BASIC question. Using Mileage Virgin FF - What's the best deal?

[LucioDr]

Hi all,
I'm all new to the whole using Mileage for travelling. I have been awarded 250,000 points with Virgin after changing my mortgage. My wife and I are planning to go from Melbourne to London by Mid to the end of September and we don't know how to best optimise our points.
I have done research in this forum but I found the information to be quite confusing. I apologise if this seems too much of a basic question,
We would like to fly premium economy but we are not sure what's the best thing to do. Do we buy the best available economy ticket and then upgrade or try to buy the whole thing out of the points?
Our membership is red and we currently have 250,000 points.
Any tips, or any already existent thread you can point me to read more?
Thank you very much.

 

[Ribbo83]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to the form myself, I'm sure there will be someone else who can give a better answer but here is my opinion.

I would personally see better value in buying an economy fare and upgrading to PE with your points or buying a PE fare and upgrading to J class.

have a look on the virgin site and do multiple scenarios of using points for the whole ticket as well as the options above and record all of the scenarios (SC earned, FF points, $$ spent etc) so you can review to see what option will give you the best bang for your buck.

if you do decide to purchase tickets and use points to upgrade make sure you buy a full fare economy rather than a saver fare, it could make a big difference on how may points you need to use to upgrade.

Also if you just use your points to purchase tickets I don't think you earn SC so consider that if you are going to be doing more domestic flights. Purchase tickets and pooling with your wife could see you get to Silver or Gold depending on the tickets purchased.

Hope that helps.

 

[TomVexille]

Welcome aboard.

VA long haul upgrades are only available to VFF gold and platinum members. Your best bet is to find reward seats.

 

[CJEMNMAC]

Hi all,
I'm all new to the whole using Mileage for travelling. I have been awarded 250,000 points with Virgin after changing my mortgage. My wife and I are planning to go from Melbourne to London by Mid to the end of September and we don't know how to best optimise our points.
I have done research in this forum but I found the information to be quite confusing. I apologise if this seems too much of a basic question,
We would like to fly premium economy but we are not sure what's the best thing to do. Do we buy the best available economy ticket and then upgrade or try to buy the whole thing out of the points?
Our membership is red and we currently have 250,000 points.
Any tips, or any already existent thread you can point me to read more?
Thank you very much.

Welcome to AFF

A few things to think about.

- As already mentioned, only Gold and Platinum can upgrade. So don't purchase an economy ticket hoping to upgrade.

- September is very close and availability will be close to NIL, particularly for 2 seats. You need to look at 300 + days from travel for best results.

- 250000 points will not get you 2 business seats return if booking award seats.

- VA only fly to AUH and the most common partner would be Etihad ( EY ) from AUH to say LHR ( and you cannot upgrade the EY sector )

- Using a partner award like EY you would still not have enough for 2 business seats one way.

- If you transferred your 250k points to SQ ( Singapore Air ) that would give you +/- 185000 Krisflyer which is enough for 2 business seats one way but you will have higher taxes / fuel charges

 

[williamsf1]

Welcome aboard.

VA long haul upgrades are only available to VFF gold and platinum members. Your best bet is to find reward seats.

To complicate things ... it appears VA is not operating to AUH (due to the reconfig)and you can only upgrade on VA operated flights . As no VA , EY does not have premium econ cabin .

As others have suggested- best at looking at a business class redemption seat return , but 250k points will not be enough for a return for 2 people from Melbourne .

another possible option is to transfer the 250000 points to SQ and you might come close to getting 2 business or 2 premium econ redemption seats from Melbourne.

 

[LucioDr]

Thank you very much for your answer.
I have opened an account with Krisflyer and I will transfer points, however, all the flights are on the waitlist.If I book under "Waitlist" do you know what might happen or the degree of success?
Thanks

 

[casanovawa]

If you can't get return its expensive to buy a cash one way fare back, one ways are almost as much as return flights...

So if as i say you only have enough points currently to get you there, you might want to either go with a cash fare for this trip and accumulate some more points for a future trip either through spend, or opening up another credit card or two etc, or else see if there is anyway you can get enough virgin or Qantas points quickly to be able to redeem another two one way flights back....

The points game can get you some great deals of flights that people would never usually shell cash out for, but one of the draw backs is that it helps to be planning and booking and accumulating points along way ahead of what you want to do, last minute becomes much trickier...