Need help with miles, reward flights and more!

[TigerLily8]

Hi everyone

I am looking for advice from the experts of the DIBB regarding virgin reward flights, miles etc. I have tried to work this out myself but it is just giving me a headache! Plus I suppose this is all guesswork as the flights aren't actually out yet.

Next year, we have two trans-Atlantic holidays planned within a relatively close time span. We are planning to go to San Fran & Hawaii in September with my parents for my mum's 60th birthday, then at the end of October we are back to Orlando with the OH's family for OH's 30th.

Both OH and I have VA credit cards. By the time we are ready to book flights to San Fran/Hawaii, I estimate we will have amassed around 80,000 miles (before we make any bookings).

So these are the travel plans:

Late September 2021:

• UK - San Francisco. Internal flight to Honolulu. Honololu - UK.

(This would be for 4 travellers, but can book 2+2 or 3+1 or whatever would work in our favour).

Late October 2021:

• Return, UK - Orlando (2 travellers as we will all book our flights individually)

We are closest to Manchester airport, but are open to travelling from London (or anywhere UK) if we can get a good deal.

Basically I am looking for advice on what would be the best way to book these flights, taking into consideration our available miles. We would like to surprise my parents with an upgrade to PE or UC on the San Fran/Hawaii trip if money/miles allowed.

We would also like to do the return to Orlando PE if possible.

My parents our paying for our San Fran/Hawaii flights and have budgeted around £1000pp for these flights. Of course we are willing to use all of our miles to fund the upgrade as a surprise. Or would we better off just paying out of pocket for the upgrade and using our miles on the Orlando flights? HELP!

What would you do? Would it work out better to get companion tickets? Are these upgradeable? Also, do I need to be looking to book on the day they are released? Is availability going to be low? I've never booked reward/companion tickets before!

Thanks so much in advance for any advice! Xx

[eaglesrest]

We are doing SFO and HNL next August/Sept too! Confusing but exciting planning isn't it

Unfortunately 80k flights isn't going to stretch very far on those routes.

If you are flying MAN MCO after 27/10/21 then thats standard season and you could get 2 x PE reward flights for 90,000 miles. That would be my objective, then you only have to pay the taxes at £476 pp.

Another other option is to ask at the airport about a miles upgrade on your parents tickets subject to availability, but that locks your miles out of use to book the PE reward flights to MCO.

Personally, I'd be looking to get the MAN MCO rewards and pay out of pocket for the UC upgrade. Big UC cabins on those routes so prices can be reasonable.

[TigerLily8]

Originally Posted by eaglesrest

We are doing SFO and HNL next August/Sept too! Confusing but exciting planning isn't it

Unfortunately 80k flights isn't going to stretch very far on those routes.

If you are flying MAN MCO after 27/10/21 then thats standard season and you could get 2 x PE reward flights for 90,000 miles. That would be my objective, then you only have to pay the taxes at £476 pp.

Another other option is to ask at the airport about a miles upgrade on your parents tickets subject to availability, but that locks your miles out of use to book the PE reward flights to MCO.

Personally, I'd be looking to get the MAN MCO rewards and pay out of pocket for the UC upgrade. Big UC cabins on those routes so prices can be reasonable.

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Thanks Eaglesrest, that's really good advice! Perhaps we will try and use our cards for more general spending over the coming months to accumulate more points and see where that gets us.

How exciting that you are doing SFN and HNL too! What hotels are you planning on staying at? We like the look of the Prince Waikiki. We're never been to Hawaii before so we can't wait!

[eaglesrest]

No problem upgrades might be an option, but the original tickets needs to be of a certain fare class, and you need reward availability in the target class of travel. Getting 2 x PE rewards if probably going to be simplest and best value.

AMEX gold reward cards usually offer a decent sign-up bonus and sometimes a cashback deal via Quidco, etc so you get paid to get up to 23,000 miles if you haven't used that option before. Cancel within the first year and its free.

Plan is to fly into SFO, then drive to Yosemite, Las Vegas, GC, Phoenix (maybe), LAX for Disney/Universal, then HNL, so loads to think about. My head is spinning

We are DVC members so plan on staying at the Disney Aulani if we can drop lucky on a 7 month reservation

[Oliver123]

If you don't have an amex gold card I would highly recomened you getting one hitting the spending goal and then referring your partner. You could get over 50K miles from this

It costs 25K to fly economy with virgin per person albeit it isn't worthwhile using it normally as the taxes can be the same as a normal fare!

The best option could be paying cash to Orlando then using miles from the USA to HNL!

[Softy]

Originally Posted by Oliver123

If you don't have an amex gold card I would highly recomened you getting one hitting the spending goal and then referring your partner. You could get over 50K miles from this

It costs 25K to fly economy with virgin per person albeit it isn't worthwhile using it normally as the taxes can be the same as a normal fare!

The best option could be paying cash to Orlando then using miles from the USA to HNL!

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If you use Avios through BA for Alaska/AA flights, you can get west coast to Hawaii return for 25k and about $20. It’s one of the best uses of avios. I did it a couple of years ago, San Jose to Honolulu on Alaska.

[TigerLily8]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I've found it really useful. We had a look at the Amex Gold card and my partner was planning on ordering this but realised we have both had (and cancelled) Amex cards within the past 24 months so we do not qualify for the Gold Card.

I have, however, just realised that I earned a reward on my VA card (either free upgrade or companion ticket), which changes things a little.

Does anyone know if I booked an economy ticket with miles and claimed a free companion ticket whether we could pay cash to upgrade these to premium? Potentially I could get the premium upgrade for myself and pay OOP for another premium ticket so just trying to work out what would work out better.

[eaglesrest]

I doubt you can pay cash to upgrade the eco reward tickets to Premium until you get to the airport. You could ask VA as if they did allow it, the cost could be extortionate.

You'd still need to pay the taxes on the companion ticket. If you want PE, better to use the ticket as an eco-PE upgrade I think.

If either of you own a business, the AMEX business cards allow bonus to be earned every 6 months instead of every 2 years.

[TigerLily8]

Fab, thanks eaglesrest! I suppose it all just depends on prices when they are released (and of course what actually happens with Virgin given the current circumstances). Will be on the lookout for the best deal when the time arrives!

[Dr.JumbaJookiba]

Originally Posted by TigerLily8

Does anyone know if I booked an economy ticket with miles and claimed a free companion ticket whether we could pay cash to upgrade these to premium?

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100% no I'm afraid. Miles to cash upgrades don't work because there's no base fare for the system to calculate the upgrade price on.

All bets are off at the airport though as eaglesrest has said where a fixed price is offered to everyone if seats are available.