Vegas Trip Information for anyone looking to go this year.

[tikay]

Virgin air mile reward seat sale now on.  Ends 22nd Sept.

Includes Premium too.  Spelling it out, assuming you have zero miles:

Econ = £650 incl tax
Prem = £1150-£1200 incl tax

If you spend more than that on a cash fare, you are probably doing it wrong.

Simon,

Not exactly Vegas, but a question if you don't mind.

What would I expect to pay, & by what means (miles/cash/miles or cash) for a return flight to New York in PE? I currently have 63,000 miles.

Generally, when I try to use miles, or miles + cash, there are vey few available flights. Cash only, there are plenty, of course.

[Simon Galloway]

Premium to JFK would be 38.5k miles +~£450 airport tax.  That's going to be your nut way of paying, book by 22nd Sept, but the earlier the better as others will surely look to do the same. A brief phone call to Virgin similar to last time (assuming this is a trip with the better half) is the way to go.  They can check if they have 2x P.E's available.  If so, you have a shortfall of ~14k miles to buy, but using the buy miles 30% offer at the moment, that would still be very good value.

2x P.E seats = 77k miles
2x airport tax ~ £900
Buy 11k miles +3.3k bonus = £180

So your miles + ~£550pp for round trip in Premium, seems hard to beat imo.

[Longines]

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/virgin-atlantic-airways-flying-club/1737941-stuart_f-s-guide-upgrading-vs-flights-using-flying-club-points.html

Has a handy tip on how to find dates where reward seats are available.

[Simon Galloway]

Nice to see that I'm not the only saddo

A couple of points though... when you search for reward seats and it shows you red silver and purple available (i.e. all cabins) often when you click on that and go to next step, you will find that actually, some of those cabins aren't available after all.  And in some cases where there is only 1 seat (common in Upper) if you muff up your own booking, come out and back in, you'll find the seat has "gone" as it has been held for 10-15 minutes, but should be available again if you leave it 15mins+ and try again (or don't muff it in the first place.)

For most, if you want to fly premium, the best option,, in terms of getting messed around, let down at the airport, etc etc is to simply book a reward seat in premium.  Job done.

If you have the time and inclination, you can toy with buying a econ cash fare+use miles to upgrade, miles+cash fare for premium, and you might get better. Of all the times I have tinkered with it, the best deal has been to just use miles to book in the cabin you want to fly.  I still look though... worth 2 mins to save £100+

The biggest misuse is people paying £1200+ to walk on to economy.  even for those with no miles in their account, I have shown ^^^ how you can still do it for <£650 by using reward seat sales and buy miles sales.

[Machka]

....TR....

Where did you have dinner?

Tell me more about flowrider, not seen or tried it (altho not sure I want to now...)

I'm not fussy about eating so one evening we ate at Buffalo Wild Wings and the next night at Denny's as my son wanted to go to all the places he'd heard of but never visited.  Both were good enough for me but my opinion on food doesn't really count.

The flowrider is one of the surfing simulators you seem to see on cruise liners these days, it's on the 6th floor by the pools and cost $50 for 30 minutes.  30 minutes is plenty of time and you can expect to get battered when you fall.

How it looks when a pro does it.



How it looks when I do it.

[TightEnd]

 Inside Sheldon Adelson’s plan to build an NFL stadium in Las Vegas for the Raiders

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-inside-sheldon-adelsons-plan-to-build-an-nfl-stadium-in-las-vegas-151026939.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw

Click to see full-size image.

[Simon Galloway]

I still don't have a team to support.... this might seal it

[Graham C]

$1.9 billion

wow

[Marky147]

I still don't have a team to support.... this might seal it

Just need to get the NFL to put a few games on in June

[tikay]

Mention was made a while back that Norwegian Air were starting flights from Gatters to Las Vegas to utilise their nice new Dreamliner 787's. 

Gill was - as always - perusing travel deals yesterday, & spotted this one - Norwegian prices to Las Vegas starting from £239.

No such thing as a free dinner of course, & I expect there is a downside, maybe 2 passengers per seat or whatever, but it seems well cheap to me.


http://www.norwegian.com/uk/destinations/las-vegas/

[KarmaDope]

Mention was made a while back that Norwegian Air were starting flights from Gatters to Las Vegas to utilise their nice new Dreamliner 787's. 

Gill was - as always - perusing travel deals yesterday, & spotted this one - Norwegian prices to Las Vegas starting from £239.

No such thing as a free dinner of course, & I expect there is a downside, maybe 2 passengers per seat or whatever, but it seems well cheap to me.


http://www.norwegian.com/uk/destinations/las-vegas/

There is a downside.

That's the one way price

[tikay]

Mention was made a while back that Norwegian Air were starting flights from Gatters to Las Vegas to utilise their nice new Dreamliner 787's. 

Gill was - as always - perusing travel deals yesterday, & spotted this one - Norwegian prices to Las Vegas starting from £239.

No such thing as a free dinner of course, & I expect there is a downside, maybe 2 passengers per seat or whatever, but it seems well cheap to me.


http://www.norwegian.com/uk/destinations/las-vegas/

There is a downside.

That's the one way price

I had worked that out, yes......

[KarmaDope]

By the time you pay for a bag, and food, and a seat reservation, it works out at about £600 return. Nice, but not as nice as it looks.

[Doobs]

Went on norweigian to norway last year.  Was a nice plane and you got free wifi.  Long long way from ryanair as budget airlines go.

[tikay]

Went on norweigian to norway last year.  Was a nice plane and you got free wifi.  Long long way from ryanair as budget airlines go.

I remember those photos you posted from Norway.

Probably better to respond on my Diary rather than sidetrack this valuable thread, but be interested in feedback generally as it looks like we are going to Bergen soon on a sort of planes/trains & boats thing. Quite excited.