Paying for higher fare class for miles
 

How many of you actually pay for a higher fare class (such as flexible) simply to get the higher fare class that entitles you to more qualifying miles.

I find myself doing this time to time and am starting to question if the miles and status is actually worth the money.

For e.g. recently I paid 400 pounds more on Turkish economy so that I get class E instead of U, this allowed me to earn about 14,500 miles on Krisflyer.

I done it simply so that I can earn the miles and requalify for status, the flexibility was never part of my concern.

What about you peeps out there, do you ever pay for higher booking class simply for the sake of miles?

It's part of my calculation in deciding whether to take a FC or business class fare or to pay to upgrade. I also consider the status miles when deciding whether to book an award ticket. However, I've never paid more to travel in the same cabin for more miles.

Once, about 10 years ago, I bought a B fare just for the extra miles, but the price difference was pretty minimal.

That's a significant price to pay per mile. :eek:

The number of scenarios where it makes sense to pay the higher fare up front rather than buying the incremental services later is pretty low.

I do this a lot when flying China Eastern (MU) - I'll book T class economy fares for a small fare increase vs Q as Q does not earn MQM with Delta.

very rare. Usually take the best logical option.

I've done it on United when I was crediting to Aegean.

I've also done it on United many times to enable the use of a SWU.

Last year I have paid 100 EUR more in order to get 24000 miles instead of 0 for LHR-AKL on TG. IMHO very good deal.

Same here.

Do you have a good way of specifically booking T fares when Q is available? I usually have to adjust dates or connections to get rid of the Q.

I always take the best fare available, however when I was collecting and there was a real chance of getting status, I would stick to *A, and alter dates/destinations/stopovers until I found something that worked in terms of price/miles.

I almost refuse to pay extra on principle. It defeats the point IMO to pay thousands extra to get "Freebies" worth hundreds. How much are miles and status really worth to you? I redeemed 160k for a mRTW in J that was coming up as $26k on ITA. However to me, it was probably "worth" ~$3k, as in that's what I'd pay cash for that itinerary. Given that I could normally fly that route for $2000 in economy, a bigger seat is frankly not worth that much to me personally. If I could sell my reward ticket for $26k that's one thing, but to claim better food and drinks + 3x the plane real estate justifies a 1200% increase in fare is nonsense.

Or even status. You can buy lounge memberships for something like $500 a year. You're spending 3-4 times that extra to get points/status (following the above example). How exactly does anyone other than the airline come out ahead there?

I did it twice on SQ to go from 0% to 100% on A3, which was what I needed to get and later to keep *G.

Several years ago I was one long-haul round-trip away from AA EXP based on EQP. I was already planning to take an international trip but the deep-discount economy fare that I was looking at only earned 0.5 EQP per mile, which would not have earned enough to get me to EXP. I booked in a higher fare class that would earn 1 EQP / mile for ~$500 more and it worked out great. As I recall, AA.com only showed the lowest-cost fare class, so I had to call in, explain what I wanted, and book by phone. The agent was confused why I wanted to pay more than the lowest available economy fare, but once I pointed out the different EQP earning rate, she immediately understood.

I don't think my situation will recur, now that (I believe) AA has gotten rid of qualification through EQP.

I just did an up-fare on AS and was surprised at how easy it was. I credit my miles to AA. Upfared from H (75% RDM/50% EQM) to P (150% RDM and EQM) on a 3-hour flight for $99. Some airlines seem to choke on this because you aren't changing the flight...you just get an error message saying you must change the flight. But Alaska handles it well.


Now kicking myself for doing two gate upgrades earlier this year for $99 each. Gate upgrades, of course, don't actually refare you into P, A, or F. I'll never know if those flights were sitting there, a week ahead of time, with P availability for an extra hundred bucks... :(

I did it once, on AS, to get me to a fare class that would credit to AA. Cost was only $12 though so the EQM and RDM on a 1500 mile flight was worth it.