Me and my husband have individually enough miles (in both Delta and AA) for a trip between SJU and Europe and we were planning to use them on next Sept. 2007. Recently I read that is better not to use the miles for an award coach class ticket but instead to upgrade to business class. Because I have never used miles for either case, what is the best option and how the 330 days rule applies in each case? How many miles are needed for the coach to business upgrade on an International flight?

I suspect someone here will have definite FF upgrade requirements for both programs but I assume you could also call and ask directly.

My understanding of the 330/331 day "requirement" is that tickets usually cannot be booked more than 330/331 days out from the return (if there is a return) segment.

Recently someone here said they were able to book Amercian FF ticket segments separately rather than having to wait until the entire journey could be booked.

I wish my FF program allowed that option.

On AA, I'm not sure but SJU may count as "Carribean" and not "North America" so you might have to put together 2 upgrades each way. Phone AAdvantage at 1-800-882-8880 to see. One way upgrades between U.S. and Carribean are 15,000 and between U.S. and Europe are 25,000 + $250. (Again those are one way so a round trip is twice the miles and twice the $.) I think the timing for booking would work the same as a "free" ticket, as that 329 days (that's what is is on AA) I believe is also the first day you can book any ticket for a date, even a paid ticket. Another thing may be helpful. You might not get a super cheap coach ticket booking that far in advance but keep watching the fares. I have gotten AA to refund the difference if the fare goes down and a ticket is available without losing my upgrade. (You will have to pay the $100 or $200 change fee, but in my case the fare from U.S. to Tokyo went on special for $500 from $1200 so it was worth it.) Sorry, but can't help you with Delta. Good luck!

Mileage required are posted on the airline's own website. Go study those charts.

Whether it's better to use miles for award coach ticket or upgrade are based on personal preference. Do you want to spend the extra dollars to fly business? Some people may, some people may not.

As rkkwan said - whether or not it is better to use the FF miles for tickets or an upgrade is really a matter of preference. I think that since the cost differential between coach and business class tickets is larger than the cost of coach tickets themselves, if you use the miles for an upgrade, they will actually be "worth" more. But, you've still got to buy the coach tickets. Depending on your budget, this may be fine, or it may not. You have to ask yourself - is it more impotrant to save the cost of the airline tickets (purchasing the tickets with your FF miles) or to fly business class (using your miles as an upgrade).

For myself, I would choose to use my FF miles to buy the tickets and then have more money to spend on my vacation or just not spend as much and have money for something else.

Most of our miles are with US Airways.

With them, in order to upgrade a coach seat, it must be a certain class of fare. So we couldn't buy a super deal ticket and expect to upgrade to business.

For us, it is more important to get the seats free (except for the taxes of course) and use the money doing other things on our vacation.

So it is a question of personal preference.

As for the time to buy the tickets. I just did thru Delta. You call 331 before departure from the US and make only the outgoing resrevation. You then call again 331 days prior to the return flight and make the return portion. They will record that FF tickets are invovled.

I had to wait unitl 4:30 AM to make my reservations because no seats were opeend at 12:01 PM on Alitalia so be ready for a long sleepness night.

Good luck

David J

You need to check each airline for their rules. I use Delta regularly. I am leaving on 9/18 and returning on 10/5 with FF miles. This is how it works for the 330 days....you make the departure that can be held 2 weeks for the return to be made..if like mine which was 18 days, I had to call again to extend the time to make the return. The fun thing is you call at midnight on the 330 days and if to Europe it is overnight and if a 2nd leg it means another day and you are one day too early, so you do the midnight thing again.Delta now had the two different classifications and different amounts needed for award tickets...better check it out. If you are planning to use for upgrade only, be careful as "deeplt discounted" fares are NOT upgradeable. Many different things. Talk with the airline FF miles people for help.

Whether to use miles for free tickets or upgrades is really dependent on several things. First of all, do you want to save money or are you more interested in comfort. Obviously, if you want to save money, you go for the free tickets. If you want to be comfortable flying, you go for the upgrade.

Many years ago our family flew from SF to Greece. With a stop in Amsterdam, it was a miserable 18 hour flight in coach. I swore then I would never fly overseas again except in business class and I haven't.

Economically, the best value is to use your miles for upgrades. On United for instance, it takes 50-80,000 FF miles for an international coach ticket and 60,000 for an upgrade. A coach ticket costs several hundred dollars. A business class ticket costs several thousand dollars. That is why many argue that the better "value" is an upgrade.

From what I understand, free tickets are somewhat harder to come by, especially in the peak travel seasons, which is why people are calling 330 days in advance. In my experience, business class upgrades are easier to come by. I usually purchase my tickets and upgrade only a few months before I want to travel.

I've also been told by some people that go for the free tickets that even when they are able to get them, they don't necessarily get the flights they want or have to accept making some undesireable connections. I haven't had that problem when getting upgrades, which is important to me since I always want to take nonstop flights from the west coast to Europe if available.

All of the airlines have restricted their policies on international upgrades. If you are flying internationally, they will generally charge you more for an upgradeable ticket than a regular coach fare. On a flight I am scheduled for next week from SF to London, the coach fare was about $730, but the upgradeable fare was $830.

So yes, I could save $730 by using miles for a free coach ticket, but to me it was well worth spending $830 for business class ticket.

Please note that all of my comments are about long international flights. On shorter US flights, or even cross country flights with a stop in Chicago or Denver, I wouldn't use my miles for an upgrade, particularly if United keeps its economy plus seating.

Hi NotMe, your thinking is the same as mine. I had quite an intense conversation some days ago with a family member who indicated they thought it was ridiculous to pay for a coach ticket that allowed upgrading to business class with my FF miles instead of trying to get a free ticket with my FF miles. I gave all the reasons you just posted..I finally gave up and suggested that we agree to disagree. This btw was in regards to flying to Venice. I should email this thread so your post can be read, LOL!

On AA, it's 50,000 FF miles for a round-trip upgrade to Europe plus $250.00 each way on top of the lowest coach fare you can get.

Oh, and on AA, San Juan would be considered N. America.

Northwest/KLM has not added on a fee to use FF miles to upgrade to BC, well not yet anyway, at least to my knowledge.

It's true that Northwest doesn't add a fee, but they have minimum fare classes to upgrade which can leave you in the same place (if not worse):

"Effective March 1, 2005, WorldPerks mileage upgrades for trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific itineraries are only available on eligible paid Northwest Y and B type fares, Continental Y and H type fares, and on KLM S and B type fares."

Hi Flyboy, yes that is true. I can't plan a trip to Italy a year in advance due to various reasons so buying the required coach ticket and upgrading to BC works the best for me. And since I am now on my own I of course only have to pay for one ticket.

Just another POV: we could not go to Europe as often as we do if we didn't cash in 50K FF miles each, every couple of years. It really is the only way we can travel as often as we do. Our budget doesn't have room for the "comfort" option. But oh, how we wish it did.

DH often says "never again" after a long and uncomfortable coach flight. But we find that within a month or so, we've forgotten the flight, but have many great memories of the trip.

Right now, we would have enough miles for Business class awards, except we spent 25K each for that wonderful trip to Arizona. So, for us, it's use the miles when we can for coach awards, and travel more.

Upgradeable economy fare classes on Delta are Y, B, and M. I checked some hypothetical dates from SJU to CDG and a M economy fare is close to $2000. Upgrading from M requires 25,000 miles each way. A Y economy fare for the same dates, same routing is around $3200. Upgrading from Y requires 15,000 miles each way. All subject to upgrade seats being available.

A Skysaver (lower mileage, more restrictive) economy award ticket between the Caribbean and Europe requires 50,000 miles roundtrip.

With Delta, you can call 331 days prior to your outbound date. Delta will no longer automatically hold award reservations for 2 weeks. The current award hold is 2 days (which you may or may not have luck in extending), but you can ticket your outbound as a one way and add your return later when that date is within the 331 day window. There's no reissue fee for adding a return.

That said, 331 days is just the first date that you can reserve an award. It doesn't guarantee that there will be award seats loaded on any given flight at that exact time. Partner airlines may also load award seats at different times than Delta. But if you have firm travel dates, the earlier you start checking, the better.

Best thing to do is to speak with an agent at the partner award desk who can check availability on Delta and all partner carriers for you.

Good luck!

We always use the miles to upgrade because DH is too tall to enjoy a coach seat. If I fly alone, I'm willing to get a free ticket in coach, but with him we need to go the upgrade route. It's just a matter of personal preference.

On the down side to upgrading, the fares are higher (example: $1600 versus $850 per person). On the down side to a free ticket, you need to have plans a year in advance. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer either way.

Thank you for all your postings with the pros and cons between free ticket and upgrade, and specially to Patty for making a detailed analysis of the two options. Now I need to check with the two airlines and our actual miles available, possible flights / connections between SJU and any airport in the East Coast to then make the transatlantic flight to London, etc. before I reach the 330 day! To make things a little more difficult, we are flying open-jaw because we are returning from Munich to SJU .............