Reply To: No Upper Class return flights released MLE – LHR?

[DJP31]

An update on my experience. Firstly, and as mentioned by others the Reward Seat Availablity Chart is virtually useless for the most popular destinations. It is updated literally hours and hours ater the seats are released and explains why there never appears to be any availability. It shows as “none available” and by the time they have been released and the webiste updated there are indeed “none available” – they’ve been snapped up in the meantime.

Secondly, the seats become available at 5AM except now when it’s 4AM and will be until our clocks in the UK go forward. I got the two I was after at 4:04AM as the operator was explaning to me they wouldn’t be available until 5AM – until there they were. She imemdiately reserved them which takes the pressure off.

Thirdly, the agents don’t seem to know how many points are needed when using a c/card reward voucher, whether you class it as an updgrade or a compananion voucher. I got there in the end but it wasn’t easy. As a Red member the compananion goes for 25% of the points price on the companion chart each way. So for MLE-LHR it’s 67,400 points, so I paid 16,850 plus the 67,500 for me (and the same outbound). The tax and surchages were a total of £1.6k but the seats are free to reserve which they aren’t on BA. I have no idea whether this is companion pricing or upgrade pricing and to be hoenst I don’t care anymore!

Will I bother continuing with Virgin in addition to BA? Don’t know. I’ve never flown Virgin so the experience might make up for the drama of securing the seats in the first place. The routes are limitied in number but we are tending to travel to the Caribbean annually so could probably use one there, which would free up an Amex or Bcys voucher.

I’m pleased the booking experience is over though!