somersetuk

I currently have 204,000 Flying Club miles and my wife has 80,000.

We are saving for an Upper Class Flight for her 50th Birthday in September 2021 (or perhaps 2 x Premium Class holidays).

BUT we are pretty clueless on how to get the best deals to the best long-haul destinations and could do with your help please?

We are flying from LON and looking to go somewhere to take a cruise - ideally a long haul flight to Los Angeles or Caribbean or Brazil etc etc

Where and when is the best place/time to look for flights departing September 2021?

Should we go Economy Delight and Upgrade to Premium?

How do the Companion Vouchers work (my wife got one last year but Ive not received one in the 3 years of collecting miles).

Basically, we could just do with knowing some tricks to try and some pitfalls to be aware of.

For instance, I just did a test quote from London to Los Angeles for Sept this year and Upper Class miles were 280,000 which is doable but the ££ cost was still £1500 in tax etc

THANK YOU for any suggestions.

greenarmy

Whilst there is a substantial "how long is a piece of string" element to questions of "best" ways/deals to use miles I can offer some comments on the questions raised.

Firstly, on the where and when to look to book, for award tickets for flying with Virgin, their own website is as good a place as any, and for September 2021 you will not be able to book until 330 days or fewer before the flight, so October 2020. As a general rule more award seats are available either at the very opening of the schedule for booking, or in the last week or days running upto departure (however this only works if you are willing to play chicken with something opening up, probably not advisable for a 50th birthday celebration..) - however this does not mean that you won't find seats appearing in the intervening period. Mostly, persistence, patience and good fortune will be required.

I would also caution that award seats in upper class to some of the places that are popular for cruise kickoffs ie Florida and the Caribbean have often been very hard to come across, especially in pairs, but with Virgin's retirements of the 747s that are used on these routes (which have a very small UC cabin) and there replacement by aircraft with more UC seats, it is possible that slightly more are available by 2021.

On taxes and fees, if you are flying out of London then you will have no choice but to lump it. Not necessarily to the £700 levels of American routes but its not going to be a small cash outlay on any of the long haul routes.

On upgrading to Premium - you do not need to have bought economy delight to do this - economy classic is sufficient. As for Premium's value relative to upper, there are a great deal of opinions on the subject and none of them are necessarily right/wrong or even applicable to you. If flying business/Upper is something you and your wife never do then the only way to really be able to gauge its value for you is to do it.

Finally, and whilst I am not saying this is necessarily an easy question to answer - as you are planning this trip with the purpose of then doing a cruise I would strongly recommend ensuring that the appropriate weighting is placed on each portion of the trip. If you want to do a specific cruise (or a small number there of) don't let the tail wag the dog too hard and end up on a substandard cruise just to fly UC. Similarly, if you end up paying 2x on the cruise just to go from a port you can get to in UC, the value created from using the miles will dissappaer fast.

CommanderB

I agree with greenarmy in the sense of this being "how long is a piece of string".

My position on upgrades/reward flights is as follows:

• If you can afford straight milage tickets in the cabin you want (I.e. Premium or Upper) then you will almost always get the best value out of booking those off the bat.
  • If you need to, buy the miles you need as you can buy up to 100,000 per year and the cash outlay will often be cheaper and more flexible than the equivalent cash ticket.
  • Straight milage tickets are flexible meaning you can upgrade to a higher cabin at any time, so if you book Premium and an Upper seat becomes available, you can get that upgrade by simply paying the difference in miles & taxes.
• Economy Delight is not necessary for upgrading, you can do this with some Classic fares as well. However Delight offers a significant advantage because the difference between Classic and Delight is sometimes about £50. You also earn more miles than the lowest Premium fare buckets (K&H), and Delight earns the same tier points as those buckets do, so the net result is more miles and the exact same tier points.
• Reward flights can be held for 72 hours but Revenue fares can only be held for 24 (although I have had agents hold them for 72 as well). If you find something and are unsure, hold it because they go quickly.
• In terms of availability, one of the easiest destinations for Upper and Premium reward seats is New York, simply because of the massive amount of daily seats available.
  • Caribbean and West Coast locations are very difficult to get reward seats on.
  • More often than not, the best way is to book an upgradable fare (either with miles or cash) and then keep checking for upgrades to the higher cabin.
  • Quite often, if there are spare seats on the day, you can buy a cash or miles upgrade at the airport, but this a risky strategy. It works, but you have to accept that there is no guarantee of getting an upgrade.
• Quite technical, but remember that if you buy something like an Economy Delight (V) or Premium (H, S, W) fare buckets, and then upgrade, you are still governed by the underlying fare rules. So if you need things like flexibility or cancellations, you need to choose the right fare. Again with straight reward fares, this isn't an issue because rewards are inherently flexible.

Good luck with the trip.