N Class Upgrade

I am booked on VS07 on Jan 12th with, unfortunately, an “N” class ticket. This is entirely the fault of my “agent” Amex as I specified I wanted an upgradeable fare.
I am trying to get them to change it but of course, I will lose the fare minus the tax.
I have enough miles for regular upgrade to PE or Upper Class but long for the chance to use them.
Can anyone tell what the chances of getting an operational upgrade or buying my way to an upgradeable class?
I am quite familiar with the etiquette needed at T3, being polite, never a pain etc.
Help!!

[Decker]

OpUp chances slim, but if you're prepared to pay the difference to an upgradeable class then if there is availability you should be able to upgrade. We did this recently on a K.

[mcmbenjamin]

Also may I suggest taking matters into yours hands and refering to the VS FC T&C for the booking classes that earn miles or the reasources here on VF.

VS fare Classes Defined

I have an N class ticket flying to Las vegas in April from gatwick and i called virgin and they said i can upgrade to premium economy for £219 each way, so give them a call.

Originally posted by AP786
I have an N class ticket flying to Las vegas in April from gatwick and i called virgin and they said i can upgrade to premium economy for £219 each way, so give them a call.

I may be missing something here, but that price is simply the difference between N and K fares (including the additional UK Govt taxes for travelling in the PE cabin rather than economy [:0])

Why not book the K fare in the first place, so as to avoid the question of whether or not there is K availability when you try to upgrade?

Best wishes

David

[preiffer]

Agree with David on that one. If you wanted to travel PE (and obviously, the cost was OK as you upgraded to it with cash), it would have saved a lot of uncertainty to book it in the first place.

I'm still amazed that they let you up an N class ticket. (Although it might have something to do with the current N/K fare sale?)

[mitchja]

I wonder if this will work with the 'Freddy Fare' I've got for the HKG/SYD route.

Pretty sure it will be a lot more than £219 each way though having only paid £388 in the first place (and that includes a 1 night stop-over each way in HKG) [:0]

Originally posted by DavidM
I may be missing something here, but that price is simply the difference between N and K fares

You will also have to pay the fare change fee as well.

Regards

Originally posted by Decker
OpUp chances slim, but if you're prepared to pay the difference to an upgradeable class then if there is availability you should be able to upgrade. We did this recently on a K.

Thanks, will Virgin sell me a change to am upgradeable class if the reservation was made by Amex ?

Regards

Steve

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by Steve Durkin

Thanks, will Virgin sell me a change to am upgradeable class if the reservation was made by Amex ?

Without wishing to sound flippant, why wouldn't they? The ticket is in your name, you are producing phot ID to back this up. I am sure they will be more than happy to take the mon eyoff you.

The big question, of course, is just how much they will charge. [8D]

As AP786 has said - he was charged £219 each way to upgrade an N class fare to PE each way to Vegas in April. That has got to be the result of the year, especially this far in advance. [y]

Nick

£219 is a good result, they told me its only because my e-ticket hasn't been issued yet that im able to upgrade from N class straight to premium economy, otherwise they said they would have had to charge me to uprgade to a full Y class fare first and then charge me for the upgrade to premium economy.

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by Nottingham Nick

Originally posted by Steve Durkin

Thanks, will Virgin sell me a change to am upgradeable class if the reservation was made by Amex ?

Without wishing to sound flippant, why wouldn't they? The ticket is in your name, you are producing phot ID to back this up. I am sure they will be more than happy to take the mon eyoff you.

The big question, of course, is just how much they will charge. [8D]

As AP786 has said - he was charged £219 each way to upgrade an N class fare to PE each way to Vegas in April. That has got to be the result of the year, especially this far in advance. [y]

Nick

Actually Nick, you may find that it can't be done as the AmEx booking may be a NET fare. The agents cannot touch per se in regards to revenue a ticket made by another agent, though they can assist with mileage upgrades. Of course on the day of departure rules can be soemtiems broken if the loads are heavy and upgrades routes are required.

E.G I am flying out on Friday, my booking was made by AmEx - out in L back in S, Vs can overide the bookign to upgrade my outbound L to a U using miles - but could not charge me the fare difference to shift it up to a K or S.

Thanks,
Richard

[preiffer]

Same goes for those damned "Expedia Special Fares". You try changing/upgrading one of those!

The Airline has no visibility of the actual fare paid, so cannot apply any credit against the new/upgraded ticket [n]

Here's how the story ends....
On the day of travel, economy was half empty, PE full and UC half empty - so nobody was keen to do an op up to PE.
Turns out the ground staff considered my "N" class ticket to be as worthless as I had thought.
I bought a new "L" class round trip at the T3 Ticket desk for £500+ and used miles to upgrade. I hope to get some sort of a refund for the "N" but I don't expect it will be anything like the full amount.
Oh well..as my mother was fnd of saying "Buy cheap, buy twice"

[preiffer]

All you'd get against the N would be taxes and (maybe) surcharges(?) - but that's a total of around £100 these days, so worthwhile doing!

Thanks for updating the story. [y]