Advice on booking options (hopefully not too complicated)

HI All.

Planning ahead for next month - booking flights to NYC for Christmas & New Year. Need advice based on the changes to flying club on my options available to me to maximise my miles etc.

Details as follows:
Flying out on 25th December, Returning 2nd January (land 3rd)
Depart - LHR
Land - JFK, EWR
4 x passengers

We are looking at travelling in upper class and this (quite possible) is where the run begins...

Do I purchase an economy ticket and upgrade using miles (think we need 344k in miles)
Do I buy outright the upper class ticket using miles (think we need 460k in miles)
NOTE: I only have 240k miles at present so would need to purchase more for the above (not an issue depending on costs)
Do I buy a 2 companion seats.

I think we also have a companion upgrade through my Credit Card but can't check this at the moment.

Any thoughts, comments, advice greatly appreciated

Regards
Matthew

Sadly you can only use a companion reward in conjunction with a cash fare - and then only in the expensive flexible fare buckets.

So buying 2 UC fares + the taxes & fees for the "free" companions will almost certainly cost more than buying 4 cash fares in the cheapest bucket.

As for the credit card upgrade voucher, you can't use that to get into UC - only from Economy to PE.

So you're probably best using miles outright if you can obtain enough of them (each FC member can only buy 100,000 per calendar year) or to upgrade.

Not too sure around the complexities of the options, but from 2 years of doing something similar for miles in Upper I would temper your expectation of being able to get a reward seat back from NYC on the 2nd January. Our experience is that reward seats vanish between 31st Dec and somewhere around the 5th or 6th January.

Thanks for the comments so far . I managed to get two upgrades two years ago on the 2nd Jan. So hopeful it may be possible this time round too. Think that getting enough mikes to do it outridght seems the best option so far...

Thanks for the comments so far . I managed to get two upgrades two years ago on the 2nd Jan. So hopeful it may be possible this time round too..

Probably my timing...