Bonfire Ascetic not working?

Which bonfire are you trying to burn it at? Which boss and area are you trying to up to NG+? If it's the gargoyles, you need to burn it at the bonfire after fighting them. If it's the Ruin Sentinals (Flexile Sentry is the boss for No Man's Wharf, not
Lost Bastille) then you probably have to burn it at one of the bonfire leading up to the boss. If you're trying to burn it at Servant's Quarters, you may have to kill the Lost Sinner first, since he's the next boss after that bonfire.

Check this page:
http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Bonfire+Ascetic#.UzQBGPldUk0

The wiki indicates that Ruin Sentinals is McDuff's bonfire. I don't know if either of the other 2 would work as well.

Really, the only use for them is to obtain items from the next new game cycle without going into the next new game cycle. For instance, if you're playing a pyromancer build, using an ascetic in the Saltfort to kill the Last Sinner is beneficial, because
it allows you to get the soul item you need to trade with Straid for Flame Weapon (and the red phantoms won't spawn if you use ascetics). Or, if you're trying to farm an item that doesn't drop, you can ascetic the area and get more opportunities to farm that
item. There's actually a technique you can do to farm awestones that allows you to get the Vanquisher's Seal with 4 ascetics and only killing a few bosses.

The cons are that it puts that bonfire and the enemies/boss at the next NG cycle of difficulty. When you go into your next NG cycle, all the bonfires will increase difficulty by one, including the ones that you've used an ascetic on. For instance, if you
take the bonfire intensity of the Saltfort up to 2 in order to get Flame Weapon, when you go into NG+ and all the other bonfires are at intensity 2, the Saltfort bonfire will go to intensity 3.

You need to kill Freja in NG+ (or beyond) to get the soul required for both crystal soul spear and the moonlight greatsword. So, if you want both, you'll need to ascetic her bonfire twice.

I think you can open up access to NG++ spells and items sold be Chancellor Wellager, although I'm not sure which bonfire to use for that.

There's the Vanquisher's Seal trick (use of 4 ascetics in the first bonfire of the Grave of Saints allows you to farm 48 awestones).

If you want to farm ore, there are various spots you could do that depending on what type you need. But, really, the best way to do that is to just beat Nashandra and then buy a bunch from the woman who sells it in Majula, unless you need twinkling. In
that case, you could try using an ascetic in Dragon Aerie.

Thx a lot. I was thinking you could ascetic all the bonfires to get all the items, and just stay in NG with an outragously high level, but I can kinda forsee you whould quickly run into a problem with youre soul-memory becomming too high to find anyone to
summon. what do you think R3dPO1nt? Better to just go strait to NG+, or be very selective about the items you pick up, and the bonfires you ascetic? I should probable Consult the Wiki-guide to make sure I picked up the right items, and awoided that my SM goes
up too much

The dragons in that part are stupid easy to kill if you have a bow and poison arrows. The only one I've ever had trouble with is the second dragon in the rotundra area, but then I found out if you stay close and melee he hardly ever breathes fire at you.
I think I've farmed that area 4 times. You can also farm the giant lord for souls, but I wouldn't recommend that unless the character you're using isn't going to be used online.