Economy X

[Jobeki111]

Hi guys
So have a trip booked with the fam to Fiji in Jan. Wondeirng whether I should burn some points upgrading to Economy X (7400/person). I know it used to be the case that seats in row 3 opened up to anyone just prior to travel. I imagine with you now having to pay for economy X that this would not be the case (unless platinum). I am virgin gold...best to just pay the points? or any possibility of these opening up as unpaid seats that I can select 48-72h prior to departure? I imagine the answer is no but just wanted to check if any had experience with this
Thanks
J

 

[Dan_]

No experience with your question, but I burned some points for my PER-SYD flight and it was a great decision. I literally am jammed in the whole time with regular seats.

 

[tracman]

No experience with your question, but I burned some points for my PER-SYD flight and it was a great decision. I literally am jammed in the whole time with regular seats.

We fly to the states a couple of times per year, and have been using Economy X over PE with points (Gold) - makes the journey much more tolerable and less expensive. Always go for the bulkhead though as there's much more room there (if you can tolerate the dividers on port and starboard sides)!

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

I would say if going J is too $$$, Y(X) is good.
I use it now for all my VAd flights so far on the 737s.
Never tried it on VA's F100 yet, for those its all over the wing so no window view, so might buy the seat next to me for that.
Just note, for Y(X), you get a stretch in front of you space, and over head bin space dedicated to you, or if over the wing, stretch in front space, but you will still most likely have someone sitting next to you.
As you are burning points, so no chance of buying "comfort seating", so I would say go Y(X).
There is still a small chance that you might still be plonked somewhere else, as they always say seating is not guranteed, and you can be moved for operational/security reasons.
But so far though, I have always had my Y(X) seat.

 

[Jobeki111]

Thanks guys...I really don't see the point of paying for J on the 737 (unfortunately the 0630 departure on the a330 out of Bris is not very family friendly ) particularly for a family of 4 you would be looking at in the vicinity of $5K return if you can get Biz sale fares both ways for a 4h flight on a 737...Just doesn't seem worth it

.I have put in an upgrade request for J on the way back as we paid freedom fares (only 10K pts pp to upgrade from freedom) as they were minimally more expensive but I think it's unlikely as a family of 4 we will be approved. From the Go plus fare we got going over I can't even justify putting in a J request for the way there as it would be 64K points (16k pp) for the 4 of us in the small chance it were even approved. I ended up just biting the bullet and paying the ~30K points for YX and have selected seats in row 3

 

[ftm]

Economy x is a great product. And row 3 is particularly good. A nice use of the points.

 

[Mattg]

I would say it's worth paying a little more for Economy X. Not sure it's worth using points though - perhaps have a look how much it would cost to pay for those seats using money.

The reason I say this is that 7,400 points is almost enough for a reward flight from Melbourne to Sydney, which would normally cost much more than the Economy X surcharge.

 

[Scr77]

I would say it's worth paying a little more for Economy X. Not sure it's worth using points though

I agree. Unless you’re flushed with points, usually paying with cash is better value.

 

[PhilandJosh]

For us.. in this instance... the use of points provides better value than paying. I may regret my decision when we need another 30k points for our next trip but having just booked and paid for this trip and a trip to Hawaii (although We got biz rewards to Hawaii ) the cash balance is looking a little thin while the pts balance is still relatively healthy