Stupid questions from a novice

Hi all, apologies for the stupid questions I'm about to ask. I haven't got my head around how miles works.

I've currently got 53959 Flying Club miles at Red tier. I'm planning on flying to MCO in August 2016 (20/08-03/09) - 2 adults. I've never spent miles before, so I'm not sure whats for the best.

I've read on here that MCO availability is poor for reward seats - is that just PE/UC or Econ too? I don't have enough points for 2x round trips and am unlikely to (without buying some) by the time flights come around in Sept.

If I book a package with VH, taking into account the 7% discount and converting miles to £250 vouchers, it's £5,516. The non-flights part of the package, booked direct with Disney, is £3,330 This means the flights are coming out at around £2,186 which seems a lot.

The spending calculator on VA website says I'll need 42500 miles + up to £366 taxes and charges per fare. If I bought 40000 miles at £615, this would make flights £1347 - much cheaper.

Am I calculating this right? To get the deal, I'd need to book accommodation before the flights got released. Is it a big risk to try get reward seats? Would miles and money/combi fares or outright cash usually be better?

I'd love to upgrade and do UC one day but I don't think its doable as full price tickets are scary expensive, I think.

Any help and advice appreciated

You could fly to Atlanta or New York where there are more reward seats and take a Delta or Jet Blue flight down to Orlando.
In September I am flying to Orlando via Atlanta on the outbound and JFK on the return.

[/gurumode on] The only stupid question is the one you don't ask [/gurumode off]

Eggtatisco has some good suggestions for racking up more miles in this thread.

Miles and Money are rarely the best value unless you are never intending to use miles again...

Hi, There are no stupid questions here, we were all new at the miles games once. The problem will be if you book your accommodation now your dates are fixed. There is still availability for this year in late August/early September for 2 people in all cabins so you should be able to get reward seats at this time of year for 2016 if you booked when they are released but not necessarily on those exact dates, so if you have already booked your accommodation you have no flexibility. Can you not hold off on booking your accommodation?
Even if you wanted to lock in your accommodation now £2186 is expensive for these flights so even if you ended up having to pay cash at a later date I don't think it will be much more expensive, my guess would be cheaper. Checking prices today for those exact dates in 2015 gives a price of £1920 for two people. If you book direct with Virgin Atlantic you should be able to get m class fares for that price then you could use your miles to upgrade one leg from economy to Upper Class for 50,000 miles for you both. (in fact the above price is an r fare on the return which means you could upgrade with your miles if reward seats are available)

Keep an eye out for reward seat sales if you decide to hang on, the last one had returns for just under 32,000.You have a good few months to collect more miles to be able to get 2 reward seats in economy (you can always try for premium or upper)

There are many good blogs out there with info on how to collect miles (I write one myself ) but I don't think we're allowed to post links to other blogs here.
Some ways are:
Credit card bonus and referrals
Tesco
Topcashback
Pointshound
Shops Away
Virgin Trains
Virgin ISA
Car Hire
E-rewards
I started 12 months ago and have earned 1.2 million miles (A mixture of Virgin, Avios and Etihad) so there's still chance for that upper dream:)

You could also look at an ex-dublin flight to save money if you don't mind an extra flight, economy on this route is usually around the £550 mark and Upper £1250 using the ex-dublin trick.

Sorry if this seems like a lot of info at once but post any questions if you want more info, the v-flyers are a helpful bunch.

I000 miles at £615, this would make flights £1347 - much cheaper.


I'd love to upgrade and do UC one day but I don't think its doable as full price tickets are scary expensive, I think.

You don't need a full price ticket to upgrade just one booked in m class.

Some ways are:
Credit card bonus and referrals
Tesco
Topcashback
Pointshound
Shops Away
Virgin Trains
Virgin ISA
Car Hire
E-rewards
I started 12 months ago and have earned 1.2 million miles (A mixture of Virgin, Avios and Etihad) so there's still chance for that upper dream:)

The spending calculator on VA website says I'll need 42500 miles + up to £366 taxes and charges per fare. If I bought 40000 miles at £615, this would make flights £1347 - much cheaper.
)

Sorry forgot to answer this in my first post. The price of an economy reward ticket from Gatwick to Orlando is 42,500 miles but only £218.86 in cash.

We've just booked for Disney in 2016, and are also going this October, and went last October too (it's the free dining offer - it gets us every time). We've booked room/tickets/dining only with Disney (roughly £3,600 for 14 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge) because, as you have figured out, trying to book the whole package with Virgin Holidays seems to mean you pay a lot for flights.

We panicked last year and bought flights as soon as they were available, at about 310 days out. After then watching the ups and downs of flight prices after we booked, this year we held on for a sale and ended up paying £2,400 for 3 of us in PE both ways (in the sale that VS had over Easter), which we thought was pretty good.

As CHill710 said, if you're looking to use miles then you can always go via NY or Atlanta and then get a Delta internal flight from there. We're actually going via Atlanta this year, and it only adds a few hours to the journey (once you factor in that you go through immigration in Atlanta rather than Orlando, so you're saving time at the final destination)

No stupid questions.

UC reward seats to MCO are possible if you get in quick. (done it three times now)

For August flight out Sept back it would mean booking early October.
I have found there seems to me more availability on the outbound than inbound.
And inbound Sunday seems to have more availability than other days.
Last year we originally booked a Saturday return, but changed to Sunday when reward seats became available on the Sunday.
It did mean finding a room for one night, and paying a £100 fee to change the date.
This year I went straight in for Sunday return and booked the lot on the day our return flight opened.

As for miles you have a few months to collect some.
Virgin Black credit card. Although it costs £140 a year you get
18,500 miles for first purchase. It used to be a lot more so keep an eye open for special offers.
Also gives you 2 miles per £ on Amex purchase and 4 miles when you use it to buy from Virgin.
Tesco points: if you convert automatically you get 625 miles for 250 Tesco Clubcard points. Look for special offers with extra points. I am just about to buy wine with a voucher giving me 1500 clubcard points which will convert to 3750
Do as much shopping as possible through the Shops away on the Virgin site. Some shops give 9 miles per £
If you have done any recent Virgin flights then use the miles booster to buy miles @ £10 per 1000. I think you have 3 months from the flight date.
Lastly Erewards; do online surveys for points and convert to miles. Not easy but every little helps. 7 Surveys at 500 points each will convert to 1000 Virgin miles.

Beware: mile collecting can become obsessive!

Dick D