July 2009: The Upgrade Advisor

Question & Answer

In February 2010 my family and I will be on a cruise from LA to Sydney. We need a one-way ticket in a premium cabin from Sydney to LA, to Pittsburgh, to JFK and to Atlanta. Is there any way to obtain a ticket without suffering the dreadedone-way penalty? What’s the preferred upgrade strategy? Thanks for your help.

Chuck Conine, Palm Springs, CA

The first few thing that come to mind is a UA mileage upgrade, even if it means buying a round-trip coach ticket (just checked Sydney-LA fares and one-way fares are almost half of roundtrip fares, in which case just buy a one-way and upgrade using 30,000 UA miles). Or try upgrading on Qantas with Cathay miles, although that’s not easy. American now also offers oneway awards (see FCF June 09 for more airlines offering one-way awards); Starpoints can be transferred from Starwood to AA and/or Cathay Pacific. This one isn’t the easiest to pull off, but check a variety of dates and routings and you could do well. –mb

Success Stories

On the promo fare FCF mailed out on May 25: One reader beat the system even more so…

I didn’t have to get on the phone as the fare showed up on Continental website this morning: $997 pre-tax, $1208.90 all-in ($100 cheaper than BA). I got three at that price. Just for fun I checked and buying one ticket would have cost $1,620 pre-tax. 

It looks like the Continental offer applied to bookings of two or more tickets. Another scoop for FCF, thanks very much. I would not have learned of this sale by myself, and they are selling out fast. According to the Continental booking page, I got the last three seats for our outbound on July 20.

Angus McCallum, NewYork, NY