Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Forums Frequent flyer programs Virgin Flying Club Has dynamic pricing affected the upgrade with points option?

  • shamp00 11 posts

    Hi

    I might need to go to the States next month and am just trying to work out my options to fly UC.

    Before Virgin introduced dynamic pricing you could upgrade from PE to UC using points (in my case it would be 25k points each way) as long as there was reward availability in the desired cabin. I’m wondering if this is still the case… how is reward availability defined now? Is the points required for an upgrade still the fixed value or has that changed?

    I’m looking at flights where the outbound would be a saver so worth booking with points, but the return would not be (and would be very expensive to book with points) so it might be cheaper for the return to book as a cash flight in PE but then use points to upgrade, but not sure if it’s still a possibility / would work in the same way.

    Thanks for any advice!

    nike85 45 posts

    My understanding is that to upgrade a booking with points, you now pay the difference between the maximum ‘saver’ points price for the cabin you are upgrading FROM, and the current points price of the cabin you’re upgrading to.

    So if you’re upgrading from PE to UC one way between London and New York, and the UC seat is currently selling for 60,000 points you’d pay 60,000-17,500=42,500 points.

    So the points value of th cabin you are upgrading from is fixed (if purchased with cash), but the points value of the cabin you are upgrading to is dynamic based on current points selling price.

    You can find the min and max saver pricing chart for peak and off-peak dates here https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/spend-points/reward-flights/saver-reward-seats.html

    Hope that helps!

    shamp00 11 posts

    Thanks nike85.

    Rob
    HfP Staff
    2,591 posts

    In our comments, someone who tried to upgrade a CASH ticket said that Virgin is still using the OLD pricing chart, eg to JFK Upper is treated at 57,500 one way and Premium is treated at 27,500 (or whatever) so you pay 30,000 IRRESPECTIVE of what the actual cost is.

    This is not how it works upgrading a redemption.

    I have asked Virgin for confirmation of this but nothing received so far.

    shamp00 11 posts

    Thanks Rob – In that case buying a premium cash ticket and upgrading with points would be much better value… I’ll look forward to reading what Virgin tell you in due course!

    nike85 45 posts

    maybe they benefitted from poor training roll out of the new policy! you can always call and see whether you get the ‘old’ or ‘new’ process applied. good luck!

    AL 694 posts

    I upgraded cash premium to points upper to LAX and got the new chart, so YMMV.

    marks7389 533 posts

    In our comments, someone who tried to upgrade a CASH ticket said that Virgin is still using the OLD pricing chart, eg to JFK Upper is treated at 57,500 one way and Premium is treated at 27,500 (or whatever) so you pay 30,000 IRRESPECTIVE of what the actual cost is.

    This is not how it works upgrading a redemption.

    I have asked Virgin for confirmation of this but nothing received so far.

    Of course if that gets you access to all the dynamically priced inventory that’s a massive upside. If that is how it is working, I really can’t see that persisting for long…. and you have to wonder how fully thought it all was. 🙂

    modestpointscollector 74 posts

    Yeh with another voucher due to drop into my account in the following weeks buy only with a grand total of around 20k points I am very keen to have clarified the position on the cash ticket situation. It would be very nice if I can upgrade 2 from PE to UC with few strings attached.

    nike85 45 posts

    hi mpc – my comment above is the official policy.

    nwoody2001 31 posts

    Using your “New and Improved” Reward Vouchers… Points and Cash Options???

    So I’m currently looking at options and trying to figure out what the best use of these vouchers are. For clarity, I’m a solo-travelling person with Red Status and have circa 185k Virgin Points

    Using Reward Vouchers with Points.

    For me, the Reward voucher has a value of 75,000 points and I normally use them to upgrade a return flight, normally from PE to UC. Having read a few other threads, if I were to do this now with the dynamic pricing, Virgin would take the Max value of a PE Saver Reward seat (as listed here: https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/spend-points/reward-flights/saver-reward-seats.html) and then the voucher would need to cover the cost of the Dynamic Priced UC Reward seat on the day I wanted to travel.

    Looking at a real-life example flying LHR-LAX next September, the cheapest Upper Class flights come in at 105k Points one-way so 210k Points Return. We are inside standard season so the standard cost of a Prem Economy Return would be 55k. That leave 155k remaining meaning that after the 75k points for my Voucher is taken off, I would pay the remaining 80k points +55k points associated with PE = 135k Points Return.

    Is it ironic that this is the exact same as a Saver Rtn fare (135k Return) but I have to use my voucher to get it? BTW according to seatspy.com, there are no 67.5K fares between LAX-LHR for the entire next 12 months! Also ever WITH the cheapest (hypothetical) Upper Class Return fair between LHR-LAX (or USA West Coast) being 135k and the Standard Prem Economy Return being 55k, my Voucher can NEVER cover the Upgrade difference of 80k…?

    Using Reward Vouchers with Cash

    Is this where there might be an improvement on the original system? Originally, whilst it was all paying in cash, availability was only available when there was reward seat availability. But now with every seat being available as a reward seat, does this mean that the Voucher can be used to upgrade on any reward seat? Or is my hunch that they will only allow you to upgrade with cash when there is Saver Reward Seat availability on the flight going to be the case? Also with Taxes also being dynamic, the only way to look into the cost of this is to call up and get a quote??

    Any helps or clarity on this point would be welcome – id like to think im not an amateur here but this is so complicated to work out….

    modestpointscollector 74 posts

    hi mpc – my comment above is the official policy.

    I see, thanks nike85.

    Seems like a total scam, given the cash price of the flight would also clearly be demand related, but they’re only giving you the base level of points meaning any meaningful upgrade could be completely out of reach for most Red members if we see saver flights almost completely disappear on some routes. At least there was a chance of snagging a reward seat in the past!

    Will probably have to burn 2x vouchers on a lightly loaded route with lots of saver availability and then trudge back to BA then I guess.

    flyer68 4 posts

    “Heads, I win. Tails, you lose” behaviour from Virgin and their masters at Delta IMHO.

    Quote Virgin’s website : “With prices that vary based on demand, just like money”. Except when it doesn’t suit them. Then money fares become fixed from a points upgrade POV, no matter how you paid, and the upgrade amount remains dynamic.

    They honestly think folks are stupid enough to play their game. Maybe some are, not this one.

    modestpointscollector 74 posts

    “Heads, I win. Tails, you lose” behaviour from Virgin and their masters at Delta IMHO.

    Quote Virgin’s website : “With prices that vary based on demand, just like money”. Except when it doesn’t suit them. Then money fares become fixed from a points upgrade POV, no matter how you paid, and the upgrade amount remains dynamic.

    They honestly think folks are stupid enough to play their game. Maybe some are, not this one.

    Yup. If anyone from Virgin RM is reading, you have expertly secured my custom not with a superior competitor, but with the one that doesn’t feel like i’m being cheated now. It is what it is I guess.

  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.