Originally Posted by
craigthemif
It's worth noting that you might end up shocked at the amount of taxes and surcharges you will pay on your supposed "award" flight. And that it can be close to impossible to find award seats on popular routes.
So, whilst it's great to have a goal when starting out in this hobby, you also need to recognise that you need to be quite flexible. So miles might not work for this particular trip, but hopefully they will for the next one to a VS destination...
Hi, yes due to the surcharges only UC makes sense to me. When booking early enough I had no problems finding 3 UC NYC - London tickets (could even choose the day/flight that worked best for me). And if not flying Virgin Atlantic metal the value can be extraordinary. Got 2 F seats on ANA NYC-Tokyo for 120k each and around $170 pP. United/ANA/.... would want a lot more points/miles for this journey.
So plan find your sweet spot and jump on it when it is available