Using upgrade credits?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Yada Yada

Established Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2004
Posts
1,875
I recently became a Gold FF after a RTW trip in November and have 2 upgrade credits in the kitty.

My boss in Singapore is visiting in a few weeks time and we need to travel from Sydney to Melbourne for a day.

I often travel economy on the flight out and come home in business class. If I was planning to do this for our day trip to Melbourne, and pay for my boss's business class seat, can I use one of my upgrade credits to get a confirmed business class seat for myself? Or do they not do this?

Given that I have never used upgrade credits, don't a whole lot about the FF program, is a Mel-Syd flight a good leg on which to use one?

And can I take my boss into the Qantas club? (He is on the SQ FF program).
 
Yada Yada said:
And can I take my boss into the Qantas club? (He is on the SQ FF program).
The easy one first: As you are a Gold FF you can take one Guest as long as YOU are travelling with QF that day.
Yada Yada said:
Given that I have never used upgrade credits, don't a whole lot about the FF program, is a Mel-Syd flight a good leg on which to use one?
NO, do not use UC's on that leg. If you must upgrade use points. UC's generally have a greater intrinsic value.
 
serfty said:
Yada Yada said:
Given that I have never used upgrade credits, don't a whole lot about the FF program, is a Mel-Syd flight a good leg on which to use one?
NO, do not use UC's on that leg. If you must upgrade use points. UC's generally have a greater intrinsic value.

Depends on when the UC's expire. If they are expiring within the next six to nine months, I would tend to use UC's rather than points to upgrade, since points never expire.

Dave
 
thadocta said:
Depends on when the UC's expire. If they are expiring within the next six to nine months, I would tend to use UC's rather than points to upgrade, since points never expire ...
Hi Dave,

I did use the qualifier generally. :D

Aside from that, as Yada Yada "recently became a Gold FF after a RTW trip in November" I would hazard a guess that there would be at least 18 months validity for them.

As for value, one or two UC can have intrisic values of up to about $500 each, depending on how they are used. The points use equivalent for 1 UC is 5,000 or 9,000 depending on dicount fares and for 2 UC's is 8,000/14,000.

These point levels can only get available fares worth about $140 -$240 when redeeming award flights.
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

serfty said:
...I would hazard a guess that there would be at least 18 months validity for them.

That's right. One expires in Nov 2006 and the other in Dec 2006.

So if I use points to upgrade to business, can I get a confirmed seat in advance or is it just luck of the draw on the day?
 
Both.. Sort of...

Two ways:

  • * You can try "On departure Upgrades" from QP when you check in.
  • * Beforehand, check to see if upgrades are available and if so contact Qantas and upgrade immediately.
To find out availability, use this web site http://www.flyaow.com/classcathay.htm and enter your orig, dest, date, time, etc. If there is 'U' class available for your flight you should be able to upgrade. eg. "J9 D8 U3 ..." indicates 3 award/upgrade J class seats are available, U0 means none.

You can also do a dummy award booking and check for available Business Class (upgrades use award J class availability) or contact Qantas and ask any time.
 
And remember that after May you won't be earning any more UC to add to the two you already have. So 2 orphaned UC's can onlhy be used to 2 x zone-1 upgrades, or 1 x zone 2 upgrade. So if you won't be using them for a zone two upgrade, or earning any more UC's before May, then they might as well be used for 2 x zone 1 upgrades.

Then it is a matter of determining if a points upgrade pre-May or post-May is going to cost more points since we know it will still cost 1 UC each way.

Note that you can only get a confirmed upgrade if there is U class availability at the time you request and you must have a confirmed seat on the flight. The popular business travel flights are unlikely to have U available. So if possible, choose an off-peak time for the flight. And even nicer if you can use something like QF188 which is an international config A330 with Skybeds but from international terminal.

If you can't get a confirmed U seat, your only other choice is to get to the QP early and request an On-Departure-Upgrade (ODU). But again, don't expect much success there if flying at 6pm on Friday!
 
NM said:
So if you won't be using them for a zone two upgrade, or earning any more UC's before May, then they might as well be used for 2 x zone 1 upgrades.!
Thanks, makes sense. Most of my flying in the next 6 months will be SYD-MEL, SYD-BNE, SYD-PER and SYD-TSV. Perhaps I could use them on a SYD-TSV flight. I checked the FF webpage but couldn't find a list of zones and locations.

NM said:
If you can't get a confirmed U seat, your only other choice is to get to the QP early and request an On-Departure-Upgrade (ODU). But again, don't expect much success there if flying at 6pm on Friday!
Ah... my MEL-SYD return flight with the boss will be on a Friday afternoon, probably around 7:00pm by the time we get out of the city.
 
Can Upgrade credits only be used by the QFF who holds them or can they be transferred to someone else like with the family points transfer.
 
They can be used by the FF owner of the UC's to upgrade an eligible family member on a qualifying QF flight. The owner of the UC's does not need to be traveling on the same flight.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Enhance your AFF viewing experience!!

From just $6 we'll remove all advertisements so that you can enjoy a cleaner and uninterupted viewing experience.

And you'll be supporting us so that we can continue to provide this valuable resource :)


Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..

Recent Posts

Back
Top