Originally Posted by
ckaught78
Tried searching around but couldn't find the answer so hoping someone on this forum with experience can help answer. Booked a multi-leg mileage ticket in business from US to mideast and back. Looking to upgrade with miles to first and it appears if both legs are available for the two of us it would work out to 171.6K miles; however booking each leg separately, depending on upgrade availability, would work out to 202.8K miles (39K destination to DXB + 163.8K DXB to US). Currently only the shorter flight to DXB has upgrade availability at 39K for the both of us. The question is, if I booked that now and then availability opens up at a later time on the long haul leg, would they give me the discounted mileage rate which would work out to 132.6K or would they charge me the full amount shown for the individual leg? I have enough miles now to upgrade the shorter leg and in the next couple months will have the full 171.6K, but for fear of losing out am willing to book now and hope for the best in a couple month. Any thoughts?
They should give you the discounted 'through' rate when the other leg becomes available but you MUST do this via the call centre and INSIST you get the 'through rate'. IIf you do it on-line, they will NOT be able to retrospectively refund you the miles you 'overpaid'. Anecdotally, a few agents are not aware of this so you may have to be quite insistent (although the majority used to know how it works).