Got a question for you guys. I am planning a trip to London at end of year. A roundtrip ticket to LGW from ATL is $544. Is this a decent price around the holiday times. It is 12/22-01/02. Should I go ahead and book it, or it that the lowest it will be you all think. Also, gonna use those 2 SWU's on this flight. Can I use them on a award ticket? Might just cash some miles in and fly free. But if I can't use those SWU's, then i will shell out the money and upgrade. Thanks for the advice.

Ricky

For a trip you're planning on taking anyway, that looks like a pretty good price to me, and grabbing the tickets and getting your upgrades now isn't such a bad idea ...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Rickdog99:
Got a question for you guys. I am planning a trip to London at end of year. A roundtrip ticket to LGW from ATL is $544. Is this a decent price around the holiday times. It is 12/22-01/02. Should I go ahead and book it, or it that the lowest it will be you all think. Also, gonna use those 2 SWU's on this flight. Can I use them on a award ticket? Might just cash some miles in and fly free. But if I can't use those SWU's, then i will shell out the money and upgrade. Thanks for the advice.

Ricky</font>

Hmmm....Not knowing the LGW market for fares, I really can't say whether or not this is high or low. That being said, given the fact that this is an international flight and you're only going to have three flights a day to LGW, I'd be tempted to book now - or wait for maybe one more fare sale to appear.

If you book now and the fare drops, you can often rebook at the lower fare level and receive the difference in the form of a voucher.

Not a bad price for Christmas/New Years time. You may get a lower price but call the Silver/Gold/CP #'s & see if you can confirm your systemwides when you buy your ticket. You will not get the 1K booking bonus, but getting confirmed to Envoy is worth it. I did the same for my June trip to London & got confirmed on the return. Even if you have a little longer layover, you can use the club if you fly Envoy. Worth it if you can get confirmed into Envoy now, especially both directions. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I have been able to find tickets for $400 plus tax from the West Coast to Europe around that time with some flexiblity on dates (it helps that I don't have to be anywhere special on x-mas day http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ). You might want to wait until September. Also, the last time I checked, you could only get a voucher without penalty for domestic fare differences - for international trips you ALWAYS have to pay $150 first, which usually erases most fare savings.

This year I was able to book a published-fare ticket in the reverse direction FRA-PIT-SFO-PIT-FRA for ÚS$417 including tax, departure 12/24, return 1/05. I only thought of calling for an upgrade a week before departure so could only get the outbound upgraded (there were a total of 8 pax or so in Envoy the day before Christmas). I was waitlisted for the return but decided to save my SWU so did not call to reconfirm an upgrade. Coach was overbooked by two and I got put in Envoy for the return anyway http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif.

Yonatan

Rickdog99, that price around the holiday season is pretty good. If you wait you might be able to save a bit but you probably will not see fares too much lower particularly since you are flying around the Christmas/New Year holiday.

Your Systemwide upgrades are not eligable with a free ticket, they have to be used on a paid qualifying fare (e-saver fares, by the way, are not upgradable with the systemwide certificates).

I would call the Prefreed desk and ask if the flights you have chosen for this fare are available for upgrade using the certificates. If so, book it, choose your seats in Envoy and relax between now and the 22nd of December knowing you will be comfortable on your trip to London.

If the flights you have picked are not available for upgrade, ask the agent to try a different route (maybe route through PIT or PHL istead of through CLT). Perhaps alter your travel dates a bit to get upgradable flights.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Ricky