itfcfan

I'm looking at flying LHR - ICN - LHR in April this year with OZ and I'm thinking it could be a good use for the 140k miles I've accumulated with Miles & Bonus! For the dates I'm looking at there is award availability in business outbound, but on the return leg the nearest availability is one week away from what I require (based on a couple of calls to Aegean telesales).

Given I can only get award availability one-way (I've looked at more convoluted routings for the return leg and they don't look good) I'll be stuck with paying an expensive one-way cash far for the return. I'm considering buying a return ticket in economy instead and getting a seat upgrade on the outward journey as an award ticket. I asked Aegean telesales about this and they said the award space can be used for seat upgrades.

I wanted to make sure I got an economy ticket that was valid to be upgraded and after a wait I was told Asiana only accept "Y" fare class (full economy) for upgrades. This isn't much good for me - Y class fares are almost the same cost as business on this route! Does anyone have any tips? With wishful thinking, I'd like to believe my telephone agent misunderstood and some other fare classes were valid?

For reference, on this route LHR-ICN a one-way business award is 55000 miles while a one-way business upgrade award is 25000 miles. Taxes from LHR are high - ~£300 for business award on this route (my thinking was a seat upgrade might be slightly better as my understanding is the tax on the paid economy ticket would be offset against what needs to be paid for the upgrade).