Booking outbound before inbound goes on sale

[evanss45]

Hi

I’ve tried to look through the forum for the answers but I’m struggling. This is the first time I’ve used my airmiles and companion voucher.

I’m looking to book 3 tickets to Orlando in February 2025. The Outbound flight would be available in a couple of weeks; I’m worried that all the reward seats will have gone before the return flight is available.

Booking the outbound flights on their own seem so expensive, so if I did this to secure the reward seats, when the inbound flights become available will VA honour a return cost rather than 2 one way journeys?

I’m looking to find the best value for 3 premium tickets. I currently have 1 companion voucher and 130,000 airmails.

Thanks in Anticipation.

[Gary]

CSA should be able to merge your inbound with the existing outbound booking reference & re-calculate the charges/taxes accordingly. VS only releases two seats in premium at T-331. More may become available closer to departure.

[marks7389]

Call to book the outbound 331 days before-hand and then again to add the inbound flight. Bear in mind that Virgin only guarantees two Premium redemption seats on each flight so you may be out of luck on that basis. It’s worth having a look at what’s being released each day to give you an idea of whether they are likely to release more, however it’s not looking based on the January outbound availability from Heathrow:

https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder

The seats are released at 5am so they may be releasing more but it doesn’t look likely given many January dates are showing the minimum guaranteed release on the outbound.

If you can book them, the return for 3 return Premium seats with a voucher should be 90,000 Virgin Points.

[marks7389]

One tip to look at. Assuming you are wanting to travel from Heathrow, there seem to be a lot more Premium seats being released to/from Tampa.

[evanss45]

Thanks for the information. Would it be a good idea to use my airmiles for 3 economy seats; pay to upgrade to premium for 2 seats and use my companion voucher for the 3rd seat in premium?

I took the VA credit card out entirely for the reason of our annual Orlando trip (not always in Feb). The 3 of us fly VA every year from Heathrow but unfortunately that’s not enough to improve my tier status.

Thanks again. Really appreciate the advice.

[marks7389]

Others with experience on that front may be better placed to comment, but so far as I’m aware it’s not possible to upgrade economy points redemptions with cash. If the Tampa option doesn’t work for you then your best bet may be to grab the two Premium redemption seats using the voucher (which will use 45,000 points on a 2for1 basis assuming its a peak date, plus taxes and fees) and pay a Premium cash fare for the third seat if you can’t get it as a redemption.

On the basis that buying a cash seat is rarely best value that far out you may want to leave until closer to the travel date to buy it, which also gives time to see if any additional redemption availability opens up.

Note that if you buy a cash seat that will be on a separate booking. Without any status though that probably doesn’t make much difference – you may be able to get the booking team to link the bookings so they’re aware you’re travelling together in the event of any disruption.

[marks7389]

The other option is you travel in different cabins. For 135,000 points and the voucher you could get two in Premium and one in Upper Class. Not great though if you don’t want to be split. You’ll end up paying the high taxes and fees on the UC seat, but only that person would have lounge access.

[JohnF]

If you do decide to book just the outbound 331 days beforehand and then go back to book return when those seats become available DO TELL CS when booking the outbound of your intention that way it will get treated as a return trip. Make sure they put a note of your intention on their records.

I did this recently for a trip next September on phoning for the return part they said there was no record of me telling them on the outbound booking. Took some sorting out and I believe it cost me a few quid.

[evanss45]

Thank you for the advice.

I’ll aim for 2 premium tickets using the voucher and arimiles and will look to buy another premium ticket a short while later to see if the prices come down.

When I call CS I’ll definitely ask them to note that I will ne booking the return a couple of weeks later. The whole idea of using airmiles and companion voucher is to safe money and not pay extra in fees.

many thanks