Voyager miles for upgrade

[Spizz]

I've been trying to use some miles to upgrade a flight I've got from Dakar to Jozi. I've got an economy ticket already so simply wanted to spend 16000 miles and upgrade it to business.

So I go to flysaa.com and read about the procedure. They say you first need to 'buy' an award before you can book.

So I buy the relevant award for 16,000 miles, then go to book it. But the only option is to buy an economy ticket and apply the upgrade at the time of booking. So I'm thinking now that it's not possible to apply it to an already made booking? Does anyone know about such things?

The website is a shocker and I've been going round in circles the last hour trying to find some info to no avail. I've emailed SAA but I'll probably wait a week for a reply, so I turn to the bottomless knowledge base of myBB hoping someone can help a brother out.

 

[isie]

been out of the game for a while but heres how SAA (most of the airlines actualy) work on the upgrades.
first off you can only upgrade to business class using miles if you are booked in a specific class ( K, M, B and Y I think) if you booked in a lower (see cheapy seats) class you cant upgrade.
but if booked in the clases i mentioned they only allocate a certain amount of seats for upgrade and of course they will give prefernce first to actual full paying business class ticket buyers or guys paying cash for upgrades then the high tier guys for upgrade (silver and gold cards) then the
normal blue cards.
So if you catch my drift if the palne isnt too full chances are good you can upgrade, but if flight is full my friend I doubt you wil get it then too sometiems they waitlist the seat and you only get confirmation afet a couple of days

 

[Spizz]

Hmmm, looks like I'm snookered straight away then. Booking class W on my e-ticket is the first problem. The second is that the flight is the JNB-Washington flight so I'd imagine business will be full of rich Yanks and our gravy train politicians.

So how do I go about a refund

 

[isie]

Hmmm, looks like I'm snookered straight away then. Booking class W on my e-ticket is the first problem. The second is that the flight is the JNB-Washington flight so I'd imagine business will be full of rich Yanks and our gravy train politicians.

So how do I go about a refund

try to phone voyager not sure whats the policy on refunds like i said been out of the travel game for a while - but good luck they take way too long to answer - maybe you can sweet talk them into giving you the upgrade

 

[rrh]

As isie says, first of all only the 'high-priced' economy seats qualify for upgrade.

Then (if my experience is anything to go by) SAA will only upgrade seats if there are empty seats in business class: SAA do not preallocate seats for Voyager upgrades.

According to Voyager their hands are tied. Though technically Voyager is part of SAA the actual upgrade is controlled by SAA, and SAA will do their level best not to perform an economy -> business upgrade 'cos that costs them real money (relatively speaking).

Voyager miles are a big-time scam by SAA. I once read - and have no reason to doubt - that SAA is technically bankrupt if unredeemed Voyager miles are taken into account.

And the fact that MasterCard no longer link to SAA is as a result of the number of complaints that MasterCard received regarding customers inability to redeem Voyager miles.

 

[Spizz]

try to phone voyager not sure whats the policy on refunds like i said been out of the travel game for a while - but good luck they take way too long to answer - maybe you can sweet talk them into giving you the upgrade

Cool. So I'll wait until they respond to my email and take it from there. I'm in Senegal just now so maybe calling won't be an option if they are like any other SA company and take an hour to pick up. Great info though, thanks bud.

As isie says, first of all only the 'high-priced' economy seats qualify for upgrade.

Then (if my experience is anything to go by) SAA will only upgrade seats if there are empty seats in business class: SAA do not preallocate seats for Voyager upgrades.

According to Voyager their hands are tied. Though technically Voyager is part of SAA the actual upgrade is controlled by SAA, and SAA will do their level best not to perform an economy -> business upgrade 'cos that costs them real money (relatively speaking).

Voyager miles are a big-time scam by SAA. I once read - and have no reason to doubt - that SAA is technically bankrupt if unredeemed Voyager miles are taken into account.

And the fact that MasterCard no longer link to SAA is as a result of the number of complaints that MasterCard received regarding customers inability to redeem Voyager miles.

Hmmm, well I've been bumped for quite a few miles with them in the past and even faxing my ticket stubs off didn't work. Never heard from them again. But again, interesting to know. Cheers for the heads up. Won't get my hopes up I think