Upgrade question using flying club miles

I've booked myself on a flight to Vegas in Economy on a standard fare from the VA website, it's given me a booking class of 'O', now on looking into this it doesnt seem to allow upgrades using flying club miles for this booking class? I cant quite get my head around this as I have purchased a standard fare, I havent used miles + money, Why has this given me a booking class of 'O'? I made a point of paying the £100 extra by NOT using the miles + money option so I could upgrade using my miles I have available!!! f*****g VA misleading pax by the balls again it seems. !

If you used the normal booking engine it will give the lowest bucket available. (Just like if you used expedia)

You needed to use the 'companion/upgrade' option under the Flying Club then the 'spend miles' tabs after logging into your FC account to be able to select one of the upgradable buckets.

Only Y/B/R & L are upgradable.

[honey lamb]

To be able to upgrade you need to book an upgradeable fare which with VS is a Y, B, R or L in economy and to be able to do this on-line you need to use this link. You also need to know that there are seats available for upgrade on your flight and to do this you should do a dummy booking using the Spend miles option. There is no point in buying an upgradeable seat in economy if there are no reward seats for your flight as they are more expensive.

You can call Virgin Atlantic and explain what has happened and they will be able to tell you if there are upgrades available and change your O seat to an upgradeable one for you

Sometimes it can be confusing when booking a fare but I always check the fare breakdown to see what fare type I am getting as I have done exactly what you did previously v(

Strange that you have an 'O' fare as I have one of thoise via VH in March

I think O is the lowest economy fare, usually lots of those when a sale is on

Not having much luck here lol just decided to take the plunge and opt for the premium economy upgrade at £420 for both outbound and inbound flights and just my luck the seat map is currently unavailable so I assume there isnt many PE seats left which means I will be given luck of the draw at oci typical! :#

PE is being upgraded so the seat map is currently not available until check in

The seat numbers in Premium Economy are completely different on the new layout, compared to the existing layout, so unfortunately we are unable to offer advanced seat selection in Premium Economy, on some of our flights out of Gatwick, Manchester or Glasgow after 01 Apr 2012. This is because we don’t know which aircraft will be operating each flight until 24 hours before departure.

In addition to this refurbishment programme we are also making system changes to our advanced seat assignment process which has meant that we need to restrict seats allocated within our booking system throughout the period of development. Unfortunately, at the moment this means that no seats are available to select in advance, in any cabin, after 01 Nov 2012.

This effectively means that Premium Economy passengers flying out of LGW, MAN or GLA will not be able to reserve seats in advance for flights departing after 01 Apr 12 until we have completed the changes to our booking system. This will be on, or shortly after Nov 2012.

When are you travelling?

If its before 31st March it means that the 60% pre-reqest limit has been reached and the rest will be opened at OLCI

If after 1st April it's down to the refits and VS not knowing which plane (refurbed or not) will actually operate the flight and ALL PE pax will have to request at OLCI

If its after 1st November is down to the changes to the VS booking system and no one can pre-request seats.

More details on the 'latest news' link on the VS website.

Oh phew! Im travelling in May so good news at last!!

Oh phew! Im travelling in May so good news at last!!

I think the refurbs are only starting in April, not sure how long a refurb takes on each plane, you may be lucky and get one of them

I'm a difficult traveller and, sad to say you sound one too. In my case I check the detail before booking and if I make a mistake I only blame myself. Research pays dividends.

To be honest I don't even bother with the miles. Whenever I have looked into it to get the fare required to upgrade using miles costs more than the lowest price fare of the class you want to be in. As an example I was going to use my points for a free companion fare and the price was more for 1 economy seat plus using my miles than for 2 of the lowest price economy seats. I'm wondering whether it's possible to donate miles to charity because it's more expensive to use them

[Decker]

OREA you're not using the system to best advantage.

Companion tickets are pretty much useless unless you want to fly somewhere in S (Premium Economy) or you get a stonking deal on an upgradeable upper (or you work for a company which has one).

I've used them with S fares multiple times and they're well worth it. Even better you can then upgrade one of the fares using miles to Upper if there is availability.

You CAN give them to charity of course.

European airlines are, by and large not like NA airlines when it comes to redemptions. Yo uhave to understand how the program works before you try to use it.

[honey lamb]

To be honest I don't even bother with the miles. Whenever I have looked into it to get the fare required to upgrade using miles costs more than the lowest price fare of the class you want to be in. As an example I was going to use my points for a free companion fare and the price was more for 1 economy seat plus using my miles than for 2 of the lowest price economy seats. I'm wondering whether it's possible to donate miles to charity because it's more expensive to use them

Companion fares aren't worth the paper they are written on. It is generally agreed that two fares at the lowest grade of the cabin to which you wish to upgrade is less than the upgradeable fare +1. The exception appears to be in PE where companion fares seem to work

I'm wondering whether it's possible to donate miles to charity because it's more expensive to use them

Yes you can but only to the VS charity.

But as Decker says you need to know the system and yes the fares for upgradeable fare buckets are more expensive but then they come with extra miles and the abilitly to make changes to dates etc.

And you can't really compare the price of a fully flexible 'Y' in economy with a not flexible 'K' in PE either as they have different terms and conditions.

To be honest the only difference is flexibility that I see and I don't need that. When I tried to upgrade from economy to premium economy it would have cost more than the lowest premium economy fare which is all I needed as flexibility isn't an issue for me.

[Neil]

To be honest the only difference is flexibility that I see and I don't need that. When I tried to upgrade from economy to premium economy it would have cost more than the lowest premium economy fare which is all I needed as flexibility isn't an issue for me.

There are many many users who have differing experiences to you. Yes, if only the very highest economy fare codes are available then it might be cheaper to buy the cheapest PE fare, but the majority of times if there are L fare codes available then it is significantly cheaper to buy that and upgrade with miles rather than buy a PE fare.

Of course also miles can be used to upgrade an economy fare to UC, which is where the really big savings can be made. I know personally I have saved many thousands of £'s using miles for both PE and UC flight rather than just buying the cheapest tickets in those classes.

As others have said, it pays to spend a bit of time fully exploring and understanding the rules of each fare and how to make them work with your miles for you. There a huge savings to have if you are prepared to put the effort in. Of course some people arent prepared to do that, but the option is there if you want to use it.

To be honest the only difference is flexibility that I see and I don't need that. When I tried to upgrade from economy to premium economy it would have cost more than the lowest premium economy fare which is all I needed as flexibility isn't an issue for me.

But it's no difference to US airlines.

If you want to upgrade with miles then you need to be in one of the higher fare buckets.

Them's the rules.

I guess it depends where your booking and flying from. An upper class flight return from Orlando at its lowest is approx $4300. If I were flying from uk to Orlando it's only about £2200. Even with the exchange rate it's a much higher price flying from the USA. That being said I used my united miles to fly from Orlando to London and I only paid around $600 in taxes for the 3 flights and used my miles. I'm still trying to work out how to match that with virgin using as few miles as I did with united.

[honey lamb]

I guess it depends where your booking and flying from. An upper class flight return from Orlando at its lowest is approx $4300. If I were flying from uk to Orlando it's only about £2200. Even with the exchange rate it's a much higher price flying from the USA. That being said I used my united miles to fly from Orlando to London and I only paid around $600 in taxes for the 3 flights and used my miles. I'm still trying to work out how to match that with virgin using as few miles as I did with united.

You need to use your UA miles before Feb 13 as they will cease to exist then. You were only able to use them because of the UA/CO merger. I will miss my CO miles