Virgin - upgradeable tickets / ticket codes?

[dippy lippy]

So ... was planning on using my miles to book PE return tix.

When I went to book the actual price for tickets was only £691pp - thats for PE return London-Miami - which I thought was a bargain.

I could have used my miles for exactly the same flights which would have cost me £488pp - yes a saving - but - I thought I would be able (if there was availability) to upgrade to UC using miles as I had paid in full for the tickets rather than using miles. Plus I would earn miles on the flight. However I was told as my tickets had a 'K' code I could not upgrade using miles - I am presuming this was because they were cheap/sale price?

So my question is - when purchasing tickets for money can you find out which code / ticket type you are allocated and which CAN be used to upgrade?

For info our travel dates were 16th - 31st Oct and I booked 5/6 weeks before travel.

And both flights in PE were very comfortable!

[Softy]

The upgradeable codes are on the flying club bit on the website. To book them you generally have to search for the flexible bookings. They’ll be 3 times the price of the cheap ones, which is why no one really uses miles to upgrade cash bookings. Some people have got lucky with economy bookings through travel agents. Not sure if the resultant upgrade with miles was down to virgins error, but the general rule is to just redeem for the reward flights in full when the savings are worthwhile.

[Oliver123]

Originally Posted by Softy

The upgradeable codes are on the flying club bit on the website. To book them you generally have to search for the flexible bookings. They’ll be 3 times the price of the cheap ones, which is why no one really uses miles to upgrade cash bookings. Some people have got lucky with economy bookings through travel agents. Not sure if the resultant upgrade with miles was down to virgins error, but the general rule is to just redeem for the reward flights in full when the savings are worthwhile.

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I’ve never found them to be 3X the cost. Virgin last year (or the year before) included a lot more fare codes that are upgradable. If you booked with virgin direct you can call them and ask how much it is to upgrade to the fare code. I did that last year and it was £40 and the flights I booked were very cheap!

[dippy lippy]

Thanks for helpfull replies - I will know in future to look a bit further at codes before booking flights for cash.
Interestingly - 3 years ago we were returning from Miami travelling PE and were asked at check in if we wanted to upgrade to UC using miles - which we did, the cost being very minimal. We were on a package holiday booked with Virgin Holidays so I guess our ticket code was one were we could upgrade using miles.