Advice - Miles Usage

Hi everyone. I'm looking for some advice on booking two tickets to LAS (or possibly LAX) in March. Prices are currently high so I'm thinking of using my miles to reduce the cost. I currently have 32000 and my other half has 11000. We recently returned from LAS and therefore have the option of miles booster to get some cheap additional miles.

I'm wondering if I get enough miles could I redeem them for one ticket and then only have to use half the miles for a companion ticket or does the companion only count with a fully paid ticket? Also I assume all the miles have to come from one account unless I pay to transfer them?

Any help or advice would be very welcome!

Hiya, it would help to know what cabin you're looking to travel in so we can help you work this out. You can use miles from each account if your partner authorises you to use their account. However there needs to be enough miles in the account for at least a one sector upgrade, which for example for LAS going from economy to PE is 12500 miles, so they're 1500 miles short. PE to UC upgrade is also 12500 miles one way (25000 total per person return). To go from economy to UC it's 25000 miles per sector (50000 total per person) to upgrade Economy to UC. You can't take 11000 from one account and 1500 from the other and combine.

Now for a companion ticket you need to purchase a revenue ticket in the higher fare buckets and then use miles to obtain the companion ticket, assuming there is reward availability. For PE to LAS, you'd need to buy in S or W bucket and then need 35000 miles for the companion ticket. You could split that across 2 FC accounts with 17500 from each.

To do UC with a companion reward you buy a ticket in J bucket (the most expensive) and then it's 50000 miles for the companion reward.

I hope that makes sense but as I said, tell us what cabin you want and we can help you hone this down.

you need 42500 (unless you wait for rewards sale) for LAS or LAX reward seats.
So you would need to boost the account with 32000 by 10500 to have any chance of getting one ticket.

The other account with 11,000 miles will let you book with miles+money. Which may be a waste of miles - but you can only use a set amount depending on if you travel E, PE or UC.

Companion ticket is worthless for 99% of people, as its only available to those who pay for the more expensive bucket.
I think BA companion rewards is much better when compared to Virgin crap offering in this category.

Some really good advice from earlier replies, as usual given this is a very helpful and friendly forum.

While it's always nice to find a use for miles and/or companion tickets don't forget to check the other options to work out what is best value for the route you want around the dates you want.

For example, I just booked for LAS for a trade show in March and for Upper both ways it would have been £3600+ each on VS but for the dates I wanted I could get the same VS flights starting from Brussels for £1529, Copenhagen for £1525 or (for once not much cheaper on the dates I wanted) Dublin for £3201. While the savings won't be quite as big for economy it still would have been closer to £500 from Brussels versus £750 direct from VS to be in the same seat LGW-LAS. Positioning flights to be added on but for me this is £0 as I would normally arrange to be in Brussels around the time anyway on actual work (yes, I do occasionally do some).

So look at your dates on VS to start (money, miles plus money, miles - and the companion ticket with expensive bucket) then compare with an ex-EU start/finish price with add-on positioning flights to see what works best for you.

On another thread it's mentioned that there may be a more comprehensive BA sale starting on Friday (see thread "Heads up on a potential sale") and this may cause VS to price match so you can gamble on prices on the LAS route being affected to your advantage then .... but even in a full blown sale I think my best price VS LGW-LAS in recent years was just over £1700 so I'm more than happy with the £1529 but will be lurking around the sales for some carib flights

Best of luck finding what you want at a good price!

I really appreciate all your help and advice. This has certainly given me a lot to think about. Going to need to get myself a little spreadsheet running with all the options. I had no idea you could use points from both accounts so that's very useful!

Bretty, I would most likely just be looking for economy tickets. As much as I would love to go back to PE and UE! Would booking a ticket in economy using 42500 miles be eligible for a companion ticket or is it the wrong fare code?

Thanks Tim, I'll have a look into those flights. To date I had only looked at Dublin. With the economy tickets currently hovering around the £750 price I'm hoping BA might force the price down on Friday (thanks for the heads up). That will open up a few more options for me

Would booking a ticket in economy using 42500 miles be eligible for a companion ticket or is it the wrong fare code?

You need to buy a full fare ticket (think M bucket is the cheapest) to use the companion voucher. Miles tickets are a reward ticket & have their own 'bucket' code - so never eligible to use the companion voucher.

If your going to fly economy, then I would not rule out looking at last minute or experia, etc. - I got a week in Vegas (MGM) with a king suite + flights for about £1400 IIRC. Which was the trip that got me into collecting miles.

maybe we could lobby V into do this? to match BA reward?