Using UR or MR Points for Airline Upgrade

[Cred4All]

Pretty general question...  Anyone who's a frequent flier and has gone from the Northeast to Saudi, which airline combination did you use?  Also, When booking (Work will book Premium Economy) which airline is the best option and most likely available to be able to upgrade to Business Class with either UR or MR points, and of course the flight is 1 week away.  Any tips, suggestions, 1st hand experience appreciated!

[iced]

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@Cred4All wrote:

Pretty general question...  Anyone who's a frequent flier and has gone from the Northeast to Saudi, which airline combination did you use?  Also, When booking (Work will book Premium Economy) which airline is the best option and most likely available to be able to upgrade to Business Class with either UR or MR points, and of course the flight is 1 week away.  Any tips, suggestions, 1st hand experience appreciated!

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You have a few things working against you, and one or two possibly working in your favor.

First, the northeast (and in particular, BOS/EWR/JFK) are elite-heavy and wealthy airports. To key destinations internationally, this means that the airline has 0 problems selling out business to people waving cash in their face instead of miles. For the middle east, TLV will be the hardest to score an upgrade on, followed by DXB. I can't speak for Riyadh, but I imagine it's a fair bit easier to land an upgrade on as it's not a major international and expat business city. That's one thing working for you.

Miles-based upgrades in general are poor redemptions of miles. As an example, I can fly BOS-TLV in Business for 75,000 miles each way, or pay $800 for a economy ticket, plus 35,000 miles, plus a $500ish upgrade copay for Business. I'll just pay the 75,000 miles. This is working against you.

Since you're redeeming out of UR/MR programs, you do have multi-airline flexibility. That's working for you. I'd suggest avoiding the super-premium business/first airlines (Emirates for the middle-east) as those tend to be where all the TPG wannabe dreamers save up their SUB miles to book their 'look at me, i'm trying to be a baller' inspirational flights where the destination matters less than how they got there. They can be tough upgrades for that reason.

Now, you *are* starting in premium economy, and if it were me, I'd make sure I picked an airline with a solid premium economy offering in case my upgrade falls through. For EU/ME, I have found Lufthansa, Emirates, and Delta (must be Premium Select, NOT Comfort+) to have good premium economy offerings since each of these offer upgraded seats and not just more legroom. These carriers have wider seats, deeper reclines, footrests, wider armrests, etc for premium economy. They're actually quite similar to First on domestic flights.

If you want nonstop to Riyadh, your options are pretty limited. I think Saudia flies out of JFK, but that's about it. If you are flying out of BOS, EWR, or PHL (or any regional airport in the Northeast) you're getting a connecting flight. Connecting in Europe (MUC, FRA, ZRH are my recommendations) will break up the flight if you can't handle 10+ hour flights well, though sleep gets a bit tougher since they fall into that 7-9 hour range where you might get 4 good hours of sleep even in Business. Coming back to the States the flights will be about an hour shorter and during the "day" (afternoon/evening departure and arrival) and you may find premium serves you about as well as Business here.

IST might not be a bad connection if you want a longer TATL segment to sleep on. Make sure you have at least a 2 hour layover in IST, though.

FRA/MUC/ZRH are efficient airports and you can handle a transfer in an hour or so at any of them. Even clearing customs tends to go  leaps and bounds faster in those three than in other major EU airports. Avoid CDG or LHR if you can help it.

[Cred4All]

Couldn't have asked for better info, thanks @iced . 

The odds are already not in my favor which I realize, and of which you pointed out as well, especially on short notice.  Reviewing everything you provided now verses what's actually available for booking so, it's not looking pretty.  Will follow-up if I have any luck here.   Even finding options that have Premium Economy available at this point are looking p*ss poor.

[iced]

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@Cred4All wrote:

Couldn't have asked for better info, thanks @iced . 

The odds are already not in my favor which I realize, and of which you pointed out as well, especially on short notice.  Reviewing everything you provided now verses what's actually available for booking so, it's not looking pretty.  Will follow-up if I have any luck here.   Even finding options that have Premium Economy available at this point are looking p*ss poor.

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Yes. The good Premium Economy cabins tend to sell out before Business just because it's a decent product for $2500ish instead of $4500ish. It's also a smaller cabin - your typical 777/A330 will have 40-50 business seats and 20-30 premium economy. That and more businesses are telling their employees to fly Premium instead of Business for long-haul.

[Cred4All]

So far, having to add on a day just to find Premium Economy ($5,600), and the layover is a brutal 12+hr on British Airways.  Aint life grand!

• 1st Layover: Philadelphia, PA (PHL) 2h 11m | Plane Changes
• 2nd Layover: London, GB (LHR) 12h 55m | Plane Changes

[Anonymous]

The long layovers are what deters me some, what do you do with a 12 hour layover? And I thought 6 hours were bad! lol

That said, I wouldn't mind a 1-2 day stop over if it was in a place I wanted to sightsee. 

[K-in-Boston]

Yes, Saudia (SkyTeam member) flies direct from JFK to Riyadh.  You can book through Air France with Flying Blue (transfer from every major points program) for around 200k round-trip plus 37 Euro in taxes.  I know you can upgrade using points, but not sure what the per-class upgrade would be if you needed to buy a PE ticket and use miles to upgrade.  If you're flexible enough to fly to Dubai instead and then take a short 90 minute hop to Riyadh, your options open us considerably.

[UpperNwGuy]

Do not, repeat do not, agree to a 12 hour layover just to get into premium economy.  The time-of-trip factor is more important than the comfort-of-seat factor.

[Loquat]

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

Do not, repeat do not, agree to a 12 hour layover just to get into premium economy.  The time-of-trip factor is more important than the comfort-of-seat factor.

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I use to have that mentality until I had a 14 hour flight from Detriot to Nagoya.  The wife and I flew first class and even that was miserable after a while (and that was only the second leg of our flight)...I can only imagine what it would have been like to fly that long in coach.  While I agree that a 12 hour layover is long and I'm not convinced I would do it...it is something to consider depending on the flight and if time is on your side.

[K-in-Boston]

I guess a lot of it depends on the time of the flights and how long the layover(s) is/are.  Personally, for a flight to Asia or Oceania, I'd probably prefer to have an overnight at LAX.  Going east, though, I'm all about getting there ASAP.