V-Flyer

Hi,

Wonder if someone can offer any other options for the cheapest way of making a trip to Las Vegas next September with my wife in PE. We went this year and paid approx £840 each, fare code K – we booked during the sale.

I have the MBNA Black VS CC, which I transferred to from the Mastercard in July.

I’ve currently got just over 100000 points. By early January, which is when I was thinking of booking (Sale time again hopefully), I’ll probably have about 110 – 115000.

My wife has 23000 points.

I’ve got one companion ‘voucher’ (at least that’s what it says on my Flying Club statement)

If I’ve understood the T&Cs correctly, I should be entitled to one PE upgrade voucher at the end of the (calendar) year. I haven’t checked my spend exactly since moving to the black card, but I’m sure I won’t have spent £10,000 which would give me the 2 upgrade vouchers. And that begs another question – are the PE u/g vouchers redeemable against normal miles rewards bookings or not – I’ve seen conflicting reports. Would the ideal, i.e. cheapest, scenario be 100000 points and two PE u/g vouchers?

Options – not sure whether some of these are allowable under the T&Cs:

2* Economy rewards (100000 points) and pay to upgrade?
2* Economy rewards (100000 points) and 1* u/g voucher and 1* pay to upgrade?
1* W or S fare and companion ticket? Typical Price?
1*K fare and 1*economy reward + u/g voucher
Spend more on the c/c to earn 2nd u/g voucher
Spend more on the c/c & buy miles to get 150,000 miles (2* PE reward)
Other options ?

TIA

Ian

Hello

The 'cheapest' way of doing this really depends on the fares at that time of year. You may have more luck calling Flying Club to get an idea on rates for next September. LAS can be one of the more expensive routes, i think you'd be looking at around 1k for a PE fare, though there often isnt too much of a difference between a K and an S on this route, I have used my companion voucher for LAS before and got a very good deal that way as an S was only a few hundred more than a K. That's the route i would probably go down if fares are sensible as it represents quite good value for money.

Other alternatives would be booking Economy and upgrading with miles, or using the AmEx voucher. The Y->W vouchers with the VS AmEx allow you to upgrade to Premium if you redeem your miles an Economy reward flight (so a T->U upgrade). Not sure that any of us will have received one yet to be able to test the theory so to speak. I should be getting my two this year - oh the fun!

If you are not bothered about miles or tier points, MpM may be a good option for you both? 7500 miles for a PE return?

Thanks,
Sarah

Originally posted by HighFlyer
[ Not sure that any of us will have received one yet to be able to test the theory so to speak. I should be getting my two this year - oh the fun!

Hi Sarah - this is similar to what's being discussed in the latest thread on the Cards forum. What's your take on MBNA / FC's apparent policy, ie. those of us with qualifying spend have already been issued with their Complimentary companion reward flight vouchers(ie. well before the one year anniversary of opening the account as per T's & C's) but no sign of a voucher for the Premium Economy reward upgrade? It seems they're ignoring the one year anniversary rule and issuing the former but, for some reason, not the latter. In fact, if they're only applying the spend threshold rule then surely they should be issuing the voucher for the Premium Economy reward upgrade first - as the spend threshold is less [:?] You're pretty clued up in this area, what's your reckoning?

If you are paying around £1k, have you considered Maxjet?

Originally posted by Vegascrazy
Hi Sarah - this is similar to what's being discussed in the latest thread on the Cards forum. What's your take on MBNA / FC's apparent policy, ie. those of us with qualifying spend have already been issued with their Complimentary companion reward flight vouchers(ie. well before the one year anniversary of opening the account as per T's & C's) but no sign of a voucher for the Premium Economy reward upgrade? It seems they're ignoring the one year anniversary rule and issuing the former but, for some reason, not the latter. In fact, if they're only applying the spend threshold rule then surely they should be issuing the voucher for the Premium Economy reward upgrade first - as the spend threshold is less [:?] You're pretty clued up in this area, what's your reckoning?

Absolutely! Just replied to that in the original thread (see here for interested parties)

Thanks,
Sarah

Can certainly agree with how much the price varies. I was costing the flights up for Sep just gone, and I was doing this in May. I did a spreadsheet to identify to best date to fly (sorry, sad, I know!) - and a PE flight for money only was coming out at just over £700. However, I didn't book it then (sometimes, these things have to be slotted into a finanical plan) and when I again priced it up, a couple of weeks later, the price had gone up to over £900. Did I kick myself or what???

I found the bext option then was miles plus money. But of course, nothing earned on that.....[:(!]