-
Morning,
Looking at taking a flight LHR to St Lucia, leaving during peak season coming back off peak, when booking with points I assume I’ll be charged peak only, does anyone know?
I can’t currently book as it’s slightly too far away!
Thanks
Only other query off the back of it (I have a companion voucher to use with this too..) If I did first class one way and premium on the return or vice versa, what does it do to the point usage?
You’ll get ticketed for the applicable rate on the day you fly, so peak out, and off peak back.
Voucher will apply the same way. You’ll be able to upgrade from PE to UC out and Economy to PE back, as long as seats are available in those cabins.
Much appreciated, Dave. Thanks.
If you mix F with another cabin you may find the cash charges are higher than you were expecting – do dummy bookings for return journeys and 2 separate bookings to check this (and see the various articles and threads on RFS fares for more discussion of this).
I don’t know whether UVF has F though, or if it does, whether avios seats ever appear.
If you mix F with another cabin you may find the cash charges are higher than you were expecting – do dummy bookings for return journeys and 2 separate bookings to check this (and see the various articles and threads on RFS fares for more discussion of this).
I don’t know whether UVF has F though, or if it does, whether avios seats ever appear.
This is the Virgin forum, BA doesn’t fly to UVF from LHR and, no, BA doesn’t have F (from LGW) anyway… 🙂
I think the @Scriv09 means Upper Class (for which they’ll be sorely disappointed if they think it is first class…)
Yeah I didn’t read the question properly, just gave generic Virgin advice but it seems it’s in the wrong forum, so more info/checking is required by @Scriv09
Me neither, saw F and assumed BA!
Yeah I didn’t read the question properly, just gave generic Virgin advice but it seems it’s in the wrong forum, so more info/checking is required by @Scriv09
I think it’s in the right forum…, and assuming it is your advice was spot on. It’s just the talk of first class confused @NorthernLass 🙂
Only other query off the back of it (I have a companion voucher to use with this too..) If I did first class one way and premium on the return or vice versa, what does it do to the point usage?
Whatever you do, don’t use a credit card voucher as a companion voucher where Upper Class is involved unless you have status above Red. The reason being, that you’ll be charged 1.5x points for two seats, not 1x points.
In the scenario you’re talking about a UC return would cost 187,500 points for two. Use it as an upgrade voucher instead and you’d only pay 170,000 points. If you had two vouchers available it would only be 90,000 for an UC return if used for upgrade.
A mix of Premium (one way) and UC (one way) would cost you 136,250 or 141,250 points depending on which way round you do it using it as a companion voucher. Using it as an upgrade voucher would only cost you 90,000 points.
You may find that the agent tries to tell you it’s better used as a companion voucher, but it’s not true in this scenario.
Quite some advice there… Appreciate it!
A mix of Premium (one way) and UC (one way) would cost you 136,250 or 141,250 points depending on which way round you do it using it as a companion voucher. Using it as an upgrade voucher would only cost you 90,000 points.
Though I may need a thorough explanation of this, how? 😂
A mix of Premium (one way) and UC (one way) would cost you 136,250 or 141,250 points depending on which way round you do it using it as a companion voucher. Using it as an upgrade voucher would only cost you 90,000 points.
Though I may need a thorough explanation of this, how? 😂
Apologies, my maths was a bit out. That should have been 113,750 or 118,750 points with a companion voucher (for 2 seats), but still rather more than the 90,000 using it as an upgrade voucher.
To break it down:
*A one-way UC flight to/from St Lucia is 57,500 off-peak or 67,500 peak (in each case half the return amount).
*A one-way Premium flight to/from St. Lucia is 17,500 off-peak or 27,500 peak.
*Assuming that you have Red status in Virgin Flying Club, using the voucher as a companion voucher allows two people to fly return for the normal points for one seat in Economy or Premium, or 1.5x the point of one seat in UC (if you have Silver status or higher it is 2for1 in all cabins).
*Alternatively a voucher can be used for “upgrade”, which in practice means you pay the points for the next lowest cabin. When used in this way each voucher can be used for a return voucher for one person return or two people one-way.So a return Premium flight for two without a voucher, one way on a peak date and the other off-peak would be:
2*(17,500+27,500)=90,000 points
Using one voucher to upgrade two seats would get you one direction in UC, the other in Premium (either way around) for the same amount of points.
Alternatively:
*You could use 67,500 points for one UC seat on your outbound flight. With Red status and a companion voucher that would be 67,500*1.5=101,250 points for two seats.
*You could use 17,500 points for one Premium seat on your return flight. With a companion voucher that would be 17,500 for two seats.
*So in total, that would be 118,750 points. If you swap them round to fly UC on the return (off-peak) flight it comes out at 113,750 points.Given that Caribbean redemption seats get snapped up very quickly (and St Lucia is only 3 or 4 times a week) you need to call as the seats become available. It may not be so competitive for the dates you are looking to fly (compared to Jan/Feb) but to give yourself the best chance of getting what you want:
*Work out which flights you want and on which dates in advance.
*Call 331 days before the outbound flight, ideally when they are released at 5am, to book it.
*Call again 331 days before the return flight (again at 5am!) to add on the return.
*When booking the leg that you want to do in UC tell them that you want to use the voucher for upgrade. Don’t let them talk you into using it as a companion voucher. 🙂
*Have a plan for what you’re going to do if the seats you want have already been taken as they may only release 2 UC and 2 Premium on each flight.Remember that you still have to pay the taxes and fees for the upgraded class of travel.
An incredibly extensive explanation, thank you
Revisiting as now have a little more info and am open to either option so want to figure it and the maths before ringing up in a week or two..
LHR to UVF x 2 on 19th March 2025
UVF to LHR x 2 on either 4th or 6th April 2025
Either want to fly premium both ways using companion voucher (which would be spending around 50k points and 1100 quid.. if I’m correct)
Other option is fly premium out and UC back which is around 110-120k points and roughly the same cost in taxes (760gbp and 2400xcd?)
If anyone more experienced can advise I’d appreciate it!
Don’t forget you are charged 50% extra points for UC unless you’re (?) gold or silver. I’m looking at booking NAS – LHR for next April, so think I’ll get hit with peak pricing but as it’s only one-way I might get away with using fewer points to upgrade 2 of us rather than use the voucher for a companion ticket.
I’ve flown PE overnight on VS before, would have been fine but for a screaming toddler so there might be less chance of that in UC 😂. (Literally screaming for at least half of the 8 hours – teach me to go to Florida at Xmas 🤦🏻♀️).
Yeah I’m red, my brain can’t do the maths 😂
I’m not brilliant, I rely on SeatSpy to do a lot of this stuff for me 😂
I’m wondering if I’m doing the right thing now but I spat my dummy out at pricing from the US to MAN and I’ve now booked our outbound flights with BA so I’m kind of committed 🤣
Oh no 😂😂😂😂 don’t doubt yourself!
So I’m pretty sure you could book returns for you both in PE which would be 45k pp. Then use your upgrade voucher to upgrade both of you on one of the legs and *just* pay the additional taxes for you both on that leg.
I think….https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/05/18/how-to-use-virgin-atlantic-credit-card-vouchers/
Yeah, I think I agree with you degsy, it’s so confusing haha!
This is kind of my plan, when the NAS-LHR flights are released, book 2 x PE then call and hope they will let me upgrade to UC with the voucher. It sounds like it does depend on the agent how likely it is they’ll do this. We got stung last year when booking 3 x PE from MCO-MAN. It was the first time we’d ever done a VS redemption and the agent used the voucher as a 241 instead of upgrading 2 of us and we didn’t realise until later that we’d used more points than we needed to.
Think i’m more likely to fly PE out and UC back, so trying to do the maths on it now…
Am red tier, flight out 19th march 25, flight back 4th or 6th april 25, either 45k or 55k points out, and then redeeming the companion voucher to go from PE to UC on flight back, this is where the maths falls over and i’m not sure…
marks7389 gave a great explanation but I’m still a tad lost!
Have you had a look at SeatSpy? It shows the number of points needed for each cabin.
But if you upgrade from PE to UC (rather than using the voucher as a 241) you shouldn’t need any extra points, just the extra cash element.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
