Questions about Virgin Miles

[Ware Bears]

I know I don't come on here very much these days but I've got a couple of flight questions and knew someone would know the answers!

DH and I've got a few Virgin miles which we've managed to keep current by buying the odd item online through Flying Club.

We're doing multi-city flights next year and at the moment Virgin comes up the cheapest.

1) If we wanted to use our miles to upgrade to PE on one leg is it possible to
do this on all flights? I see that you can't get miles plus money on every flight so wondered if upgrades with miles were hit and miss too.

2) If it is possible to upgrade with miles would we be able to do that if we'd booked with someone like Expedia? I realise I wouldn't be able to do it at the time of booking but would I be able to phone Virgin/Flying Club afterwards to get it changed or does the booking have to be made with Virgin Atlantic to be able to do this?

And finally 3) I'm still a couple of weeks out of my dates being released but the price to update to PE for the homebound journey is £156 each on every day I've looked. I've got no experience with prices for PE but that seems a good price to me for Los Angeles to London. I'm sure when I priced it for our last trip to WDW it was much more per person. Does anyone agree it's a good price in which case it may be better to just pay it?

Many thanks for your help.

 

[Elise79]

To upgrade using miles you need to booked in to the right fare code and these are not the cheapest! Reward seats are not on every flight either.

Not sure about booking through expedia etc but I would guess yes but you would probably have to upgrade to the right type of ticket first.

I would look for miles plus money or a cheap upgrade.

 

[heatherbelle]

I would phone the flying club, once all of your flights have been released. You can now book single legs of journey's using miles so this may work out better. But you can only do it on the phone.

 

[Samaya]

The following is taken from the Virgin web site at http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/frequentflyer/spendmiles/upgrade_table_2012.jsp

UPGRADE TABLE

You can upgrade when purchasing a full adult fare (W, S, Y, B, R, L,), simply contact our Flying Club helpline to book or for further information. Please check qualifying booking classes for upgrades before you book and travel.

Upgrade Economy to Premium (Y,B,R,L)

Upgrade Economy to Upper (Y,B,R,L)

Upgrade Premium to Upper (W,S)

It would be best to ring the Flying Club helpline so to ensure what ticket classes can be upgraded, usually Expedia would be selling a lower class of ticket and therefore could not to upgraded.

Just checked a dummy booking with Expedia on a Virgin flight and the class of ticket in economy was 'O' the lowest level and 'N' the second lowest level of fare class in Economy, these are classed as Discounted Economy seats and can only be used for a Miles plus Money ticket and not for upgrades.

 

[Ware Bears]

Thanks for your help.