GrayAnderson

Ok, so I took Virgin and I took Delta. To paraphrase the community calendar on Welcome to Night Vale, Delta is a plan that has been poorly thought through. I intend to offload my points to a friend and be done with them. It's no offense to them; I just haven't flown a long-haul flight since I was 13. I got bigger, the seats got smaller, and Delta First reminds me of Amtrak coach with a food cart added. Enough about them...

How much is it worth chasing after Virgin Silver this year? I should be reasonably good on re-securing AGR Select Executive (I'm only about 5000 TQPs away and I have at least 700 posting from a trip I just got back from...clearing those last 4500 is going to be easy enough, especially with a few trips to/from DC), so I can re-channel a trip or two onto Virgin to make a run at status. Basically...what does everyone think Silver is worth? I'll likely stick to flying First, with all the attendant pluses and minuses, since 99% of my flights would be transcontinental (Virgin just doesn't have any short-hauls on the eastern seaboard, Amtrak is pretty convenient here, and it's not that hard to get to DCA from Union Station. Dulles is another story for now...).

VegasGambler

Silver is a 25% bonus to points, plus priority boarding, priority security, etc.

If you are flying first class then the only benefit that's worth anything is the 25% bonus (since you get priority boarding and priority security anyway) If you are barely earning silver in a year, that is 25% of 20,000 points, which is 5000 points in a year. This is worth about $110 in VX fares (more if you redeem with a partner for international travel)

Honestly, if you don't fly much it is not worth that much. If you are flying economy, the priority security line is nice. Gold is worth a lot.

bayhouse

If you're going to be booking directly into F on a regular basis, you don't really need to shoot for Silver. You'll earn it quite quickly. Let's say you book a one-way transcon for $1299 in F. You'd earn roughly 6,500 points. If you make it a round trip, roughly 13,000 points. Factor in the current "Feel The Earn" promo, and you'll get 5,000 free points, brining you to 18,000. It'll only take one or two more segments to reach silver.

The benefits aren't great if you book directly into F, because F includes most benefits already. This is true for most frequent flier programs, obviously. Of course, this downplays the benefit of flying transcon on VX vs a legacy -- the VX experience outweighs other airlines offerings by far.

As a silver who regularly books into MC or MCS, I've found that I'm almost always upgraded to MCS at the 12-hour mark, and can then upgrade to F for a nominal fee. Great way to reduce travel expenses without sacrifice.

GrayAnderson

Point taken on the "booking straight into First" front. Amtrak used to have something akin to that on the sleeper front (namely on-board upgrading) while I've would up with a ton of upgrade cards on the Acela that sort-of work the same way (making Select Executive via LD travel, as I mostly have, tends to sort-of break the system and result in taking an occasional day to burn on the Acela to use the coupons and grab points). I'm just...not actually used to playing last-minute upgrade games.

However, you make a very good point about redeeming points for travel on the partner airlines (though I have no idea how availability shakes out on those, the quoted conversion rates from Virgin America to the others seem eminently reasonable vis-a-vis Virgin America's domestic offerings...and as silly as it sounds, I'm more flexible in terms of departure locations than I am in terms of travel dates much of the time).

VegasGambler

Next year I'm taking a trip to Korea. I can go any time; I'll probably go some time in June because, as I understand it, the weather is warm but the monsoons have not started (I've never been there, but I have friends who have lived there).

Coach is not an option for a flight that length. I live in SF, and Singapore Airlines has direct flights from SFO - ICN. I have never flown with them but the seats are huge, and everyone tells me that their service is amazing (this is important for a 12 hour flight) Business class sells for $4200 RT, and first is $9500.

Virgin offers these flights for 95k and 130k pts respecively. I would not pay for the first class fare with cash, so it doesn't make sense to do a point valuation based on that fare (although it would work out to over 7c per point!!). I would pay $4200 for business though, and that values the points at 4.4c each, which is double what you would get on VX fares. And the best part is, there is no fuel surcharge nonsense... I'd have to pay only $38 in fees.

I have heard that availability is not great, but my dates are really flexible -- I'd be happy with any 2-week trip in June. I'd prefer to leave on a Thursday (arrive Friday) and fly out on a Monday to maximize weekend time there, but I don't really care that much. As soon as I get 95k points I'm going to call and see what they have available.

bayhouse

Partner award bookings can be a fantastic deal (and I suppose the accelerated 25% or 100% reward bonus for silver and gold really helps here). If you're flexibile with departure airports, you should be able to find many durable choices. Using my VX miles, I've been able to book Virgin Atlantic reward flights to London on 45 days' notice with at least 3 suitable airports to chose from. Typically there's an NYC option (JFK/EWR), a west coast option (SFO/LAX/LAS), and another option (IAD/MCO/BOS).

ptownca

You can also go for the premium card, which helps as well. There are some grumblings on this forum about it, but it has been ok for me so far.