Xmas flight to las

I'm looking at the possibility of holiday to vegas over xmas for special birthday treat, I'm looking to either get a good deal for 2 pe seats e/way or using some miles,am I better to do this sooner rather than later or will they release reward seats nearer the time?
Never used any points before so all quite new to me( for info-flying from london direct flight. )
Many thanks.

The availability in December is not bad at the moment so if there are dates that suit book now. There's no guarantee more will be released, Vegas isn't a great route for reward seats. You don't say which dates or how many miles you have?

Reward seats can and do appear at any time. There's no pattern - only VS know how many will be released for each flight and when. You just have to keep checking - daily if possible - but bear in mind Christmas is a very busy time and if VS can sell seats for cash they will.

I'd like to fly xmas day, we have about 70k miles between us.

With 70,000 miles you have 3 options for using your miles.
1) Buy an m class economy fare for you both and use 50,000 miles to upgrade you both to Premium (you'll have to pay the extra tax)

2 Pay cash for one Premium economy seat in s class and use 35,000 miles to get the second seat as a companion fare (again you'll have to pay the taxes on the companion fare)

3) Pay cash for one ticket in the cheapest bucket and get a full miles redemption for the second ticket for 70,000 miles and £379.26

There needs to be reward availability for any of these options though, at the moment there's nothing for the 25th. The 23rd and 26th are available with return on the 30th.
You could wait to see if Virgin release more seats but Vegas at Christmas is very popular.

If you check in online for your return flight presumably you go to bag drop at las airport, if that is the case can you ask at that desk if there are any upgrades available to buy?
Sorry my questions may seem a little daft to regular travellers , so I apologise in advance!

Yes. At some US airports they even have cash upgrade price lists displayed at the desk, can't remember if LAS is one of them.

If you want to upgrade with miles you'll have to ask. If there's availability they'll often say yes although PE & UC are both very popular on the LAS route so may well be full already.

Thankyou, I'm flying p/e but would like to upgrade at bag drop if they have uc(depending on the price)can't use my miles I don't think as don't have the right type of ticket.

You could pay the difference between your existing PE ticket and the cheapest upgradable one, then use miles to get into UC. However as there are only 14 UC seats on the 747s that fly to LAS, you'd be relying on luck to get one, particularly over Xmas/New Year which are extremely busy in Vegas.

If you want to guarantee an upgrade to UC using cash I'd do it in advance. The airport price isn't that great.

DId you collect your points via the Virgin Miles Credit Card?
If so, you may have an economy to premium economy upgrade voucher.

Also, another consideration is to fly economy one leg & the UC the other leg.
If you have a CC upgrade voucher, then you can upgrade 2x people on 1 leg to PE

No,all point accumulated by past flights on being a red flying club member.

Or look at the dublin thread and consider going out Upper bought, 1170 quid. Which is a PE level fare..