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You may have seen news articles or posts on social media about people moving or refusing to move seats on planes. Things like “Mother angry because person won't switch seat to let her sit with her son!”, stuff like that. Well, it’s my opinion that most of these are hyped up and sensationalised to get [...]

As I mentioned in part one, originally, I’d booked my return via Seattle as it was cheaper. At the time of booking there were no reward seats available for the return leg, either via Seattle or on the direct flights. Another reason I liked the Seattle routing was that I deemed it more likely to [...]

I’m lucky enough to fly Virgin Atlantic a lot. As the UK’s boutique airline, it’s supposed to be a cut above British Airways. So, I hold them to high standards. I generally fly on their 787, and even though it has an older seat to the new A350, I still hold it in high regard. [...]

My first work trip to Asia since Covid started with a flight on Cathay Pacific to Seoul, via Hong Kong. To learn why I booked the routes I did for this trip, read my earlier article here. Before I got to this flight, I was looking at ways to upgrade from Premium Economy to Business. [...]

If you’ve been reading my previous posts you’ll know I’ve been travelling a lot around Europe and the Middle East this year, but August was going to see my return to Asia and some of my favourite cities to visit in the world. I was, as usual, given the budget of a Premium Economy trip [...]

If you have not read my article about my outbound journey, read that here first as this will make a lot more sense. As you know, for this trip, I have booked outbound in Economy and return in Business Class from London to Dubai, via Doha. So now I was going to experience the full [...]

If you’re read some of my previous posts you’ll know I’ve returned to very regular flying in 2023. The trips are getting more frequent and now I’m being asked to go further afield. So naturally I have been looking for better, more interesting and fun ways to fly. Coming up between July and October this [...]

I had a job to do in Dubai for a client, so I booked a trip there in April 2023. My initial booking was with British Airways, direct from Heathrow to Dubai travelling out in Premium Economy and back in Business Class. The outbound flight was a daytime flight, but the Return was leaving at [...]

I had a request to go and do some work in Kuala Lumpur, and that meant for me it was a very easy opportunity to visit Singapore, one of my favourite cities and a place where I have a few friends that I'd love to catch up with. I started looking at flight options and [...]

For those of you who have read my previous articles you'll know that I'm a One World flyer, usually flying with British Airways where possible, however sometimes that isn't the best solution. I have been booking a number of long haul trips for later this year and most of those are now not with BA [...]

This trip report covers Orlando to Manchester on the Virgin Atlantic A350-1000 leisure configuration. You can read part one here. I was due to fly back to Manchester on the Sunday but decided to move this to a day earlier after a busy week. This flight was slightly different to the outbound flight courtesy of [...]

Earlier this year, I needed to fly to Orlando for a work event. Normally I fly from Virgin Atlantic’s home base – London Heathrow. But that didn’t make much sense for this trip given there is a flight to Orlando from Manchester, which is more convenient for me. I knew that Manchester had nothing on [...]

Missing a flight can be bad and there are various outcomes depending on the situation you are in and most importantly on whose fault it was. I have missed a flight on 3 occasions, given the amount of flying I've done over the years this is hardly surprising. In fact, I think I'm lucky I [...]

Virgin Atlantic has a number of vouchers frequent flyers and credit card owners can earn. I’ve taken advantage of these vouchers and wanted to write a mini guide on how to earn and burn these vouchers. If you have the Reward+ credit card, with the annual fee, you can earn a voucher when you hit [...]

Britain's two long-haul, full-service airlines - Virgin Atlantic and British Airways - have had many product innovations in the last few years. Both companies are updating their fleet with new aircraft and with those new aircraft come new Business Class cabins. BA has its Club Suite and Virgin has its Upper Class Suite. Incidentally, both [...]

This is the final part of my trip report to Riyadh. You can read part 2 here. Upon arrival back in London Heathrow I headed straight through passport control to baggage reclaim. Heathrow was not working well that morning and it was over an hour's wait for my bag. When it did finally arrive, I [...]

This article is part two of my return trip to Riyadh. I flew out in Premium Economy and you can read about that here. This leg of the journey will be in British Airways new Business Class Club Suite. I arrived at Riyadh airport at around 9:30 pm to check in for my 1 am [...]

Recently a client asked me to travel to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia for them, so I started looking at the requirements. First of all, I needed a visa, which was sorted for me by the client. Then I looked at booking options. There are quite a few routes to Riyadh, even a number of options [...]

Earlier this month my tier points had their annual reset to zero. This is always a slightly depressing moment, when all my hard-earned tier points all vanish! But what happens if you have a trip that straddles your reset date and you're just missing out on a status upgrade because you were short of a [...]

I usually cover the Clubhouse as part of my many trip reports. But I wanted to give it some of its own limelight because I think the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse is the best departure lounge in the UK. This article details why. Upper Class Wing Before we talk about the Clubhouse, we have to talk [...]

This trip is a brilliant example of the strategy I like to use when buying airline tickets. At the time of purchase, there were no Upper Class reward seats available. So, I bought a Premium Economy ticket with the view of snagging an upgrade if reward seats became available. I wasn’t too hopeful because LAX [...]

This is part two of my return trip to LAX on the Virgin Atlantic A350. As I mentioned in part one, this trip was originally a Premium Economy trip. But I upgraded the outbound flight in the days before travel as a reward seat opened up. I was hopeful the same would happen for this [...]

Contributed by Laurence Dalby, a Buymyupgrade.com community member. Recently I had to travel to Madrid for work and I immediately knew how I wanted to get there. The vast majority of short haul flights within Europe are on narrowbody aircraft like the Airbus A320 or Boeing 737. These are fine but there are a select [...]

As well as being a fan of all things that fly, I am a theme park nut, and I’m particularly fond of Disney. When I was travelling the most for work, I decided to make it my mission to visit all 11 Disney theme parks in the world. This meant trips to L.A., Orlando, Paris, [...]

Depending on your ticket type, you might be able to upgrade to a nicer cabin by calling up British Airways and asking. They will give you an option of upgrading for cash or with Avios. This will usually be quite expensive, but occasionally there’s a deal to be had. However, when the flight starts filling [...]

This article is for you if you want an affordable way to try the British Airways Club Suite. For those unfamiliar with the Club Suite, this is the new Business Class seat that BA has been rolling out across most of its long haul. I was lucky enough to try this seat on a trip [...]

I had to go to Barcelona for a tradeshow last week. Most of the people reading this will likely have been there too. I hadn't planned to go to this event until quite last minute. This was a prime opportunity to look at what points options were available as the cash tickets were getting expensive. [...]

This is my first trip of the year and I've done a few things a little differently to my previous trips to share in this report. First of all, this was my first use of an Amex companion voucher, the second I used the underground tunnels to get to B gates Terminal 5 and lastly [...]

One of the biggest challenges I hear when talking to people about their travel options is finding reward availability. In this article, we'll look at British Airways Avios availability for the coming year This report covers Long Haul flights from both London Heathrow and London Gatwick. It also includes the BA City Flyer routes from [...]

We talk about upgrades a lot, and one of the things people don't realise is that there are multiple types of flight upgrades. In this article, we're going to break upgrades up into three types and explain how they work. Cash upgrades Cash upgrades are quite simple. You buy a ticket from an airline and [...]

This week, we've launched the Buymyupgrade app. We created this tool to make it easier than ever to find British Airways Reward Flights. Destinations like the Caribbean, Far East, Australia and US West Coast can be notoriously hard to find availability for. But in my experience, reward seats are always floating around, it's just a [...]

We often talk about flight upgrades on this blog. But what do we mean by that? In summary, there are three types of upgrades: Cash upgrades (either at the airport or in advance of travel) Points upgrades (either at the airport or in advance of travel) Operational upgrades (the airline bumps you up because they [...]

I have often needed to travel from London to LA or Las Vegas for work purposes over the years. Since these were work trips, paid for by my employer, I’ve often used them as a method of points building. This worked nicely as long as it was within the limits of the company travel policy. [...]

I have a British Airways American Express credit card. For many years I've had the basic Blue card. This card has no fees but does have a number of benefits. I gain Avios points for all spending on the card and as long as I pay off my full bill every month I didn’t pay [...]

So you've got loads of British Airways Avios to use up and want to book a reward flight. You know we're all about getting a good deal here at Buymyupgrade, so this is how to do it. As with any booking using Avios, including upgrades, you should always check what the booking would cost using [...]

Contributed by Laurence Dalby, a Buymyupgrade.com community member. This trip report is part two of my trip to Bangkok on Qatar Airways via Doha. You can find part one here. Our return trip was a similar affair, although this time without Q Suites. Instead, we were on Qatar’s older hard product. Our first flight was [...]

Contributed by Laurence Dalby, a Buymyupgrade.com community member. Back in 2019 my wife and I planned a trip to Asia and then Covid-19 happened. Fast forward to November 2022 and we were on our way to Bangkok, three years in the making. We’d originally used a British Airways Companion Voucher to book direct with BA [...]

This is part two of my British Airways Club Europe Trip Report to Munich. You can check out part one here. Check in at Munich I arrived at Munich airport with plenty of time before my flight. Rather unusually check-in was completely empty. There was not a single person there, so I checked in very [...]

I had a business trip to Munich in November, so I decided to fly in Club Europe. That's the British Airways short haul business class product. I wanted to see what the experience was like now they had had some time to recover from the pandemic. Booking I booked this trip utilising the upgrade with [...]

One of the biggest challenges I hear when talking to people about their travel options is finding reward availability. In this article, we'll look at British Airways Avios availability for the coming year This report covers Long Haul flights from both London Heathrow and London Gatwick. It also includes the BA City Flyer routes from [...]

Yesterday, Virgin Atlantic announced two new routes. The Maldives and Turks & Caicos will be two additional destinations served from their London Heathrow base. The Maldives I have been itching for Virgin to launch this route for years. It makes a lot of sense as the only way to get to the Maldives directly is [...]

Today's article is specifically for people in the media & entertainment industry, heading to LDI in Las Vegas this week. If that isn't you, some of this information will likely be useful anyway but it's been written with LDI in mind. This year is the first year in a while that I haven't headed to [...]

First Class travel is dying. There is no doubt about it. If you dream of flying First Class on a once-in-a-lifetime trip using points, you should act quickly. Because it's probably not long before First Class is gone entirely. Fleet changes Some airlines do not have First Class at all and instead prefer to just [...]

In this article, we're going to show you the reason why using points to discount cash flights is a bad idea. Spoiler alert - it's a con! Save with Avios Ever seen this offer at the bottom of a British Airways booking? Let’s look at what this means. Remember Avios do have value. Avios are [...]

One of the biggest challenges I hear when talking to people about their travel options is finding reward availability. In this article, we'll look at British Airways Avios availability for the coming year This report covers Long Haul flights from both London Heathrow and London Gatwick. New for this month, we have also added most [...]

In this post, I'm covering part two of my recent US trip to Chicago (part one) and San Diego. We flew British Airways Premium Economy from London Heathrow on an open jaw ticket. After an amazing honeymoon, which included a beautiful 55-hour train ride through the Rockies, a stunning 2-day drive down the pacific coast [...]

When flying all over the world for work I usually found myself in the Premium Economy cabin on a British Airways plane. In this article, I am going to talk about why I like Premium Economy as a cabin. I will also talk about my recent experience flying from London to Chicago in Premium Economy [...]

The ITA matrix is a magical piece of software for any airline ticket connoisseur. Google acquired ITA back in 2010 and used its technology to upgrade it's google flights product. Officially, the matrix has been discontinued but it is still available to use (for now). It has some very powerful functionality that isn't available on [...]

One of the biggest challenges I hear when talking to people about their travel options is finding reward availability. So this week, we're beginning a new tradition at Buymyupgrade, we're going to start publishing reward flight statistics. In this article, we'll look at British Airways Avios availability. This report is specifically long haul flights from [...]

This morning, Virgin Atlantic announced they will join the SkyTeam alliance. Virgin Atlantic is to become the newest member of the global airline alliance SkyTeam in early 2023. Virgin Atlantic will be SkyTeam’s first and only UK member airline, enhancing the alliance’s transatlantic network and services to and from London Heathrow and Manchester Airport. About [...]

One of the reasons I started this blog, was because I wanted to try and "productise" how I think about flights. So this week, I am going to share my travel process, and that starts with picking flights. Airport choice This is largely defined by your carrier choice, but some airlines do operate from multiple [...]

Once you've picked a flight, choosing your cabin is the next important choice. In this article, I talk about my process for picking a cabin. Cabin choice One of the biggest issues carriers have is the diversity of their fleet. BA, for example, operate Boeing 777 in multiple variants, Boeing 787 in multiple variants, Airbus [...]

This is the story of my first ever Business Class flight. I bet you think you know which carrier it was on too, but you'd be wrong. My first ever experience in Business was on Air France. It was a flight from Manchester to Beirut via Paris CDG. I was travelling to the Middle East [...]

Virgin Atlantic & IndiGo are today announcing a new codeshare agreement. This agreement will enhance connections between the UK and India. Press release Virgin Atlantic and IndiGo are delighted to announce a new codeshare between the UK and India, offering seamless connections and increased opportunities for frequent flyers to earn more points than ever before. [...]

So you're on the hunt for reward seats but can't find them... Here are 3 things you can do if you can't find your ideal reward seats. Consider booking a lower cabin If you're looking for seats in Business Class, but cannot find availability then consider booking Premium Economy instead. Sure, it's not what you [...]

I often talk about upgrades on this blog. One key thing that enables me to find upgrades, is a deep understanding of airline ticketing systems. Did you know that the random lettering on boarding passes actually means something? In this article, I'll explain what those seemingly random letters and numbers on your boarding pass mean. [...]

In an earlier article, I talked about how to calculate the intrinsic value of your points. One of the questions I often get is - are all points equal? The simple answer is - no. Explanation Each individual points program has a slightly different base value for a point. This value is usually based on [...]

In my previous article, I covered round-the-world tickets. And in my case, they were too expensive for the travel plans I've talked about in this run of articles. The way I booked my tickets eventually ended up causing me issues with my luggage too... I booked my trip to South America and my trip to [...]

In my last article, I mentioned that I had a really good reason for wanting to be in business class for my trip to Bogota. Well, the reason was I had to be in Singapore immediately after this trip and I was going to fly the long way around! In the space of 4 weeks, [...]

Earlier this week, I talked about Open Jaw tickets. They're a great way of finding a deal when you want to hit multiple destinations on the same trip. In today's article, I am going to cover some more tips for the next time you're deal hunting. As my work continued and I flew more regularly, [...]

In my first post this week explaining how I became a frequent flyer, I mentioned a trip to South Africa. This trip was a great example of what happens when you start building your airline status. I’d booked London to Johannesburg and Cape Town to London. Next, I needed to sort the internal flights. At [...]

An open jaw is a return ticket where you book from one starting point out to a destination and fly home a different location to the same starting point. You will have noticed that return flights are always cheaper than buying singles. Well, open jaw tickets allow you to buy single tickets, but at return [...]

In today's article, I discuss how I became a really frequent flyer. Through this journey is how I've picked up dozens of tips & tricks for travel. Many of which I intend to share with you. I used to work as the Global Training Manager for a company that whilst relatively small, was at the [...]

Yesterday I talked about how to calculate the intrinsic value of your points. One of the mistakes I often see is that people use points to discount the cost of a cash ticket. This is usually a fatal mistake. Exchange rate The problem with using points to reduce the price of a cash ticket is [...]

One of the reasons people struggle with spending their points is because they do not understand their actual value. So in this article, I'll talk about calculating the value of your points and how this can help you in choosing the best travel options. Baseline value  Every loyalty scheme works differently. So I will focus [...]

After my trip to Austin, I outlined why you should always check that your points have been credited after a flight. It's quite common to take flights and for some reason, the airline's systems do not credit your points. So, can you retroactively claim points? Yes, you can. For Virgin Atlantic, you will need your [...]

Up until recently, Virgin Atlantic didn't have a guarantee of reward seats like British Airways does. But they did announce a new feature for Gold members recently which essentially guarantees reward availability in a similar fashion to BA. We covered it in more detail here. Virgin reward seats can appear at any time from when [...]

I often speak to people who collect Avios and their biggest issue is finding availability. Usually, they leave things too late and by the time they realise they want to do a trip, the availability is slim. But, British Airways are pretty consistent with releasing reward seats. So there isn't much reason to get caught [...]

I've met quite a few people who've had in excess of 1 million points at their disposal. Sometimes it's multiple millions. But how do they do it? A lot of flying!? To have a balance in excess of 1 million points, you'd have to do a lot of flying. Realistically, you'd probably be doing it [...]

Ever wondered how points hackers gain Gold status on multiple airlines in a year? Sometimes they legitimately get it by flying, but getting top-tier status on one airline is hard, multiple means A LOT of travel. What most people do is status match. This is the process of going to an airline that you don't [...]

Last night I was thinking to myself, what are the top tips I can share for booking reward flights. I often talk about all the other elements around this, but truth be told, the real know-how that most point hackers have are the rules around the booking process. So here are my top tips for [...]

Yesterday I shared my favourite seats in Premium across each aircraft in Virgin Atlantic's fleet. I'm lucky enough to have spent a fair chunk of time in their Upper Class cabin too. My most recent experience was my trip to Austin. So, today I'll share my seat picks for Upper Class. There are two vastly [...]

Yesterday I shared my favourite seats in Economy across each aircraft in Virgin Atlantic's fleet. I've spent a great deal of time in their Premium cabin (my favourite Premium Economy product on the market). So, today I'll share my seat picks for that cabin. One of the reason's it's my favourite Premium product is because [...]

In today's article, I'm going to discuss the best seats in the Economy cabin for each Virgin Atlantic aircraft. I'm sure you find it shocking that i've flown Economy, but it is true. In this article, I will be covering the Virgin Atlantic Economy cabin, specifically the Economy Delight ticket type. Let me start by [...]

After a fantastic conference event and a brilliant stay at the Fairmont Austin, it was time to head home. If you haven't read part one of this trip report, you can find it here. The return flight from Austin was scheduled to leave at 18.20 so I headed over to the airport mid-afternoon with plenty [...]

This week I'm writing all about seats. To start with, I thought I'd talk about one thing I do on every long-haul flight. If I am on a widebody aircraft, I always sit on the left-hand side. Boarding Whenever you board an aircraft, have you ever noticed the jet bridges are always on the left? [...]

London Gatwick to Florence, on Vueling. The tale of a short runway. The trip I was sent to attend a conference in Florence by my company, and since I knew plenty of other people that we're going to the same conference we all agreed to get the same flight. The flight we chose was from [...]

I was lucky enough to fly out to Austin Texas on only the second flight Virgin Atlantic to the state. I was attending a conference in town and that was as good an excuse as any to visit such a cool city. The whole trip was a bit of a masterclass in not only upgrades [...]

This evening Virgin Atlantic launched their new A330-900neo aircraft replacing the A330-300 aircraft currently in the fleet. The new aircraft feature brand-new interiors, extended connectivity and increased fuel & noise efficiency. The Airbus A330-900neo will feature the latest generation Upper Class cabin, including its iconic social space and new innovation, The Retreat Suite Increased connectivity [...]

Let's talk about lounge hopping, so what is lounge hopping? When you get to a large airport that has multiple airline lounges, if your ticket or status allows, you can hop between them. This neat trick allows you to sample multiple lounges on a single trip. Where can I do this? It tends to be [...]

It's safe to say, I'm one of the crazy people in the world that enjoys long flights as long as I am at the front of the plane. In today's article, we talk about three of the longest domestic flights in the world. #1 Paris to Reunion & Paris to Tahiti - France The world's [...]

Fuel is one of the largest variable costs that face an airline, closely followed by staff. So with all the talk in the news about inflation and rising fuel prices, what does that mean for flights? Well, airlines saw this coming months ago and the changes have been underway for some time. Airlines operate more [...]

So you've got a nice points balance, what are you going to do? This post will give you three simple tips you should consider when spending your hard-earned points. Maximise their value You can do some things with points that rarely result in good value. Here are some examples: Trading the points for vouchers. Buying [...]

Guest article by Chris West, One World frequent flyer.  London to Singapore, via Helsinki on Finnair, a One World member airline, in Business Class, June 2022. The route Before I tell you about the trip, I need to tell you about the route. Why did I choose this route? It simply came down to cost. [...]

Anyone who reads these posts will know I am a points geek. So if there's one thing that annoys me, it's not having the points I earned credit automatically after a trip. Today's article is about why you should always check your points balance after a flight. Things always go wrong Given how long points [...]

British Airways has made changes to the rules around the American Express companion voucher. The voucher is earned with qualifying spending on the British Airways branded American Express cards. Previously, the 2-4-1 voucher you received upon meeting the earnings threshold of the cards required two passengers to travel. The voucher enabled you to book two [...]

Yesterday, Virgin Atlantic announced the Gold reward feature for Flying Club Gold members. This represents a big change to how reward flight availability will work going forward. There will now be at least 12 guaranteed reward seats on all Virgin Atlantic flights in the following format: Two seats in Upper Class Two seats in Premium [...]

I took my first flight since 2020 two weeks ago. I got to fly to Austin, TX on Virgin Atlantic. To say I was excited about this trip would be an understatement given how long it had been since I'd been on a plane. I thought i'd document some of the experience here. Departure experience [...]

Australian carrier Qantas has taken another significant step in Project Sunrise. The goal of the project was to allow for direct flights from Sydney to London. When originally announced, there was no commercial aircraft in the world capable of this route. Achieving this goal was a mammoth undertaking given the first-ever commercial London to Sydney [...]

If you've read any of my posts, or know me personally, you will know that I am a huge fan of airline upgrades. I mean, who isn't though!? There's a very good reason for my fanboy behaviour though - and it's not just that I like seat 1A (although that is a thing). Upgrades present [...]

In some of my posts, I've talked about making sure your points don't expire worthlessly or get devalued. But what is a points devaluation? Points have value In one of my earliest posts, I wrote about how points actually operate as a virtual currency. So the first step to understanding a devaluation is first acknowledging [...]

Today's post will explore the four key tips to help you find reward flight availability. I am constantly looking out for these things. They apply to full reward flights and upgrades on existing flights. New routes New routes can often throw up opportunities for reward tickets or just nicely priced cash tickets. Airlines have to [...]

Time is your enemy when booking flights. In this post, we’ll talk about why you shouldn’t wait when booking a flight. This is true whether it’s a cash or points ticket. Cash tickets If you’ve read posts of mine before, you may have heard me use the term 'fare bucket'. That’s the technical term for [...]

In my recent three things to consider post, I discussed keeping a small slush fund of points to use when an attractive situation presents itself. Today I'll talk about how to maintain a points balance and give you some tips on how to go about it yourself. Make sure your points credit This may seem [...]

When you come to spending points, there are a few things to consider. Having a plan before you begin the transaction is an advantage for you. Spending points blindly without considering the consequences usually results in a bad value trade unless you're a pro. Make sure you ask yourself these three questions before trying to [...]

One of the benefits I get from having this site is that I get to talk to a lot of my friends & colleagues about their travel plans. One of my friends recently asked me whether it made sense to purchase some points to help him achieve the trip he was planning. It's been a [...]

Before we get into this... What's YQ I hear you ask!? It is airline ticketing slang for "carrier-imposed surcharge". This surcharge is a tax that the airline adds to boost its bottom line. It's particularly evident on points tickets. As I discussed in my post about the secret benefits of points tickets, airline ticketing is [...]

Stopping your points from expiring is a related topic that came up in yesterday's post about transferring points to somebody else. Most points programs have a time period whereby if there is no activity on your account, you will lose your points balance or a portion of it based on a rolling period. This is [...]

I had an interesting question from a reader last week. Can you transfer points to somebody else? As with most things points related, the answer is something like this - "Um, not really.. it's complicated". The terms of each loyalty program are different. But generally, points are non-transferable. However, there are some things to know [...]

We all want an upgrade, right? The process for getting an upgrade begins at the moment you are looking to purchase a ticket. If you buy the wrong type of ticket when you book your trip, you could end up in a position where getting an upgrade is completely impossible. As I've mentioned in other [...]

I was born too late to really experience the Concorde era. But Concorde, along with the Space Shuttle, have always fascinated me as examples of remarkable machines the human race has been able to engineer. Concorde had many issues that led to its retirement, not least the horrific crash resulting in the loss of 109 [...]

Each ticket an airline issue is governed by two key things. Fare conditions and the airline's standard conditions of carriage. Remember an airline ticket is like a contract between the airline and yourself. I discussed why this concept is important in my previous article - why you can't book more than a year in advance. [...]

Ever wondered why you can't buy a flight more than a year in advance? There are a couple of reasons for this. Risk management Airlines are constantly managing their risk. When you buy a ticket, it's a contract between you and the airline. You agree to pay X and they agree to take you from [...]

After the overwhelming success of last week's blog post covering four things you shouldn't spend your points on. I decided to write a post covering the other side - things that are great value! Long haul premium cabin bookings It's no secret in the frequent flier community that one of the best ways to get epic [...]

Sometimes spending your Avios or Virgin Points seems downright difficult. In fact, I know a lot of people who simply don't bother because they anticipate it's going to be hard and therefore don't begin. It's true, there can be an element of difficulty, but thousands of people use points for travel every day. Probably the [...]

I know so many people who go to the trouble of collecting points, being loyal to a certain carrier or alliance and then waste the points they earned on un-efficient purchases. The source of the problem is that most people think of points as throwaway when in fact, they are just another form of virtual [...]

The single biggest trick to finding cheaper flights is called the Saturday Night Rule. It's very easy to understand, simply have a Saturday night stay as part of your trip and you stand a much better chance of getting a low fare. What is it? The Saturday Night Rule is how Airlines determine whether you [...]

Frequent flier miles, one of the greatest loyalty myths of all time. Everybody thinks miles and points are about loyalty and there's an element of loyalty, but there is more to it. The marketing strategy cannot be called anything but successful. Fly x times and earn a "free" flight. Seems like a good deal given [...]

Well, the point is simple really... do you want the hassle of doing all the research every time you take a flight, wondering how to spend the points properly? Are points even the best option for this trip? Most people don't have the time, nor knowledge to do this effectively. In fact, that's one of [...]

One of the thing's i've been doing during my flying career is trying to work out the on the fly value of my points. It's not the simplest thing to do given the value of them changes almost month to month. But understanding a rough value goes a long way to helping you earn and [...]

First post ever on buymyupgrade's blog. I suppose it should explain why this site exists in the first place. Over the year's, i've spent many hundreds of hours on planes travelling for business & pleasure. During this time, much like other serious points geeks, I got to learn a lot about how these programs work. [...]