Need advice on use of miles/upgrades/codes etc!

Hi all

Sorry to make my first post a plea for help but I can see that this is a very helpful community and I'm confusing the hell out of myself trying to sort this myself!

The issue is that the wife and I want to fly to Jamaica on 16 Nov, returning 23 Nov and if possible we'd like to fly the first leg UC, just to start the relaxing (no kids for a week) trip off on the right foot!

I have 49000 miles, wife has 37000. For the life of me, I can't work out the best way of sorting what I want - but I do know that there are reward seats available in economy both legs and reward UC seats available outward.

I think the only way of doing this is the upgrade route but I have no idea how to get an upgradable code. The reward seat economy would be a T, booking economy on the site gives me an X, how on earth do I get the Y,B,L or M?

I'm scared about waiting, but do they reallocate new reward seats frequently?

Or perhaps the best route is going down the premium economy route.

Very confused! Any tricks to this, sound advice?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards

Winger

[honey lamb]

Hi and welcome to V-Flyer.

If there's reward availability the quickest way is to call VS and sort it out with them. There is a tab on the Flying Club part of the menu for Upgrades/Companion fares which gives the option to book an upgradeable fare but quite honestly I would go down the calling them route

You might also want to consider this: An upgrade from Econ to UC is 25k miles or from PE to UC 12,500 so if you buy an upgradable PE ticket you have enough miles to go UC roundtrip. It may not be available now but it might open up nearer the time or even on the day.

Here's a linkto the search box that HL refers to. The cheapest upgradable economy fare for your dates is £910 each (L fare) compared to the x fare today of £730. The cheapest PE upgradable (s fare) is £1396 each (around £1100 for the cheapest K fare). A one way, one class upgrade is then 12,500 miles each. There will be extra APD and fuel charges though as you move up the cabins so try dummy bookings to see how much more this is.

If you buy the L fare you could upgrade you to Upper with 25k one way and then 12.5K to PE for the other. You have enough miles to do this , your wife is 500 short. (You could buy one leg for her from your account, but you would also be short by about 1000 miles.) To get them quickly the safest method is to buy them, although due to the admin fee this is relatively expensive for small amounts.

If you have to travel on those dates, and reward availability is there now, I would be on the phone today to book. At some point the base L fares will sell out, and then the B fares will be more expensive. The LGW fleet only has a small UC cabin so rewards on the dates you want them is a real result.

PS - if you haven't already set up authorisation for you to spend your wife's miles make sure you are both present when you phone so they can speak to her.

All

Thank you all so much for your help. Exceeded expectations. I'll get on it straight away.

Regards

Winger

[honey lamb]

Let us know how you get on.

Sometimes it works out cheaper to just book the current advertised lowest fare, rather than book an upgradeable fare.

A friend of mine booked two seats to Las Vegas at the weekend, for travel in August.

She was going to use her miles to upgrade from Econ to PE. However when ringing the FC she was told the cheapest upgradable Economy fare in L was £1168.30 + the miles required for the upgrade. The lowest advertised PE for her dates was £1063.30 and she'd also get 10,444 miles.

Of course the latter is not a flexible fare and she'll run into probs if she cancels for any reason but it does seem that using miles to upgrade is not always the best option, especially if you can hang on for late deals like this one.

Hi All

I think I've cracked this. After a bit of fiddling about myself I essentially came up with a solution which totalled £1805 and used up all of our miles. This is for one way upper class (the outward leg which is always the more expensive one from a fees perspective). This is compared to £2554 total which would be the cheapest online fare for the same.

However, on calling the flying club as recommended, they came up with a solution which used up all our miles but came in at £1657 total (involved me buying 1,000 miles). I really didn't understand what she did but hey, it sounds good to me, especially since the best I could get all fees in on economy both ways was £887 total. I'm not sure how many people would agree that the extra £770 is worth it, but for a ten hour flight and use of the lounge it feels good to me!

It's currently on hold for me as I need to get the wife's authority to book using her miles.

One final question - I have 1250 miles on their way from tesco. I know the website says allow 28 days but does anyone know how long it takes in practice?

Thanking everyone for all their help!

Regards

Winger

Are you coming back PE or economy? If its the latter, I suspect she has combined an L fare outbound (then upgraded with miles to Upper) and a cheaper economy fare bucket coming back (which is not upgradeable/less flexible = cheaper).

However, if you are only coming back economy I'm struggling to see how it would use all of your miles - so if it is PE, I think that's a result as the two cheapest L free I could see were more than the £1657.

PS - its more expensive going out due to UK departure tax, so flying economy out, upper back is better to mitigate that (rather than upper out/economy back) and you get the nice flat bed to sleep in overnight. However, its nice to be awake for your first Upper, and you would miss out on the Clubhouse.

Just had an afterthought, she may have done a combi fare for you (thats an outright UC reward out combined with a cheap economy back) and a L fare out for your wife upgrade to Upper with miles - with another cheap economy back. In which case my question would be is the few hundred saving worth it over an UC out/PE back?

The lady said I'd be using 50,000 of my miles and 30,000 of the wife's. I believe 50,000 would have been a straight reward, 25,000 would have been an upgrade but I'm really not sure about the other 5,000. Perhaps she is using these for miles + money somehow for the both of us?

Not so fussed about PE on the way home really, although it's a night flight. Was talking to the people at work about which leg to do UC but quite frankly we can sleep easily in econ and I actually like to be awake to enjoy my UC experience! And of course the clubhouse. Seems like some value the ability to sleep flat more. If someone offered me £350, I'd quite happily sleep outside for one night on the slate patio!