y)

Other opinions are available...

have done this a number of times. yes call -its far easier as a human will look for alternatives. once you find the seats you think you want they will put them on hold for up to 48 hours. we are currently in Florida having used one upgrade and then straight miles to fly PE to MCO and that was out on a Sat and coming back bank holiday Monday. it does help to be flexible though