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My first experience of using a Virgin c/c reward voucher – certainly not as smooth as a BA Companion one. Did the 5AM call having monitored what went on with availability on the Virgin site for a few days. The opertor made a bit of a hash of it, and not helped by the public facing website insisting the Maldives in Jan was standard season when checking on points requird – when of course it’s peak.
Anyway, we got there in the end, but I have noticed that there are no Upper Class seats made available for the return leg using points. It’s not a case of them getting snapped up, you can see availability ahead of being able to book – I know this from looking at 3AM. The operator I spoke to said they don’t release upper classs reward seats on every flight, and that certainly seems the case here. I thought there was a minimum of 2 on all flights but seemingly not. Outbound seems as you’d expect, it’s the inbond that’s the problem.
Can any frequent Virgin flyers out there offer any explanation or insight? I’m not so keen on having to return in PE and it diminishes the attractiveness of the Virgin offering compaed to BA. Always a bun fight to get the seats, but at least there’s some availability to go after.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/12/23/virgin-atlantic-guaranteed-reward-seat-availability/
According to this, they are supposed to release a minimum number of seats. SeatSpy is showing a couple of UC seats for next Jan, it’s not always correct but it could actually be that they’re getting snapped up really quickly and the agent was mistaken about them not being released.
From 29th June we guarantee a minimum of twelve reward seats on every Virgin Atlantic flight, so you can book that dream trip you’ve been saving your points for. With eight seats in Economy, two in Premium and two in Upper Class, it’s much easier to find reward seats to redeem your Virgin Points on.
Either Virgin is wordsmithing heavily (which is a possibility) or the (more likely, in my experience) scenario is that the agent was incorrect. Not all are brilliantly trained on reward bookings, so you may have got one who made a few mistakes, thus making it painful.
I suspect that, for a route like MLE in the winter, they are getting snapped up quickly.
Isn’t MLE-LHR a day flight? With UC surcharges being so extortionate, I think I could probably cope in PE!
Thanks for the comments. I don’t think it’s the agent getting it wrong. The last couple of early mornings – by early I mean 3AM the flights for the next available day appear, albeit they can’t be booked. For the last 2 days it’s been 12 reward seats but 9 + 3 PE – so as intimated by @AL it might well be Virgin wordsmithing.
I’ve never flown Virgin before but if I want to come back I guess I’ll be booking PE!
Rob or Rhys need to call Virgin out big time if they are reneging on this guarantee but keeping quiet about it!
If you have avios you could return on BA or QR, but you might be a bit late for their availability now – QR economy might be a possibility though.
Virgin cancellations can pop up down the line but obviously you’d be taking a risk on that.
Rob or Rhys need to call Virgin out big time if they are reneging on this guarantee but keeping quiet about it!
If you have avios you could return on BA or QR, but you might be a bit late for their availability now – QR economy might be a possibility though.
Virgin cancellations can pop up down the line but obviously you’d be taking a risk on that.
@NorthernLass I’ll be looking to book the return next week and will take some screen shots.This is my first Virgin flight and we got the c/c to add to the BA 2-4-1’s and the B/Card upgrade vouchers we get each year. The route map isn’t as good as BA’s so we aren’t sure if it’s worth the effort – it does divert quite a bit of spend that would otherwise boost the Avios. The other problem (1st world) was triggering the vouchers too quickly, so the Virgin spend helped spreading it around a bit.
I’m also relatively new to Virgin and have found the programme rather underwhelming so far! We’ve struggled to use the vouchers and I’m tailoring a Spring 2025 trip so we can fly MAN-ATL in UC or PE. Once I’ve burned through the points we’ve accumulated so far, I’m thinking we’ll use the vouchers on a once-yearly cash ticket. The convenience of MAN flights still makes it worth flying VS for us, although going east QR does seem better all round.
So far I think our best redemption has been on AeroMexico!
Virgin announced a few months ago that EVERY flight would have Reward seats from the start. For UC that number is 2. If an agent tells you different tell him/her they are wrong.
This is a copy and paste at 22:15 with no flights available for the 30th, which is correct for today’s date and time.
Good
Wed 29
Upper Class
0
Premium
3
Economy
9+
None available
Thu 30
No flight on this day, or no reward seats leftIf I’m unfortunate enough to be awake after 12AM and before 5AM I’ll try and get a shot of what’s showing as available to book from 5AM.
To clarify: I don’t believe that VS are intentionally misleading people here. Their programme is pretty straightforward, versus BA’s. I suspect people are just booking the seats on that route – after all, it’s probably one of the most popular for tourists, I’d imagine. Upper reward books in to G, so one other possibility is given that Delta pax. can book VS w/ SkyMiles, I wonder if they also book in to G, thus reducing the available reward inventory.
It could also be a problem in Air4, or a downstream system, causing it.
I’m also relatively new to Virgin and have found the programme rather underwhelming so far! We’ve struggled to use the vouchers and I’m tailoring a Spring 2025 trip so we can fly MAN-ATL in UC or PE. Once I’ve burned through the points we’ve accumulated so far, I’m thinking we’ll use the vouchers on a once-yearly cash ticket. The convenience of MAN flights still makes it worth flying VS for us, although going east QR does seem better all round.
Out of interest – and maybe it’s a separate thread? – what’s the issue with using the vouchers? Always fascinated by this, because I can’t think of a situation where I’ve been denied a good way to use them easily.
@DJP31 As of 23:36, https://travelplus.virginatlantic.com/reward-flight-finder shows, for LHR-MLE in January 2025, that there are 0 in Upper, 9+ in Premium and 9+ in Economy, and – as is still correct – nothing for the 30th. So, it seems that between you posting and now, something has updated, as we have a delta (badumtsh!) of +6 in Premium inventory.Wrote this, then realised you’re talking about MLE-LHR, which hasn’t changed. Ignore me. As you were.
How interesting. At midnight, as expected, LHR-MLE shows 2 Upper, 7 Premium and 9+ Economy on the 30th and the same date but MLE-LHR shows 0 Upper, 2 Premium and 9+ Economy.
We’re therefore missing 1 Premium LHR-MLE, and 2 Upper and 6 Premium MLE-LHR.
Given DL and VS both have T-331 availability, then it does look like seats are being held from the guaranteed inventory before they’re released, rather than DL getting in early and snapping up somehow.
@Rob and @Rhys – any thoughts on this one?It may not apply here, but Virgin’s guaranteed reward availability isn’t as straightforward as BA’s. They use directional availability which works in a variety of ways, some seats only available only in certain markets and/or only as part of or not part of return journeys. I don’t think they use married segments as BA, IB and QR do, principally as they have limited married segments to offer.
@AL, limited options from MAN, sky-high surcharges, can’t use the voucher online, no dedicated lounge at MAN. Small things but they all add up. It’s not that easy to earn points either – our main source of them for the past couple of years has been paying school fees!
@NorthernLass, to be fair, it’s as easy to earn Virgin points as Avios. The earning rate on the Virgin cards is the same as on the BA ones, and Virgin has an equivalent of the BA eStore, albeit usually with slightly poorer rates. And you can transfer Amex points to Virgin as easily as to Avios.
For me, the big problem with Virgin is the route network. It probably has fewer than 10 destinations that I have any real desire to visit before I die, compared with a hundred or more for BA.
I don’t agree about earning points, for a start the SUBs are nowhere near as generous on the Virgin card. QED, we have many times more avios from Amex and Barclays than we do from Virgin!
Agree re the route network, I looked at Virgin to begin with because of the direct flights from MAN but there are really only 3 routes which would be of any use to us, and that would be with some creative itineraries!
I have always wanted to visit Savannah & Charleston, so using VS to ATL and doing a short road trip will hopefully facilitate that next year then use AA to connect to the Caribbean, and BA to fly home!
@AL I’m glad it’s not me going mad. I looked at just past 3AM this morning for the 30th and saw what you saw. I’m just a points collecting and holiday fan, so don’t really have any understanding of the technicalties. I did however expect there to be availablity even if it required effort – as it does with BA.
@Rob it would be interesting to know why the flight availability doesn’t on the face of it seem to match the Virgin stated position.Don’t take any notice of what it says at 3am, or in the days running up to T-331. After some analysis, I came to the conclusion that it was just nonsense:
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/virgin-redemptions-taken-before-331-day-cutoff/
In my case (I was looking at Upper Class seats to Grenada) the minimum redemption availability was being released at 5am on T-331, and often being snapped up quickly.
VS385 from MLE-LHR on 30th January 2025 is showing 4 seats taken in Upper Class. At this stage those are almost certainly redemption bookings.
VS385 from MLE-LHR on 30th January 2025 is showing 4 seats taken in Upper Class. At this stage those are almost certainly redemption bookings.
@marks7389 so how are these booking being made? I was watching the 29th Jan MLE-LHR and at 3AM zero UC. At 5AM still zero (I was booking the outbound and watching intently) and there’s no way they could have appeared and been snapped up without me seeing. As of today 6 seats taken in UC – and as you say probably redemption bookings. So how are theses bookings being made?I don’t mind the battle of the fastest finger at silly o’clock, but not if the dice are loaded against me.
I thought I’d have a go at emailing Virgin and asking the question, but obviously impossible as I can’t find an email address for love nor money.
Would they ever release 6 UC award seats to somewhere like Maldives 🤷♀️
The hard-wired suspicious person in me is now wondering if Virgin staff can somehow book these manually as they do seem to have much more leeway than their BA counterparts 😂
*Though according to SeatSpy there can be 9 (!!) award seats in UC to MLE. Perhaps I need to look beyond MAN with my vouchers.
Would they ever release 6 UC award seats to somewhere like Maldives 🤷♀️
The hard-wired suspicious person in me is now wondering if Virgin staff can somehow book these manually as they do seem to have much more leeway than their BA counterparts 😂
*Though according to SeatSpy there can be 9 (!!) award seats in UC to MLE. Perhaps I need to look beyond MAN with my vouchers.
Yes, weirdly flights on a Monday or Tuesday seem to have 9 in each class! No chance on way back though!
I noticed that they released rather more than the minimum on some dates for outbound Grenada flights as well. No chance on the way back (for January next year), but I did observe the minimum 2+2+8 being released and managed to book the 2 UC seats on the date I wanted by calling at 5am.
I also had several fall-back options lined up in case I was unsuccessful. With 3 flights/week in both cases at peak demand time they really are like gold dust. That may be a little more tricky from Male but a connection to Bengaluru or Chennai and flight back from there may work and offer the option to see somewhere else on your trip.
I do wonder if some of the bookings for more than 2 seats are Gold status holders combining the minimum release with additional seats using the double points for any seat benefit (there’s little point in jumping in at T-331 just to book at that rate, but it may be attractive to some if they can book 2 at the normal points rate and the remainder at double).
Not sure if the call centre can put a hold on seats whilst payment is taken and they immediately disappear from view, but if they can that could conceivably have happened before you even saw them…. I’m not discounting the possibility that there is some other explanation, but I don’t think the flights are even loaded on the system before 5am T-331.
Don’t forget it is 4am from this Sunday until Easter Saturday as clocks go forward in the US this Sunday.
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