best way to spend miles?

i'm looking at cashing in my miles for a trip to Cape Town next year & wondered what's the best way of going about it, having never done this previously. one person i spoke to advised using the miles to purchase economy tickets & then pay to upgrade to UC as this is more cost-effective than using miles to purchase UC tickets? the plan is that i should have enough miles for the round trip in UC for 2 people by the time i look to purchase.

Also, how far in advance do people recommend buying tickets? i imagine there are only a limited number per flight?

finally - for now - do you still earn miles on a reward ticket?

[Neil]

Hi,

This question I guess comes down to personal choice and the number of miles you have.

The cheapest option is to 'buy' 2 full UC flights with miles, as you will only pay the taxes. This will obviously cost you the most number of miles though (100k per pax). Also, you would not earn any miles/TP's at all for this flights.

The other options are to buy with cash either an economy or premium economy ticket and then use your miles to upgrade to UC. This will cost more in terms of money, but will mean you will spend less miles (60k per pax for econ to UC, or 40k per pax for PE to UC). The thing to remember here is that you must buy a fare that is upgradable with miles. In Economy it must be a Y/B/L fare, in PE is must be a W or S fare. Doing it this way you will earn miles and TP's for the original economy/PE fare you buy with cash.

I'm pretty certain you can't buy an economy ticket with miles and then upgrade to UC with cash to UC, and in any case, if you could, it would be a very expensive way of doing it.

As regards to when to buy the tickets, as you have said the number of reward seats are limited, so my advice would be as soon as possible, otherwise you run the risk of there being none available.

Neil

excellent, thanks so much