Reward booking / upgrade voucher permutations

[dannyrado]

Hiya,

I’ve absolutely cooked my brain today trying to figure these permutations. What’s the best method of booking 3 x UC UK-JFK one-way.. In terms of taxes, fees, points, etc.

I have 2 upgrade vouchers (no real use for them otherwise) and loads of points..

[NorthernLass]

I’m still relatively new to VS but I think using the vouchers to upgrade is better in terms of how many points you need than booking as 241. The surcharges one way, are really high, I would try and book returns if possible.

[AL]

The simple answer is to call them, ask them to confirm what vouchers you have on account, and to tell them your origin, destination and dates. They’re excellent at piecing the best approach together.

You’ve given me a nice pricing exercise to fill my evening with…

[AL]

VS splits the year in two – there are peak and standard dates. Generally, peak aligns with school holidays. Reward pricing (both the TFS and points value) differs depending on whether each individual sector departs in peak or standard. This year’s peak season is:

1st January – 3rd January
22nd March – 15th April
16th June – 2nd September
25 October – 5th November
7th December – 5th January

JFK is in the northeast USA category, so per sector per person is:

– Economy: 10,000 standard, 20,000 peak
– Premium: 17,500 standard, 27,500 peak
– Upper: 45,000 standard, 57,500 peak

I’m going to go with some approximations for TFS – £250 Economy, £550 Premium, £700 Upper. You always pay TFS, or an approximately pro-rated value when jumping between cabins.

For three people, in Upper, if you paid purely in points, you’re looking at 135,000 standard or 172,500 peak per sector for the whole trip, or – in total – 270,000 standard or 345,000. TFS would be about £2000 total.

An approximate rule for best value from your points is to get as close to 1p as possible when redeeming, so 270,000 would be £2700ish cash, and 345,000 would be £3450 cash. Total ‘cash’ value (as an approximation for comparing versus the true cash value of the same tickets on revenue fares) is, therefore, £4700 (£2700 + £2000 TFS) standard or £5450 (£3450 + £2000 TFS).

At this point, I implore you to think whether you find value in spending £5000-£6000 on three tickets on a seven/six hour flight to be of value. This isn’t me suggesting one way or another. You know your wishes and situation best. Cash fares can easily be as high as £7000 on this route, so you are making a significant saving with points (£6000 versus £21000).

Let’s bring in the vouchers.

Your upgrade vouchers (assuming they’re from a credit card) are also usable as a companion voucher. This means we have a number of different scenarios to play with. I am going to assume you want to use both vouchers, rather than keep any.

1. One revenue ticket in Upper, two revenue in Premium plus two vouchers
2. One reward ticket in Upper, two revenue in Premium plus two vouchers
3. Three reward in Premium, use two vouchers and upgrade the third with points
4. One reward in Upper, one companion voucher, one reward in Premium, one upgrade voucher

There are probably other permutations. I am going to choose May 13 as the departure date.

Scenario 1 (assuming standard dates):
– Revenue Upper fare: £6625
– Revenue Premium fare: £2376
– TFS approximation: £250ish (delta between P and G)
£6625 + 2*(2376) + 2*(250) = £11877 plus two vouchers

Scenario 2 (assuming standard dates):
– Reward Upper fare: 45,000
– Revenue Premium fare: £2376
– TFS approximation: £250ish (delta between P and G)
– TFS approximation: £700 (revenue Upper)
2*(2376) + 2*(250) + 700 = £5952 plus 45,000 points plus two vouchers

Scenario 3 (assuming standard dates):
– Reward Premium fare: 17,500
– Premium to Upper reward: 30,000
52500 points + 30000 points + 3*(700) plus two vouchers = 82500 points plus £2100 plus two vouchers
NB: I have ‘cheated’ TFS here by charging all three pax £700, to make life easier for me. An approximation, after all.

Scenario 4 (assuming standard dates):
– Reward Upper fare: 45,000
– Reward Premium fare: 17,500
– TFS approximation: £700 (with same caveat as Scenario 3)
3*(700) + 45,000 + 17,500 = 62500 points + £2100

As you can see, there are ways to use points to significantly offset cost. The above pricing ideas are only approximations – you really will need to ring to get them to price you something up. They know what they’re doing. You might also, if you’re chasing status, be interested in taking up VS Holidays on their offer to give you 20 TPs for each £500 you spend (but they cannot process anything with points, but you can book your revenue portions in-store). There is very little difference in price between o/w and rtn., generally. VS, like most airlines, will sting you for a one-way, enabling them to effectively double-sell the seat.

And, of course, errors and exceptions omitted. TFS estimations are based on my experiences over the past 12mo.

[dannyrado]

My goodness thankyou. You can see why my brain expired.

I had actually come to the same conclusion as you for many of them permutations. But, you have helped me massively, I hadn’t thought of scenario 4, albeit we’d need peak.

As you eluded, I do have to consider whether VS credit card has any value to me anymore. I am willing to book fares from Dublin etc, to save cash, and in many cases, especially with VS ridiculous high taxes I would find a cash fare better ‘value’.