Are flying club miles really worth it?

Hi all,
I'm only a humble Y traveller, but have been collecting miles for ages on my 1-2 trips a year I do with VS. I think I now have in the region of 30k miles, and am travelling to SFO in April for my 30th birthday.

I thought I'd look at getting a PE upgrade, but the appropriate Economy fare to do this seems to be more than the cheapest PE fare. The same goes for Miles plus Money...the MPM fare being around the same as the cash fare. So really I'm finding these miles pretty useless!

Is it just that the flying club system is aimed at the really frequent / UC flyers or do others think the same way? For me being flying club red seems pointless right now!

Steve

I do not know half as much about the flying club as some on here, but I do think it is worthwhile.

I fly to the west coast 3 or 4 times per year and via credit card spend and miles earned by flying I normally manage to bag one Upper Class return with my miles per year. This year I have two UC upgrade flights booked, but then I am close to empty on my flying club account.

So no, I do not think you need to be a very frequent flyer, nor do I think UC travellers are favoured, anymore than thye should be, over W or Y passengers.

When you say the economy fare to upgrade with miles is nearly as much as a PE sale ticket, is this a fully flexible economy fare obtained via the website ? Because this is not necessarily the fare you need to buy to be able to upgrade with miles.

I purchased an upgradeable economy ticket yesterday, outbound in June, inbound in August (I imagine the most coveted west coast months) for £744, I upgraded this with miles to a G fare. Without looking again, I think the cheapest preium economy ticket for this time was £1200+.

[Nottingham Nick]

I see where you are coming from Steve, but would tend to disagree with you, as there are lots of other ways to acquire points into your account - the credit card being the obvious high earning one.

The other way to look at it, is that the generic term for the points is 'Frequent Flyer' points. I suppose the original intention of the scheme is to encourage brand loyalty among those who take many flights a year, especially in the premium cabins.

My view is, that the fact that people who only take 1 or 2 trips a year can gain any benefit from a frequent flier scheme is a bonus.

My goal in saving points is to get reward UC trips. This takes longer than using them for upgrades or PE / economy trips, but IMHO is the best use of the points.


Nick

Hi Steve, I found the same thing as you when trying to look for a deal using VS with low-ish mileage (35k). From my experience, it seems to be dependant on the carrier with some being better than others at low mile rewards. I think it is only fair that people who have spent a fortune with an airline get the better deals but I also think you should be able to get at least some sort of discount on flights. The last time I tried to use my miles, it was still more expensive than BA`s standard web price.
We are going to have to weigh up where to put our upcoming flights with BMI (got caught out with Maxjet so re-booked) as we can either put the miles on Virgin or Qatar.

Nevadakaz: I phoned FC for an economy fare quote that enabled me to upgrade to PE. I think it was around £750, whilst the lowest PE fare on the website was £778.

Nick, I take on board what you said re:other earning opportunities, but none of them would really work for me....

I can see the system is designed for the frequent flyers and does work for them, but am just wondering if my 'red' card is worth anything at all. I was just wondering if I'd missed something!

Steve

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by steveb
.. but am just wondering if my 'red' card is worth anything at all...

I think you have hit the nail on the head there. The red card account is available to anyone before they even fly Virgin, so I don't think it will ever be worth much.

Nick

The post has a point, the clear purpose of any miles scheme is to encourage frequency of flying with the same airline and yes that does favour higher ticket payers / corporates, because sad to say for those in Y, those of us who fly in premium cabins at flexible fares give the airline the most profit.

That said, the second purpose should be to support customer loyalty in all classes and fare codes and to encourage ways of building up miles to come back to the airline. So to do this there are various other options including credit cards etc. Everyone has choices whether to sign up for these and to max out their miles earning potential. Some of course more than others.

The question is I think, is the balance right at the lower end of travel?

[RichardMannion]

Don't forget that the PE sale is on at the moment too, which is skewing things as normally a discounted PE ticket to the SFO/LAX is over £1k.

There are many ways to cut it down:

- Nick has hit the point of earning miles in many other ways aside from flying. I think for many of us here, miles from actually flying is the minority. Hotels, car hire, wine, credit/charge card spend etc all adds up.

- The soaring taxes and fuel surcharges have hidden some of the benefit of miles redemptions; my friend was in a similiar position to you, he would join me on a couple of a trips and over the years he collected his miles which allowed him to cash in for an Economy award when he had 40k, and the taxes back then were around £45. Nowadays with the taxes touching nearly £200 for economy it's a different story.

- You need to factor in when you want to travel as well. MpM is somewhat useless at certain times as the saving is tiny or non-existent, but at other peak times you can (and I have helped many colleagues) save £150+ per person on an Economy ticket for the cost of 2000 miles.

- In your instance, why not phone flying club and ask them to do a split fare with lowest available on the outbound, and then ask for an L on the return, you could then use your 30k miles (providing availability) to do an Economy to Upper upgrade so you cna fly home in style. Now that is using your miles! [:p] That kind of upgrade would normally cost ~£1k at the airport.

Thanks,
Richard

Thanks for the advice Richard. Unfortunately I already booked using the economy sale a few days ago, so I have a non-changable fare both ways.

I did call the FC though and they said to change the sale fare to one that can be upgraded was £200 for the inbound sector. Unfortunately, I don't think I can really justify that, but I am considering it. Also when I said 30k miles I was rounding up from 27k...oops!

Thanks anyways though, you have given me food for thought!

Steve

I'm in the same boat as the OP, my 1-3 trips a year didn't really seem worth the effort. We have had some good MPM fares in the past saving several hundred pounds but these 'special' fares are now not worth having since you know there will be a sale on at some point and by waiting you attain more miles rather than spending them.

Through this approach over the last couple of years plus the miles from Jamaica next month we will have saved enough miles for a UCS reward flight so I suppose that is what they are really all about.

The thing is once we've used those I don't think we'll be so inclined to stick to VS as our default carrier in the future mainly because of their appalling customer services dept. I'll be going with the airline offering the best balance between value, comfort and service and with the way the markets seem to be are going at the moment I think we're going to be getting a lot of choice.

Miopyk[8D]

[mcmbenjamin]

No, not for the casual traveler. There are other programs that FC miles could be credited to gain greater benefits.

[RichardMannion]

But why do you think it's not worth the effort?

As Nick said, FC is very generous towards all flyers. Even if you only do one flight a year in Economy you will earn some miles, contrast that to BA where Exec Club is very much aimed at the regular premium travellers. So assuming I'm flying once a year in Economy, every 4-5 years I have enough points for a free flight in Economy? What's wrong with that. It hasn't really cost you anything has it; you were going to do the flight anyway and its not as if you had to pay more to get your miles is it? Even after one flight, I'm likely to have enough miles in one account to get 4 MpM fares which even if they only save me £50 per passenger, that is extremely generous.

Yes some may say it's skewed more to the regulars (after all it is a loyalty program) but I actually think it benefits a very wide audience. Don't get me wrong, the programme isn't perfect but out of all the programmes I have seen or being a member of, it is certainly the most useful and beneficial to me, hence why it is my primary choice of frequent flyer program.

Originally posted by RichardMannion
But why do you think it's not worth the effort?

In some ways I think it comes down to the instant gratification thing which seems prevalent in society generally, who wants to save for years for anything these days? In the case of the twice a year economy traveller saving £50 with VS through MPM is irrelevant if you can save £100 with a different carrier for what could be a better product.

For me it comes down to 2 things. Is the company offering these incentives offering the best deals or are we choosing them because of the perceived value of the incentives on offer? For 'frequent flyers' this is probably an easy question to answer but for people in my position it is less clear cut.

Without wanting to rake over previous threads I feel that for the casual traveller like me, the value, service and 'extras' VS offered have declined over the last few years to a point where the competition has in some cases almost caught up and in others VS is now outclassed.

My loyalty was based on VS offering more and I was prepared to pay a little more for that. But now I'm not so sure. While I will enjoy my UCS reward flights in the future I really do think I've already paid for them through higher comparable fares and lackluster service.

Miopyk[8D]

[RichardMannion]

And you have identified one of the issues at hand - society.

Cost is the driving factor for most passengers, expecially those flying in Economy. Virgin aren't a small airline anymore, and any attempts to really innovate again cost a lot of money and in reality it is hard pushed for them to regain that given the tiny margins and push for cheaper fares.

If all things were equal among airlines, and VS spent money ripping seats out and offering a little more legroom and cutting edge IFE but were £50/pax more than another airline on that route, most UK folk now would take the cheaper option. Obviously here on this site, we have a slightly skewed audience that see beyond that. LCC's do a roaring trade in the UK, because people want cheap, cheap, cheap. Frequent flyer programmes as such do not cater for this demographic, though Virgin has a damn good go at it by offering miles on every revenue fare.

Lacklustre service I can identify with, and that is a separate issue - it should be good regardless of cost.

Thanks,
Richard

And I think you've probably hit the nail on the head Richard. VS are in the same boat as everyone else in terms of investment capability and can no longer support the innovation they were one renowned for. In these circumstances you have to find other ways of attracting and keeping customers.

The winners here will be those that produce the best intangible benefits which result in customers feeling that a, they got exactly or more than they thought they were paying for and b, they come back for more after getting a. I'm not knocking FC because I have benefitted from it and will continue to do so now I'm Silver[;)] but for your average Joe it doesn't mean much if you just had a rubbish flight or you can fly with BA or a US carrier in the same class for less money.

Change, as we all know is inevitable and this is what VS must continue to do if they want stay ahead of the game.

Miopyk[8D]

I'm a infrequent flyer (1 or 2 trips every 2 - 3 years) with 32K miles. I can understand steveb frustrations but I'm in it for the long run. I mean that although I don't do enough flights to get the full benefits of FC, I can see the one in a while opportunity where my slowly accrued miles will allow me.

However, there are other ways even buying 1K miles for £30 which I've done to keep my FC account open. 6K miles if you buy a £60 case of wine from virgin wines. Look at the VS website and see all the partners that you can get miles from.

Maybe when my son is older then as a family we may fly more!

Hi Steveb

I would like to offer you a slightly different perspective on this question.

30K miles have exactly the same potential value to everyone whether they are a frequent flyer or not - it just takes varying lengths of time to accrue them.

I use the phrase 'potential value' because miles are not like cash - If you have the expectation that as soon as you have accumulated the necessary miles you can just cash them in on your next trip then you are highly likely to be dissapointed. Although you could have been lucky! The value of miles (in terms of cash saved on a reward or upgrade flights)varies ernormously according to flight destination, and date and is subject to 'availability'. At one extreme your miles have virtually no currency at all(as you have discovered)- and at the other end of the spectrum I have personally bagged almost annually, for a number of years now, £2800 UC flights (Z class fare) for < £600 + 60K miles.

The 'trick' is that you have to seek out the best value for your miles by researching the availability of rewards and somehow match your travel plans with them. Crucially this does depend upon how flexible you can be with dates and even destination. However, just as an infrequent flyer takes longer to gain the miles so it may take longer to be in a position to use them.

This trip you were not able to make good use of the miles, so keep collecting them and look out for an opportunity in the future to capitalise on them, by which time you may well have 40K or 60K miles.

I agree with many of the sentiments here regarding the relative value of FC miles for infrequent flyers. But I look at it in a slightly different way. I am currently arranging a rtn from the east coast to LHR in March. Total Y fare is USD563.15. Of that, taxes etc are USD343.15 so the actual fare is USD220.00.
Now, I could use 36k miles instead (45k outside the current sale period), but I'd still be paying $343.15 for the taxes. Therefore my 36k miles are worth USD220.

Alternatively I could use my miles to redeem a UC ticket, which comes in at 90k miles plus USD421.42 in taxes.
The cash fare for this ticket would be USD4158.42 - so my 90k miles are worth USD3737.00 to me.

Simplistically, I can either fly two economy roundtrips with my 90k miles being worth $550 or fly one Upper Class return and have my miles be worth $3737.00.

In general for the infrequent traveller, who wants to be frugal with their money but get the most out of their miles, saving them all for UC travel is the way to go. I consider MpM to be a very inefficient use of miles, and upgrading using miles requires me to spend more for the qualifying fare than the standard fare, so it doesn't meet my criteria of frugal travel! (Though of course I can still earn miles on that part of the ticket).

From a pure value position, I won't be able to use my miles as often, but when I do I can get far more value (and enjoyment hopefully) from them by only using miles for UC flights. PE provides greater value than Y but not as great as UC ofcourse.

AF

I used to use miles alot on a 'Miles Plus Money' basis to go Upper Class to Orlando which over the last couple of years got me quite a bit of money off [:D]

However, last year due to Virgin's constant Premium Economy Sale ... I didn't use any miles the whole year. I collected them instead.

Then this year I used 90, 000 to go Upper Class to New York ... There was no way I could afford £3K in cash to go otherwise.

As others have said time of year and route is key. Couldn't find a redemption Upper Class fare to Orlando at all this year at the times I wanted to go, yet I was able to book my NYC trip 4 days before I wanted to go [:D]

Well this has stimulated some interesting discussion

30K miles have exactly the same potential value to everyone whether they are a frequent flyer or not - it just takes varying lengths of time to accrue them

pkatmk: I agree that they have the same value, but is that value sufficent?

To a frequent flyer, I'm guessing you will be buying flexible fares as par of the course. As a person that takes 1-2 trips a year (as much as I can afford) I will go for the economy sale fares every time.

I've flown only VS since 2002 for all my trans-alantic trips so I have slowly been collecting up these miles thinking they'll get me something some day. Roll on 5 years and any of the redemption opportunities will cost me money, and nearly as much, if not more than just buying the fares outright (UC upgrade excluded - thanks to Richard for pointing this out).

So I can't really see that they are worth much to someone like me, certainly not without some cash outlay.

BTW when I did phone FC today I told them I was travelling to SFO for my 30th birthday and they asked if they knew it was going to be my birthday? - would this mean anything? - I'm guessing not for FC red!!

Thanks everyone for the interesting replies.

Steve

[Scrooge]

Disclaimer: I am a miles whore, on average I fly TATL twice a year.

Now in Y with the lowest fares I earn 5200 miles, paying just a few dollars more to get out of the N fare I earn 10400 miles, therefore I double my earning potential for only a little extra cash.

However the majority of my miles don't come from flying, they come from AVIS [oo] who in there wisdom let me earn 1000 miles for every $25 rental.

Combine the two and whatever Amex spend I have and the flying club starts to make sense, in a 2 year spend I can normally generate enough miles for to UC flights.

So yes while the FC might at first glance seem a little bit of a waste of time, firstly it is free and secondly by using sites like this one you can find the best ways to earn and like LRoM's point the best way to spend.

Originally posted by Scrooge
However the majority of my miles don't come from flying, they come from AVIS [oo] who in there wisdom let me earn 1000 miles for every $25 rental.

Wow! Isn't that cheaper than buying miles direct from VA (+ a free car rental)? ie 19K miles = (19 * $25) = $475 = about £230 (VA = £300 I recall). Do you have to actually pick-up the car?

[Scrooge]

Yes it's cheaper than buying them from VS and in fact a whole lot cheaper than flying to earn them, in the US it is the one advantage we have.

Picking them up...mmm...sometimes, depends if I really want to be a pain, sometimes I run down to the local for lunch then drop it off, most of the time, nope, just sign and leave.

At 2.5 cents per mile it is pretty much the cheapest thing you can do to get miles, the exception would be Starwood points, when they throw a sale with the transfer bonus...but it's been a long time since they have done that.

Also of course you get the perks of being Avis First..which to date have been a couple of very nice upgrades on cars I have actually taken..and a fight at BUR when they tried to upgrade me from the Bonneville I had booked to a Malibu...If you have ever driven the last generation Malibu you will know why I had to fight that one.

Anyways..getting back on topic..yes it is always worth it when you are getting something for free.

Firmly back on topic. Personally, I'm saving up for an UC rtn to Aus. - only another 150K miles to go [:D] Nobody's mentioned referrals, got 15K from my parents for that. Not quite sure why, as they travelled PE and it should only have been 10, but I'm not complaining.

What I would say though is that before I found v-flyer I pretty much only joined FC because I thought I could save a few quid through MPM. Now I'm sorely tempted to squeeze in an extra SIN-KUL flight during the summer to get AU. Perhaps CH access and fast track check-in/security will make a few Y trips to the east coast more bearable.

[Scrooge]

But can we all agree, even if you are only flying once a year it is still worth it, sure it may take you a few years to get that free flight (plus taxes) but it is worth it right ?