Upgrade Question...

Bought a cheap K PE ticket - I know it's not upgradeable. So I assume they need to sell you a more expensive upgradeable ticket (and you pay the difference)? Then you can use points to upgrade (and pay the monetary upgrade tax/fee charge as well)?

I have 140k miles to spend, so, that shouldn't be an issue...

So...

Is it better to wait until I get to the airport, to get a better deal? Or call FC beforehand?

I have 140k miles to spend, so, that shouldn't be an issue...

Is it better to wait until I get to the airport, to get a better deal? Or call FC beforehand?

To use your miles, firstly there needs to be availability in the fare class you want to upgrade into. Check by doing a dummy booking for your destination & dates, and see what upgradeable fares are listed

Personally I would ring the FC before travelling, if there is a chance you could get it sorted to your satisfaction.

did you buy from VS direct, or a travel agent?

if it's VS you can get a quote from FC to go to S or W, if it's too high try your luck at the ticket desk on the day, if UC has plenty of spares seats you may get a good deal

if the ticket was from a TA, unless you can get the TA to upgrade it to a negotiable class (it will need to be W if you want to use miles to go PE->UC on a TA ticket), otherwise i think VS will treat a TA K as essentially zero value for purposes of calculating upgrade cost

Bought a cheap K PE ticket - I know it's not upgradeable. So I assume they need to sell you a more expensive upgradeable ticket (and you pay the difference)? Then you can use points to upgrade (and pay the monetary upgrade tax/fee charge as well)?

I have 140k miles to spend, so, that shouldn't be an issue...

So...

Is it better to wait until I get to the airport, to get a better deal? Or call FC beforehand?

Definitely phone FC sooner rather than later. You're needing to find that there are still fares available in the upgradeable PE buckets S or W and yes, you will have to pay to upgrade to those. Then you need there to be the magic Gs available in UC for which you'll pay fees/fuel and miles.

The 'is it worth doing this' question is that unless you get the S or W while they are available, you can't take advantage of Gs if they come up. OTOH, you can find that you pay for the S or W in hopes, and Gs never appear.

Fingers crossed for you.

forgot to ask...

where/when are you flying?

maybe people here can give you an idea how likely it is that there'll be Gs available, some routes are quite good, others it can be rare

Flying Newark > LHR, May 30th.

Bought ticket directly from Virgin.

Don't assume that waiting until the airport will get you a better deal. A sparsely populated UC cabin is not, in my (limited) experience, a guarantee of a "good deal".

Don't assume that waiting until the airport will get you a better deal. A sparsely populated UC cabin is not, in my (limited) experience, a guarantee of a "good deal".

Don't forget that a S fare has a 7 day advance booking window (I think) so if you leave it till the airport you'll likely be quoted a W. aka much more dough.

Flying Newark > LHR, May 30th.

Bought ticket directly from Virgin.

UC is available for May 30th LHR-Newark on the VS001 which is a 787-9 but I'm not sure if you meant you are returning from Newark to LHR on May 30th?

Not showing a lot of return upgradeable fares but if you ring FC they might suggest something for you.

Don't assume that waiting until the airport will get you a better deal. A sparsely populated UC cabin is not, in my (limited) experience, a guarantee of a "good deal".

Don't forget that a S fare has a 7 day advance booking window (I think) so if you leave it till the airport you'll likely be quoted a W. aka much more dough.

Not only this, but what is your return bucket? I think when they refare the whole trip for the upgrade, the return is taken into account. So if there are no longer K seats on the return, you could end up in a higher fare there as well.

TL;DR - Call ASAP, and often.