Deja vu

Booked to travel to LGW-MCO on the 29th Oct on VS15 in PE. Been toying with the idea of bidding for an upgrade to UC, prices ranging from £950 to £1205 pppl. :0 current ticket is a MpM K. I believe that you cannot upgrade with miles to a G but should be able to use cash, subject to availability. Decided to call the FC to see how much they would charge. Spoke with a very friendly and chatty lady explaining what I wanted to do. Politely put on hold for 5 mins while it was discussed with someone else. Came back and said there was availability on the earlier 27 flight and offered an upgrade to 2 Gs for £52 each (extra taxes) and 25k miles each :0 I immediately queried this option for validity and confirmed to me that it was available and did I want to to go ahead. I responded yes and supplied both flying club account details and cc etc. Booking now upgraded for the outbound leg only to UC. Not ticketed yet so not sure what will happen next. Went down this route on a booking last year and I did eventually get a call saying it was a mistake. This time I have called in good faith to seek advice from the flying club expecting to be given a cash option to upgrade and having it discussed within the FC office so I expect to receive good advice. Call me an optimistic old guy but I am pretty sure it's not my job to tell Virgin how to apply their own rules. Is this a moral question? Who to heck knows. 18 hours since upgrade processed so seat 9-10k have our names on them at the moment. Really hoping this goes through as it is our anniversary trip and probably our last trip to Florida. If someone within the Virgin organisation reads this they could comment. Thanks for reading

[Neil]

Hmmm that is interesting - you can upgrade to an UC MPM ticket, but they have taken more miles than that would require so it seems unlikely it is that.

The rules are clear that you can't upgrade with just miles, so you've either got lucky or are going to get another call - they key thing will be when you get a a new new ticket, as ticketing could still pick up on this if it is an error.

We upgraded our MPM PE fares to LAX, the general concensus on this forum was that you could not go from K, to S, to G.
But we were told we could do it, we did have to move to an earlier flight where Gs were available.
But the cost to upgarde to S class(both ways) was £1300 from memory.
Then we paid 12500 miles each way to go to UC.
Sounds like a bargain, keep calling them til you get the eticket.
It took me a few days, turns out they had quoted me more then I should have paid, which is why the eticket didn't get processed immediately.

Good luck !!

Thanks Neil and Lovetoholiday for the replies. Just called again and spoke to a very cheerful and helpful lady who confirmed that everything was in order and it was actually 12500 miles to upgrade and just £53 pp extra taxes. Does this make it a MpM upgrade?
Advised it can take up to 48 hrs to issue a new ticket but the lady said that she would try and speed it up a bit, maybe end of the day. Fingers crossed

[Neil]

If you had gone to an UC MPM fare it would have only been another 7500 miles each, as PE MPM is 7500 and UC is 15000.

It is definitely just a cabin upgrade as to upgrade from PE to UC with miles is 12,500 one way (on most routes).

If you had gone to an UC MPM fare it would have only been another 7500 miles each, as PE MPM is 7500 and UC is 15000.

It is definitely just a cabin upgrade as to upgrade from PE to UC with miles is 12,500 one way (on most routes).

Thanks for the helpful info, much appreciated.

Upgrade confirmed and replacement e-ticket received this morning. Thanks to VS for allowing the upgrade to go ahead even though my MpM ticket was not eligible for upgrading with miles. 25k miles each plus some allowance for the original 7.5k used for the PE ticket and £53 pp extra taxes. Been flying VS since 1990 and this will be our first UC flight and also a chance to experience the LGW clubhouse. Do not know how the guest arrangement works but if any one qualifies let me know. Our flight is at 11.40 so is it three hours before the flight for entry into the clubhouse? We are planning to be at LGW at 08.00 so hopefully into the clubhouse by 09.00.

I think 3 hrs is the minimum time you should allow yourself in the clubhouse

I imagine if you arrive at LGW at 8am you should be in the CH way before 9am surely ?

I think 3 hrs is the minimum time you should allow yourself in the clubhouse

I imagine if you arrive at LGW at 8am you should be in the CH way before 9am surely ?

Certainly would like to maximise clubhouse time normally use the PE check in desks then upstairs to the priority security then downstairs through world duty free to have breakfast somewhere. Is there a better way to get the the clubhouse from security? I think it's upstairs in departures? UC all new for us so all advice welcome

You can have breakfast in the CH
After grabbing some bits in duty free I would just head straight to the CH
Book a treatment then head over to grab breakfast and a redhead

You can have breakfast in the CH
After grabbing some bits in duty free I would just head straight to the CH
Book a treatment then head over to grab breakfast and a redhead

Thanks for the info sounds very nice. Not sure if Mrs Needsomesun will be happy with me having a redhead but you never know