Sorry - I need your expert advice again

Can anyone explain in (very) simple terms the difference between these two below. By searching through these forums I get the feeling the companion flight voucher is about a useful as a chocolate fire guard.

Planning a quickie over to New York in October/November so I was hoping to be able to use one of them for that. we currently have 200,000 points between us also.



01 May 2014 VAA Credit Card Companion Flight Qualification 0 0
22 May 2014 VAA Credit Card Econ>Premium Reward Upgrade 0 0

Sorry Serena,

Have you actually got any rewards, is this a snapshot of your account? If you have then you can use either but there has to be reward availability, in PE or whatever class you want to use the Companion reward in you should have enough miles for either reward. The one advantage with the econ-pe voucher is that you will only use the economy mileage. Better use maybe to look for reward seats and upgrade from them as you will still have to pay the taxes on any upgrade or companion ticket.

Hi mallin

Sorry yes that has been cut and paste from my statement on my flying club rewards page.

Am I correct in thinking if I use the EC to PE voucher I can not then upgrade again to UC ??(if reward seats are even available)

Yes, if you use the ec/pe upgrade voucher, the rules say you won't then be able to further upgrade to uc.

There are pros/cons to using either voucher, but the concensus is that the companion voucher is far lass useful than the upgrade voucher.

But, it all depends on your particular circumstances, milage availability, whether getting tier points and miles is important etc.

Yes, if you use the ec/pe upgrade voucher, the rules say you won't then be able to further upgrade to uc.

There are pros/cons to using either voucher, but the concensus is that the companion voucher is far lass useful than the upgrade voucher.

But, it all depends on your particular circumstances, milage availability, whether getting tier points and miles is important etc.

Thank You.

[Neil]

Just to be clear on the companion voucher, to use this, you need to buy a full fare ticket in the relevant class. Upper is J only, PE is W or S, and Econ is Y through M, you will then use the voucher to get another seat for 'free', although that isn't technically true as you have to pay taxes/surcharges etc still.

What you will almost certainly find is that the cost of the full fare ticket will be more than buying two of the lowest available fares anyway, so pretty much making the voucher useless.

On the PE upgrade, you need to use miles (can't use cash) to 'buy' an economy ticket and then you will use the voucher to upgrade to PE. There only needs to be PE reward seats to do this.

Using either, you won't be able to upgrade the 'free' ticket again using more miles or cash.

Neil