Likelihood of upgrading with miles from MCO

Looking for opinions/experiences please. My son has booked himself a week in Florida next April/May (in term time, not school holidays). Booked through Virgin Holidays, flying economy both ways. As I have quite a few miles on my account, I thought it'd be nice to try & upgrade him to UC on his return flight. However, as MCO is such a popular route, do I have a snowball in hells chance of actually being able to do this for him? I've checked reward availability for beginning of May next year & there's a big fat nothing so far ...
Does anyone have any experience of upgrading on this route, even if it's last minute?

I’ve booked a few last minute trips to MCO in Upper so it can be done. You just have to keep checking. If you’ve an expertflyer subscription, you can set up an alert to check for you (infact you could DM me and I could do that for you)

How it works with an upgrade with a Virgin holidays booking though, I’m not so sure, although think Mitchja has done that before and will be along to confirm

David.

Thanks for that David. I rang Flying Club to ask how it would work to upgrade when holiday is booked through V Hols, and they said to get my name put on my son's booking so that I can have authority to change it.
I am on Expert Flyer, but not the paid version. Assuming I could still set up an alert for one UC reward seat one way or do I have to have a subscription?

Not sure about needing a subscription but would assume so.

Go to create flight alert on the light blue expertflyer tools menu. Stick the flight details in and for the class code put G click on send test email to make sure it’s working and your good to go.

As I said, if your stuck DM me the details and I can easily set one up for you.

David

[mitchja]

Yes, I posted about how to upgrade V Hols booked VS flights using miles here

You have to have paid the full balance of the holiday before you can upgrade using miles as the flights do need to be ticketed before they can be upgraded. V Hols handle the initial flight ticketing and once that's done you the contact Flying Club where they take over the flight booking and perform the miles upgrade.

On the availability front, remember you can do it right up to the flight - pretty much.

When I am doing mileage upgrades (admittedly from my own account), it's not uncommon for me to ask at check-in, again in the lounge and even at the gate. Logistically that may not be doable in your scenario, but i've been in plenty of situations where seats have opened up after T-24 on busy routes.

Thank you so much all for your replies. Holiday already fully paid & seat chosen both ways (in economy). Flight alert set up via Expert Flyer. Just got to get my name put onto the booking & then set fair to check emails. Every five minutes. From now til May. Really useful advice from you all, love this forum

To clarify your name does not need to be on the booking but your son does need to authorise you to access his FC account and make changes to his bookings.

He needs to call VS to do this.

Thank you Tontybear. Will do

I have upgraded to Upper on miles to MCO quite a few times.
Reward seats are few and far between so you need to check frequently and make the call as soon as they show.
I have checked 5 times a day starting before 6 a.m.
Good luck.
Dick D