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I know this is hard to answers but does availability re-appear sometimes on Virgin?
I woke up at 530am this morning to book MAN-MCO on April 4th 2025 (school hols) and the nice chap told me he had sold the last 4 Economy tickets on that day. Should have set my alarm earlier. Very annoyed.
Anyway, assume it’s worth keeping on checking in case? Or do we think once the original release is done, I’m toast?
If so, guess I’ll have to take the OH to Barbados or something with my miles I’ve be saving for the family!!
Given school holidays I’d say unlikely but not impossible that more will be released.
Will very much depend on cash sales.
You have a chance but my inclination is that you would need to both hold your nerve and get lucky.
We were delaying our holiday plans for this summer while Mrs Froggee’s sister worked out her plans.
However when four premium economy seats appeared for Virgin’s EDI-MCO service for the first Saturday of the Scottish school holidays I decide that we would go to Orlando and then work things from there.
The seats popped up in March and can only have reflected weaker cash sales than Virgin were hoping for. As an added bonus they were half price because of the reward sale.
Some April 4th flights were released yesterday (I booked NAS-LHR), so maybe you were 24 hours too late? But there are 4 seats on April 1st and 2nd still available if you have a bit of flexibility on dates?
i have found award flights are avaliable 5am uk time ,get in quick for popular routes
I know this is hard to answers but does availability re-appear sometimes on Virgin?
Yes they often do but it depends on sales. I’ve had it happen more than once. What I suggest is that you bookmark this page – https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder/results/month?origin=MAN&destination=MCO&airline=VS&month=04&year=2025
and then check it every morning when you wake up. That’s how I got my UC tickets for that route with less than 2 months to go.
Some April 4th flights were released yesterday (I booked NAS-LHR), so maybe you were 24 hours too late? But there are 4 seats on April 1st and 2nd still available if you have a bit of flexibility on dates?
Yes, the call centre told me 5am and the operator actually told me he had sold 4 on the call before me. So I think 5am is right, but as you say, looking now, they seem to have released some EDI-MCO ones for either the Saturday or Sunday (can’t remember) but they shouldn’t be available til tomorrow so seems the rule is not set in stone..
I made a load of bad decisions like waking up at 6am instead of 5 and then waiting to check with my partner if the day before would have been OK, which are now gone.
There is some award Availability on the 3rd on Aer Lingus so may do that and then return on VS but the taxes add up to more of course.
Or, I sweat it out and see what develops.. I don’t think I’m in a rush for cash fares so waiting isn’t the worst idea.. I’ve set up Seat Spy to help but that’s told me there are 11 seats available which is not the case, so figure a manual check is in order..
SeatSpy has seemed to be very much behind VS recently, I would not rely on it. The only indicator I had that my NAS flight might be released at all was that it could already be booked as part of a Virgin Holiday. Neither SeatSpy nor the Virgin award calendar was showing it yesterday, but I could book via the app. Several other Caribbean routes haven’t appeared yet, so I feel quite lucky!
Why don’t you try tomorrow for April 6th being 331 days ahead – but get up early! The time used by Virgin for realeasing seats is midnight New York time. If USA has now moved to summer time that would be 5am but if they have not changed yet then it is 4am. Good Luck
Now showing loads of availability on Reward Checker and if you click through on website.
Called to book the seats and being told “it’s an IT error” and there are no seats.
And I thought BA were bad. Even tried to book online and you even get to the point of selecting your seats and put all the credit card info and then it fails.
Now I’m really stuck as don’t know when the “availability” is real or not and don’t want to be calling every day. Make BA look good.
Edit: now it’s disappeared again so least looks like the error has been fixed!
Now showing loads of availability on Reward Checker and if you click through on website.
Called to book the seats and being told “it’s an IT error” and there are no seats.
And I thought BA were bad. Even tried to book online and you even get to the point of selecting your seats and put all the credit card info and then it fails.
Now I’m really stuck as don’t know when the “availability” is real or not and don’t want to be calling every day. Make BA look good.
Edit: now it’s disappeared again so least looks like the error has been fixed!
In my limited experience of trying to book LHR-MLE the reward checker is pointless. It gets updated at some point during the day, by which time any availability has already disappeared. The only sure way of having a fighting chance of getting what you want is to ring at 5AM when the flights are released (or 4AM depending on summer time clock changes).
Availablity showing on routes that aren’t hot favourities is probably more accurate but I’ve yet to test that in practise.
In my limited experience of trying to book LHR-MLE the reward checker is pointless. It gets updated at some point during the day, by which time any availability has already disappeared. The only sure way of having a fighting chance of getting what you want is to ring at 5AM when the flights are released (or 4AM depending on summer time clock changes).
Availablity showing on routes that aren’t hot favourities is probably more accurate but I’ve yet to test that in practise.
VS is completely broken as far as availability is concerned as I posted my frustration the other day after wasting 2 days planning around KLM/AF availability that didn’t actually exist when you tried to book it.
Call centre’s answer is yes, we know and they’re working on it. Lots of ghost seats both on the availability checker and the web booking form. Even the call centre agents can see the “seat” but when they hit the confirm book it fails with no inventory.
In my limited experience of trying to book LHR-MLE the reward checker is pointless. It gets updated at some point during the day, by which time any availability has already disappeared. The only sure way of having a fighting chance of getting what you want is to ring at 5AM when the flights are released (or 4AM depending on summer time clock changes).
Availablity showing on routes that aren’t hot favourities is probably more accurate but I’ve yet to test that in practise.
VS is completely broken as far as availability is concerned as I posted my frustration the other day after wasting 2 days planning around KLM/AF availability that didn’t actually exist when you tried to book it.
Call centre’s answer is yes, we know and they’re working on it. Lots of ghost seats both on the availability checker and the web booking form. Even the call centre agents can see the “seat” but when they hit the confirm book it fails with no inventory.
100% this. Not sure it’s even the reward checker. The agent (bless her, dead nice) saw the seats, quoted me, went a good way through the call before it all failed. In fairness to her, she was extremely apologetic and nice, but the situation didn’t help me or indeed her.
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