Finding a way through the quagmire of pricing

This is my first post having only recently discovered the site, so please forgive the fact that my question may provoke a groaning response of "not again" from the "old hands".
I have 137,000 Virgin Points and 2 Premium Economy upgrades (and what I gather is a useless Companion Voucher) courtesy of my Virgin Amex Credit Card. My wife and I want to go to Antigua for the last two weeks of November this year (exact dates not critical) and I am rather lost as to the best way to use points and money for any given grade of seat. [For the life of me, I cannot find out from the VIrgin website how to find out the grade of seats which so many seem to talk about with consummate authority!]
At the moment I have a provisional reservation following a call to Virgin Flyer Club Helpline for Upper Class seats both ways for £1,920 + 100,000 miles and I don't have a clue whether that is good value for money. It clearly doesn't use the Premium Economy upgrade tickets I've got (valid for one way or both?), but when I asked what the cost of going one way PE and one way UC would be, I was told £1,820 + 75,000 miles, so sticking with the UC both ways seemed a better bet.

But am I missing a trick here? There seem to be so many "tricks of the trade" that I am feeling bewildered and any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Neil]

Hi and welcome.

I fully understand your confusion with it all, it certainly isn't made easy by airlines, and before I joined this site many years ago now, it was all a mystery to me (and some bits still are).

It sounds from what you have said, you are being priced on a M class economy fare upgraded to UC with miles! (50k miles per person) which given the amount of miles you have seems the most sensible use of your miles.

The reason the PE / UC combo is a very similar price, is because you are still using the same economy M fare, so the only difference is the amount of miles and a slight difference in tax. I, like you, would therefore do UC both ways.

The AmEx PE upgrade vouchers are pretty useless to you here as you are wanting to fly UC, and they cannot be upgraded to UC. If you were happy to fly PE both ways (the voucher is for return upgrade), then you will find the fare significantly cheaper as you would just buy with your miles an economy reward fare, with the voucher upgrading you to PE, paying only the taxes (based on a PE reward fare). As a guide, I used the vouchers to get 2 x PE seats to Orlando in September for a total monetary cost of £750 plus the miles. There just needs to be PE reward seats available.

Hopefully this has helped you a little, I do think you have been given good advise so far by the FC team, if you have any further questions feel free to ask away.

Neil

Thompson

Hello and welcome to the site -- ignore the groans!

£1920+100k miles -- is that a total price for 2 people? If so, I would grab it.

Thompson

Hello and welcome to the site -- ignore the groans!

£1920+100k miles -- is that a total price for 2 people? If so, I would grab it.

I agree if that's the total for two people I wouldn't hesitate but simply give my Amex card details
Heck if I could find that price to NRT next spring I would just book and pay later somehow
Ps welcome to v-flyer

Thank you guys for such helpful replies - very much appreciated and a vastly different response to the one I received on an Amazon forum last year when as a newbie, I asked what was probably a naive question only to be greeted with really awful abuse and derision!
I shall confirm the provisional booking with the FC team and continue my battle to understand this fascinating but frustrating business of points!
Again, thank you.

My BH and I are currently in Antigua having taken advantage of almost exactly the same deal they have offered you. An excellent price and well worth it. Have a wonderful time!

Just wanted to add my agreement that this deal sounds good. Also worth pointing out that if this is being priced up as an "M" economy fare then you will be entitled to earn miles on this economy ticket, even though you are subsequently upgrading it. Might take a phone call to flying club after your flights to have the points manually added, but worth remembering to do so!

Many thanks - now booked and miles (on Economy ticket basis) confirmed as being applicable.