Reward flight question

I've just tried to book a UC reward flight for myself and her indoors.
The good news is that they have still have reward seats to LAX and back from SFO in UC for our preferred dates[y].
I have enough miles for this flight , but her indoors only has enough miles for the outbound journey.
She was after a reward seat outbound and we were expecting to pay for a Z fare for the return leg.
The bad news is that VS quoted us £3000+ for the return leg. A 'Z' fare (return) is only £2500[:?].
I queried the £3000 and was told that I am not able to purchase a one way 'Z' fare in conjunction with a reward ticket and must buy a flexible ticket.

Is this correct?.
Do I have any other options? I have read that I could purchase a PE ticket and use 40000 miles to upgrade to UC.
Does anybody know roughly how much the PE fare would be to LAX returning from SFO. Dates, last week in June to 2nd week in July.

Your help is most appreciated.
Tim & Chris.

Easiest thing I guess would be to get an 'S' PE fare for her, she can then up with miles (availability withstanding).
Ring FC for the price.
HTH

[HighFlyer]

Yup you cant buy a one way Z. If you do have to buy a ticket, an S fare might be a good option as Andy suggested.

How many miles are you short? Do you have enough miles to cover her other sector? Or you could buy/gift miles to make up the shortfall?

Thanks,
Sarah

[Neil]

Agree with Andy, an S PE fare which you can then upgrade with 40k miles should be around the £1200-£1400 mark for that time of year according to Expedia, best ringing FC though as they will be able to tell you exactly

Neil:)

Thanks for the quick replies.

I'd forgot about buying miles.
We'll explore this option tomorrow and then decide if it more cost effective that buying an upgradeable PE ticket.

Spoke to the Premier team and decided to buy a 'L' for £730 and use the 60000 miles for an upgrade.
A big thumbs up[y] for the premier team, the service and their knowledge of different variations on how to get the best from our miles was first class.