Upgrading Flight Seats at the Airport

Bogalot

Covering all that distance in three weeks would be a pretty miserable trip. You're not taking into account traffic, detours, and giving yourself time to see and enjoy things! For that time I would pick four or five places and find the most efficient way between them, which may be driving but for the larger distances will be flying.

srisport

Bogalot wrote: »

Covering all that distance in three weeks would be a pretty miserable trip. You're not taking into account traffic, detours, and giving yourself time to see and enjoy things! For that time I would pick four or five places and find the most efficient way between them, which may be driving but for the larger distances will be flying.

I couldn't agree more, even though i quite enjoy driving i can imagine travelling this kind of distance would become boring eventually which is why I'm keen to break up the distance as much as possible. We have many places which we both would like to visit but have agreed that if we stick to 5 or 6 places then it will allow us a few days to enjoy and explore them. We are still deciding on our 5/6 destinations but once we have then i will update accordingly

This is still early days in the planning which is why we have allowed a year to plan. I do however appreciate everyones contributions and suggestions, we have never planned anything like this before so I'm expecting to learn a lot about stuff i would have otherwise not of thought about.

So thank you for your help so far.

Regards.

EssexExile

I could take 3 weeks to get from Vancouver to San Francisco, there's lots to see & there's no point in going if you don't see it.

I went on the "holiday of a lifetime" the first time I went to the States. I've been back loads of times since!

Edit: Come to think of it if I flew into Vancouver I probably wouldn't leave Canada in 3 weeks.

jpsartre

srisport wrote: »

I have now looked further in to this and have a basic understanding on the Avios points scheme. and looking at a random BA flight in October 2017 i would need 75,000 points to get a business seat (I'm guessing this is paying for the seat with points only??) I'm not too sure how i would find out how many points i would need if i was to buy an economy seat and upgrade to business???

You can only upgrade one cabin class so if you want to upgrade to Club World (i.e. business class) you need to purchase a premium economy ticket. The Avios cost to upgrade is the difference between buying a seat with Avios. E.g. LHR-JFK on an off-peak day is 26k Avios in PE and 50k Avios in CW so the cost to upgrade would be 24k Avios.

Shimrod

srisport wrote: »

Using google maps and plotting a journey consisting of Vancouver-Los Angeles-New York. It is estimated to take 55hours/6000KM or 2.2Days

Now obviously I'm not planning on doing that in one leg and depending on cost then it might have to be a combination of car and plane journeys, But as a starting point then i don't consider that impossible to achieve in 21 days......

As others have said that's a lot of driving! For comparison, I've had a look at the last three 'large' driving holidays we've done, and over three weeks we covered roughly a third of the distance you're proposing. That still gave us a couple of long driving days (by which I mean time spent in the car).

Your 55 hours (google says 60 without traffic...) probably represents a good week of spending 7 hours a day driving from a to b. I'd aim to do Vancouver to LA in three weeks, and come back on another occasion for the drive across the US.

srisport

jpsartre wrote: »

You can only upgrade one cabin class so if you want to upgrade to Club World (i.e. business class) you need to purchase a premium economy ticket. The Avios cost to upgrade is the difference between buying a seat with Avios. E.g. LHR-JFK on an off-peak day is 26k Avios in PE and 50k Avios in CW so the cost to upgrade would be 24k Avios.

Is that if i was to use Avios points to upgrade? what if i payed to upgrade at the airport, could i go from economy to business class?

EssexExile wrote: »

I could take 3 weeks to get from Vancouver to San Francisco, there's lots to see & there's no point in going if you don't see it.

I went on the "holiday of a lifetime" the first time I went to the States. I've been back loads of times since!

Edit: Come to think of it if I flew into Vancouver I probably wouldn't leave Canada in 3 weeks.

This is one of my worries, what I would like to do and what is feasible is slowing proving to be difficult in a 3 week trip.

Thank you for your advise, much appreciated

Shimrod wrote: »

As others have said that's a lot of driving! For comparison, I've had a look at the last three 'large' driving holidays we've done, and over three weeks we covered roughly a third of the distance you're proposing. That still gave us a couple of long driving days (by which I mean time spent in the car).

Your 55 hours (google says 60 without traffic...) probably represents a good week of spending 7 hours a day driving from a to b. I'd aim to do Vancouver to LA in three weeks, and come back on another occasion for the drive across the US.

You may be onto to something there, thank you for your suggestions


Lots more input has helped today, thank you to all those who have left suggestions

Regards.

PeacefulWaters

srisport wrote: »

Is that if i was to use Avios points to upgrade? what if i payed to upgrade at the airport, could i go from economy to business class?

It depends on the airline. But to assume there are dozens of empty business class seats waiting to be flogged cheaply at the airport is a massively optimistic approach,

It might happen. It probably won't.

This is one of my worries, what I would like to do and what is feasible is slowing proving to be difficult in a 3 week trip.

I love an American driving holiday more than life itself. Wide highways, national parks, the works. My next plan is a three week drive from Denver to Las Vegas. I strongly suggest limiting A to B drive to 3-4 hours a day. I also strongly recommend the occasional 2-3 night stop in the same place to explore from a central base. There's a joy to leaving your luggage in a room all day.

Denver
Thermopolis
Red Lodge
Yellowstone
Grand Teton
Salt Lake City
Moab for Canyonlands and Arches national parks
Mesa Verde
Four Corners
Monument Valley
Grand Canyon (north rim)
Zion NP
Las Vegas
Death Valley

Some would say that's pushing it for three weeks. I'd love to add Sedona and Yosemite, but that would be pushing it.

No way would I do the whole damn country in three weeks.

jpsartre

srisport wrote: »

Is that if i was to use Avios points to upgrade? what if i payed to upgrade at the airport, could i go from economy to business class?

Yes, that's with Avios. If you upgrade with cash you can effectively upgrade as many cabins as you like subject to availability. It probably won't be cheap though.

blindman

srisport wrote: »

Using google maps and plotting a journey consisting of Vancouver-Los Angeles-New York. It is estimated to take 55hours/6000KM or 2.2Days

I was being a bit fllippant-but you get my drift
My last trip was 19 days and 5000Km

Ive always wanted to drive across America and its on my bucket list.

If you rent a car then the one way drop off fee will be quite large :eek:

I have now looked further in to this and have a basic understanding on the Avios points scheme. and looking at a random BA flight in October 2017 i would need 75,000 points to get a business seat (I'm guessing this is paying for the seat with points only??)

Unfortunately you will also have to pay £££'s for "Fees" asa well as the AVIOS

I'm not too sure how i would find out how many points i would need if i was to buy an economy seat and upgrade to business???

To avoid one way hire car drop off fees you could look at Driveaway

However this IMHO is difficult to fit into a 3 week trip unless you are really lucky.

Flights
TBHO as you have no FF miles I would be looking at EX EU (AMS\DUB) for a decent business class fare.
Saving the avios even with CC churn will take a while and then you're not guaranteed seats when you want them + there's the extra Fees to pay.

Caz3121

srisport wrote: »

Is that if i was to use Avios points to upgrade? what if i payed to upgrade at the airport, could i go from economy to business class?

it will depend on the airline but I expect most would happily let you upgrade your ticket for the applicable change fee and fare difference (probably making it more expensive than if you bought business in the first instance)
Some airlines will offer promotional upgrades at the airport. These are never guaranteed and for BA London-West Coast USA I have seen reports of £800-£1,000 for one way economy to business upgrade (per person)
I would definitely look for the Premium Fare deals and also consider ex-EU (I have done LAX from Dublin in business cheaper than doing the exact same flights on the same date from London in economy )