I'm currently a gold member with Velocity, and I'm looking to fly to Europe with my partner next year.

I'm currently a gold member with Velocity, and I'm looking to fly to Europe with my partner next year. We're looking at using points to upgrade to business class from the Brisbane to Abu Dhabi leg, so I was hoping someone knowledgeable could help out with a few questions:

1) Is it possible to request an upgrade which is confirmed at the time of booking? I don't want to pay for a flexi fare if an upgrade is out of the question

2) Can I request an upgrade for my partner even though I'm the only one of us that's gold

3) Is there a better way to try to get to Europe with business for at least the part of the way? We currently have about 200k points, probably 250 by the time we go to book.

Hi bob342,

A wonderful part of Virgins upgrade system is that upgrades can be confirmed at the time of booking.

1. There are two ways to go about this. You could search for reward availability online, if its available, book your flight and immediately call the Membership contact centre to confirm the upgrade.

Or you could call the membership centre to start with, and ask them if its available, and have them put your Y flexi fare through and the upgrade at the same time. This is probably the way i'd go even though there is a phone booking fee I would like the piece of mind.

2. There shouldn't be any problem with you upgrading your partner as long as you are on the same booking and there is two reward seats available.

3. Some of the other members here may have a better way, but I think yours might be the best at the moment. SQ redemptions are so hard to find. Not sure about EY I haven't tried myself.

Hope this helps.

Thanks GIan, that's what I was hoping to hear! I think calling and booking at the same time is probably the way to go to.

Cheers!

Hi Bob342,

Couple of points to add to Gian's post above - The points upgrade from a flexi fare is only available on flights operated by Virgin Australia which I'm pretty sure means you can only use them on VA29/30 SYD-AUH.

In regards to point 3 - Depending on how much cash you have to spend (or are willing to spend!) 250k points should get you a return reward ticket from Brisbane to Europe with Etihad. You can then buy the other return ticket outright, and both enjoy business all the way! It depends if you can justify the additional spend above the Flexi fares to Abu Dhabi and the onward economy fare to europe that you'll be commited to if you go down the upgrade route...

Hrm, I don't think it should really be too much more expensive actually to do it that way + then that's business the entire way!  I might keep that in mind too, it does cost more points, but ppft whatever! Business all the way baby!

If you want to upgrade BNE - AUH, you should do a search for Business class reward seats first as these can be hard to come by on some flights.  Once you know that there is a business class reward seat available, you can book that flight with a flexi economy ticket, ring the guest contact centre and get your upgrade processed straight away.  The same applies for domestic upgrades with points / comp upgrades.