October Fares & Upgrades

Hi everyone - I'm planning to fly to LAX in October. I usually book PE but the price is £1161. I normally pay about £900. Any ideas if the price may come down? I noticed economy is high too.

Also I currently have 25k miles. That's enough to upgrade the journey one way. Unfortunately it would only cost £1157 all in for an economy ticket with upgrade to Upper (less than the PE flight) but I don't have the miles. Is it worth upgrading just one direction or is that a bad use of miles?

Appreciate any advice!

Depends when your trip is.

Does is coincide with UK school 1/2 term dates? That might explain the higher prices.

Will the price come down? Well to a degree it will depend on loads - why reduce the fare if you can fill a plane with people willing to pay a particular price?

If you are short of miles you can buy some but you need to do some calculations as to whether this is worth it or not compared to buying a cheap 'K' PE fare or 'Z' UC fare. Remember that you need to be in the right fare bucket to be able to upgrade (Y,B,R or L in Econ and W and S in PE)

Only you can decide if it is worth upgrading in one direction and if so in which one.

A quick look at the fare finder in the toolbox shows the lowest PE fare to LAX in October is currently £1030.

This time last year there was a (short) sale - but whether they'll do the same this year is anybody's guess.

Thanks for your responses. I think it may be worth holding on in case there is a sale in the next month.

Does anyone know if the bidding for upgrades applies to the LAX flights and if so has anyone actually successfully managed to upgrade using it? I have never seen this option before.

As if by magic BA have launched a sale this morning with some crazy prices in club world - under £1200 return to Vancouver and £1600 to LA (compared to £3200 on VS).

Only seems to be for flights in July and August but when BA slash prices VS aren't normally far behind ...

Thanks gumshoe. That sounds very good!

Does anyone know if the bidding for upgrades applies to the LAX flights and if so has anyone actually successfully managed to upgrade using it? I have never seen this option before.

It was a limited trial and was only for a single flight pair on each of the JFK (VS45/46) and MCO (VS15/16) routes.

However I think that NZ had a similar system on it's LHR-LAX-AKL route.