Originally Posted by
Tinman
I would suggest paying the 10% in advance of the upgrade, just in case the 10% rule is murky on what fare, i.e upgraded fare, to pay it on.
Also, if you really have SWU to burn, consider buying an additional coach ticket and upgrade all three of you. More comfortable, and you can take the car seat on board to use.
I got hit with a 1300.00 fee after getting two international first class miles tickets. Would have been better to do 3 business class tickets, for less total miles and no 1300, but didn't learn that the 10% was accessed on the money value of the ticket!
Taking the baby is better than missing it!!
Have fun.
Thanks for these tips, and yes, I'll definitely make sure to do the booking in W (or whatever) class online, first. Then, call/use the website to apply the SWUs - just to ensure that I get the 10% of the Y fare instead of a C fare out of the way.
The three seats is definitely nice, but I'm guessing there is no way I can afford/justify getting 3 C seats - I might be able to justify 3 seats in K/G class, but 3 W seats, plus the SWU lottery is too risky to me...but point taken on the 6 SWUs given at the beginning of the year and one round-trip usually requiring 4 (with a companion). Last year, we had that sorted out by our open-jaw, NYC-Europe-South Africa (on LH)//Europe-WAS trip, which luckily all the SWUs cleared, so we used all 6 on the one trip, it was perfect.
Luckily, I do know about the 10% fare for full F/C when buying an award ticket - which is why these SWUs are so valuable this year for me. The UA website is surprisingly good (I can't believe I'm saying it) at showing the price for having an infant on an award ticket, and some of those relatively simple flights make me gasp!
-jeremy