What is the best way to be able to afford Premium economy seats

[Sundayagain27]

Everytime I fly BA or Virgin etc I think I would like to go Premium Economy next time and everytime I go to book I find the premium economy price on 1 leg of the journey to be affordable and the other legs to be hundreds more like more than 2 or 3 times the economy fare. I think I must be missing a trick, I have an Amex card and recently switched to a BA Amex card to collecet Avios as people kept mentioning the companion voucher. Maybe I'm being a bit dim with it all can someone explain in simple terms the hacks!
I also have a virgin loyalty card with a few miles on but again they seem to expire after 1 year so no time to use them as rarely take more than 1 long haul to use those miles! Thanks

Perhaps people sleep on the inbound leg more often and that makes the price increase due to demand?

There’s no trick to get the same cheap prices on different legs/return flights. Each flight is priced differently.

We flew back long haul in PE recently as it was reasonable, but not outwards as it wasn’t.

I don't think there is a trick - use can upgrade with points if you have sufficient or take a risk and you can maybe upgrade for cheaper rate (than the original price) if you leave the upgrade to check in time. But of course you run the risk of not upgrading.

I walked up to the airline counter (not check in) on the day, and asked if they had any updates available for my Singapore flight. They did, and I got to fly premium economy on a 13 hour flight, for £350.

@Specialityblueberries really helpful - not
What i was trying to ask is if people use points / loyalty schemes or any other method of upgrading that I ma not familiar with.
Thanks everyone else for your helpful advice

Three months ago. Singapore airlines from Heathrow.

After I'd booked my ticket, a lovely relative had wanted to upgrade me, but it turned out that my ticket level didn't allow it. But when I called the airline, they said to try when I got to the airport, though they couldn't guarantee anything. I had no expectations at all that it would work, so was amazed when it did! And the elderly relative was thrilled ❤️ (and I was very happy that it hadn't cost her as much as it otherwise would have)

There are some tricks but they require a lot of work and saving up is easier. Use Skyscanner, Google Flights (especially Explore), Kayak and all the others. Try different dates and times and routes. Go direct to other airlines and check direct on sites. Use a private browser and even a VPN. Work out the airlines that don't show up in the sites. Book at the 'right time' which depends on the route. You can book different legs differently but be careful because if you miss one you're buggered. Fly from and to weird airports.

But honestly, I do all that because I fly a lot to weird places. It's worth me pretending to be in Uzbekistan flying to Turkey.

We will be a group of 4 so don't think waiting until the day is a good idea. TBH hadn't really thought about only doing it 1 way! makes sense.

One thing that has worked for me is to access the lounge somehow (the specific airline lounge, not the generic one). That might be through a loyalty scheme / credit card / sometimes you can pay. The staff in there either have discretion to give free upgrades (happened on my honeymoon!), or can sell last minute ones.

I just checked. Around £1,000 more than the economy fare.

We have Virgin credit cards and save the points that way. If you earn enough points you also get a companion voucher, which lets you either upgrade or get a free seat for a companion.

@Pringlebeak thanks that a good idea for the virgin one with using points for upgrade as never enough for a whole seat!!
have you used the companion voucher - I've go the BA version looks like i'm on track, need to spend £15k on the card by December and halfway there but ideally would want to use it on a February 2027 flight - do you get the companion voucher as soon as you hit that target or are they issued only annually ? think i can also transfer my regular Amex points to be avios ?

@Elizabeta great idea tbh the regular lounges at heathrow aren't great, airline ones seems considerably better, well Virgin one was anyway.

We select the class we’re travelling based on the flight! I always get prices for all three classes and jump on ones that sound like a good deal. Our next trip is to West Coast Canada and we’re flying out economy because the upgrades were ££££! On the way home, business was £3k pp so we said no to that, but PE is £230 each, which we considered a great deal for an 11 hour flight.

We also collect Avios with the credit card and DH travels a lot for work so has points/status. So we’re going to NY and flying home potentially business, maybe premium because we’ve got enough points for a £1k discount. Then we’ve got a companion voucher which we want to use for something longhaul in early 2027 and tbh, we’ll probably let our destination be slightly dictated to by where we can use the voucher as we’re looking for warm and beachy so have some choice in destination

I recently upgraded with BA to Premium economy from London to Houston and it honestly wasn't worth it. I paid £299 extra pp. It was cheaper to call and upgrade than do the online offer.

Boarding earlier is really not that great. I travelled with my DS4 so we always get to board earlier but we don't need to.

The food in economy looked just as nice and the service wasn't anything special.

We do it via points. You need to be quite flexible on where and when you fly. The points flights are released 364 days before and they go very quickly for popular destinations, particularly if you need 4 seats. BA travel agents can help navigate flight options with points.

we do also use the companion vouchers, again they can be a little tricky to actually use,
flexibility helps. There is a website in the system somewhere that just shows you points flights, it’s very useful.

We have never found using points to upgrade as very cost effective, better to buy them outright with points.

I’ve tried every which way. I have bought premium economy on Virgin (I don’t think the BA one is worth it, though now that Virgin has got new planes the premium economy seats are noticeably smaller). I’ve bought with points and money, I’ve bought economy and upgraded with points and I’ve bought points to make up if I don’t have enough. They do have sales on points occasionally. I have my Tesco Club card set to automatically convert to Virgin air miles, I have a Virgin credit card too.
I’m flying next month and thought I’d found a good deal just paying outright. But I made the classic mistake of waiting a few days to confirm all the dates with everyone and it had gone up. Flights have generally gone up by 25% in the last couple years, I think I’ve paid about 20% more than what I paid two years ago.

@ParisianLady thanks so much, that really helps. It just hadn't clicked with me that i could do one class 1 way and another on the way back, my main reason for PE would be more seat space! though i usually try and book the exit row in Economy particulary at night when people start reclining!

Be aware there are some disadvantages to premium economy sometimes. One flight we were on (BA or Virgin, can't remember) the armrests did not fold away. Was a bit of a pain with little kids overnight to be honest.

@ChubbyPuffling thanks - but no little kids will be with me

I've heard that about PE with BA. I think Which? magazine did an article about which airlines" PE was worth paying for. I seem to remember that Virgin and Singapore were at the top, and BA deemed not worth it.

The new Emirates PE cabin looks very promising though.