Booking Seats to JFK at xmas (With points upgrade/or not)

Hi All.

Looking at another trip out to New York for Christmas/New Year.

With all the changes in number of points needed to upgrade from economy to upper class, I now no longer know what is best value

Do I look for economy tickets and use the miles to upgrade or do I buy the Upper Class tickets outright using miles. I feel virgin is starting to lose its touch and seriously considering a move across to BA!!!

Thoughts/Suggestions welcome.

Thanks Matt

FYI - Ideally want to travel 24/25th Dec returning a few days after New Year. 4 x Pax

Because of the hike in miles for upgrades I went down the route of a full reward flight for our holiday next year.
If you have the miles I'd say use them.
Consider also they can always hike the full reward miles requirement. Airmiles aren't good currency. It is too easy for the airline to devalue them.

Dick D

A full redemption on this route is 80,000, and an E to UC upgrade would be 70,000 for the round trip. Makes sense to just go in for the full redemption really in this instance. Plus you'll pay the least amount of cash.

Finding 4 reward seats on Boxing Day/Christmas Day on the same flight will be tough. You may want to consider spreading your party across 2 flights if the search proves difficult. Good luck with your search!

Thanks for the comments so far - pretty much confirms my initial thoughts.

I can see 4 x reward flights on xmas day (yay) its the coming back that is the challenge - just keeping an eye out for what is available when.

Is there any benefit now in using points to get Econ to U/C? I feel that they no longer are value for money

It depends on how you value FC miles and tier points. On a full reward redemption you'll get nothing by way of points or miles - but using points to upgrade will get you the miles/tier points for the fare you upgraded from.

One option for your flights - you could book the outbound rewards as a one way redemption, thus securing those reward seats and the outbound trip. Continue to keep an eye out on the date you want to come back and when it does, grab that as a one way back from NYC.

I feel virgin is starting to lose its touch and seriously considering a move across to BA!!!

I can see why but remember the grass isn't always greener on the other side. BA's reward seat prices shot up last year and a return to New York on the dates you want now costs 110,000 Avios compared with 80,000 VS miles.

The good news is their upgrades are cheaper - your trip would cost 44,000 Avios to upgrade to Club World from PE compared with 70,000 VS miles.

They also have different rules for upgrading. BA will let you upgrade to Club World from the cheapest PE fares - VS won't. But VS will let you upgrade two cabins which BA won't.

So the moral of the story is work out carefully what your best option is and choose accordingly as there are pros and cons with both airlines.

its the coming back that is the challenge - just keeping an eye out for what is available when.

Last year and this next year we found that the returns died away until a few days after New Years Eve, but NYE was available.

I feel virgin is starting to lose its touch and seriously considering a move across to BA!!!

I can see why but remember the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

100% agree - the grass is far from greener on the other side!!

Firstly just over four years ago I decided to move to a BA AmEx credit card in order to save Avios. However after two years, and with a huge bunch of points, I tried to get flights in and out of Tampa. I was totally flexible with dates (out of peak times too) but could never get any suitable upgrades or reward fares.

So I ditched their card and then came back to a Virgin AmEx cc . In the past two years or so, I have successfully booked several upgradeable VS fares and last week I booked a full reward fare LHR-LAX & SFO-LHR for March Personally I think for us this is a good deal because the small amount of cash required to secure UC fares. Yeap the problem is we'll not be earning miles or TP's, but I'll let the future worry about that.

As far as my BA avios points are concerned, they are still in my account. We had enough points to upgrade both ways from PE to CW for this forcoming trip to the westcoast. However there was never any suitable dates to and from Phoenix, Los Angeles or San Francisco and that was for 'out of season' March, so I assume booking avios fares in the holiday season would be near on impossible.

New York airports always seem to have upgrades/reward fares, probably because there are so many flights each day.

BA reward seats on west coast routes are notoriously elusive.

BA guarantees only two CW and four Y reward seats on each flight, which are released on T-355 at midnight GMT. The regulars - and there are many, many of them - know that so they tend to get snapped up instantly.

Other reward seats in all four cabins may become available, but not necessarily, and often very close to departure.

The east coast is indeed easier because of the multiple daily flights. Same with VS.

I feel virgin is starting to lose its touch and seriously considering a move across to BA!!!

I can see why but remember the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

100% agree - the grass is far from greener on the other side!!

Firstly just over four years ago I decided to move to a BA AmEx credit card in order to save Avios. However after two years, and with a huge bunch of points, I tried to get flights in and out of Tampa. I was totally flexible with dates (out of peak times too) but could never get any suitable upgrades or reward fares.

So I ditched their card and then came back to a Virgin AmEx cc . In the past two years or so, I have successfully booked several upgradeable VS fares and last week I booked a full reward fare LHR-LAX & SFO-LHR for March Personally I think for us this is a good deal because the small amount of cash required to secure UC fares. Yeap the problem is we'll not be earning miles or TP's, but I'll let the future worry about that.

As far as my BA avios points are concerned, they are still in my account. We had enough points to upgrade both ways from PE to CW for this forcoming trip to the westcoast. However there was never any suitable dates to and from Phoenix, Los Angeles or San Francisco and that was for 'out of season' March, so I assume booking avios fares in the holiday season would be near on impossible.

I think the rise in points for VS has knocked out the upgrading people, leaving the more miles hungry full upgrade and perhaps leading to more availability.

As for BA, the 2 for 1 voucher on their amex cards make their whole avios scheme worthwhile. Can get First over and Club back for about 160odd K for two people. Of course then you've got to find them.

When I have been looking, I've found them very month dependent, though got both Easter (booked 9 months before) and late August (booked about 10 months ahead). However.

I might just have been lucky. I was looking just as some aircraft changes brought in old classes, so just as San Diego added First, I was looking. Just as San Jose was adding to rewards, but most importantly, NOT appearing in the reward finder map, I got club. I got Vancouver on a similar thing the year before, First was just brought back. SFO and LAX? Yep, barely seen a seat on there, but I guess I could change to them for nothing if they did appear, as BA Gold. Seattle didn't have much.

Also, depends on what you define as West Coast. I did see quite a lot of availability in: Calgary, Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix in general. And one day might be doing First to Denver, National Parks for a few weeks, then out from Phoenix. Sounds lovely. My VS miles will be going on a Boston to Washington east coast full reward.

I think your strategy is very sensible. If your dates are flexible and you're willing to fly anywhere within a certain radius, you'll almost certainly find something that suits - with both BA & VS.

However if you absolutely must fly to a specific location on a specific date, you're in the lap of the gods. It can be done but it might not be easy.