Looking to fly Brisbane to LAX (from Melbourne) as part of my annual trip to the US.

Looking to fly Brisbane to LAX (from Melbourne) as part of my annual trip to the US. Work will spring for Premium Economy but am looking to upgrade to business with points. How is the availability on this leg? It will be a weekend flight in late April. Also can you use points to upgrade domestically on Delta... and is it worth it?

I assume since you mention delta this is a question relating to VA?

To answer your last question first, no you can not use points to upgrade. Although paying for the upgrade is a cheap way to rack up status credits.

The upgrades book into the same fare bucket as the rewards. So look for reward bookings on the dates you want to fly, if one exists you simply call up the call center and they can process the upgrade then and there. 

I may be wrong Jared. However, I think paying for the upgrade (as opposed to paying the fare difference to change the booking to a Business class one) is akin to using points for an upgrade i.e they are both upgrades and the original booking class is what the Status credits are earned from.

I meant just paying the difference on delta. AFAIK they have no upgrade auction process as they tend to give out upgrades to their elites. 

Ended up getting work to pay for 'Delta comfort +' which is their (very average) premium economy - wasn't expensive ($300 across flights going LAX --> Seattle --> NYC --> LAX) and I get a very nice bump in status credits!

I assume you're flying Virgin and have Velocity points? If so, you can upgrade from premium to business for 45k points each way, providing you are gold or platinum status. Good value in my opion, especially if the new suites are in action.

Not sure about the Delta question.

Good luck on availability. Used to be very easy to get a points upgrade - can only find economy reward seats. Have been on the upgrade waiting list since October last year for a flight in Apil with the old configuration. 

Cannot find any points upgrade between now and January 2017 from PE. 

Do they still do the bidding for an upgrade?

They still do bidding for an upgrade, but the Platinum & Gold waitlist upgrades get reviewed first, then bids. Used to be easy to obtain a points upgrade when booking in advance. 

Thanks to everyone for replying - very helpful to a newbie!

So, no luck so far - I am gold Velocity member (which is the minimum requirement to even be able to bid for a points upgrade) and surprise surprise, no seats available.

Am on a waitlist and there are business class seats on the flights but need to wait until 3 days before the flight before the system starts auto-checking every hour. Up until then it's up to me to call.

Weirdly the membership centre people said I can try and check myself by trying to redeem a whole flight on points but anytime I try that it offers me a business class (one way) fare Brisbane to LAX for 750,000 points! I will call - pretty sure I'm not finding the right way to look online...
Will let you know how I go!