Right now I am sort of kicking myself for my decision to speculatively transfer DH's Amex Plat bonus to Virgin Atlantic a couple of months ago, expecting to be able to redeem those points for two first-class tickets to Japan next spring. My list of reasons why that redemption may not happen did not include a global pandemic threatening the financial well-being of airlines across the world! But, that's a sunk cost, so I'm trying not to feel bad about it. I did top up DH's mileage balance with his remaining MR before we canceled his Plat and so I'm now just 9k miles short of what I would need for ANA business class, as opposed to 59k points short of a first class redemption. I was planning to transfer the balance over from our UR stash, which I value more than MR.
I'd be able to call and book for our desired dates in about 6 weeks, so I'm trying to think about plans now IF VS stays in business and is accepting award bookings at the current rate. If I book the tickets in business and VS goes under, I lose 9k UR. If I book the tickets in first and VS goes under, I lose 59k UR. Is first that much more awesome than business class? This is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we've never flown first OR business class before. I'm sure they're both great but part of me wants to hold out for first since it's a bucket list item. We probably won't travel internationally for several years after this trip. I would still have enough URs to cover our planned travel until then even if 59k of them went poof. However, as a born saver I desperately want to hang on to even my imaginary currency
. I'm not planning to book if the airline still hasn't secured funding, but am more wondering what to do if they've been bailed out but aren't on 100% secure footing yet. Thoughts? What would you do in my situation?