Redeeming Virgin upgrade vouchers on partner airlines eg KLM

[Aliks]

I have a Virgin Rewards Plus voucher that expires at the end of May, and of course this will be a problem with the dearth of Virgin reward flight availability.

Ideally we want to fly to Namibia in March 2023, so an upper class Virgin flight to Jo´burg would be great. There is no availability of reward flights direct LHR-JNB for march 2023, but Virgin is showing lots of KLM business class flights that can be bought with Virgin points.

I could sit an hour in the queue to the Virgin helpdesk and ask them directly , but does anyone here know if they will allow me to use my upgrade voucher for a KLM flight marketed by Virgin?

Alternatively are there any long haul destinations where I will be able to find Upper Class availability?

[ChasP]

Vouchers only on Virgin planes I’m afraid

unlike Avios there is no guarantee of availability of seats on a flight but they do randomly release flights eg there is an Upper class one one available to Orlando on 21st August returning on 30th August
Either do a search on website for flexible dates or subscribe to Seatspy

[Amy C]

Aliks wrote:

I have a Virgin Rewards Plus voucher that expires at the end of May, and of course this will be a problem with the dearth of Virgin reward flight availability.

Ideally we want to fly to Namibia in March 2023, so an upper class Virgin flight to Jo´burg would be great. There is no availability of reward flights direct LHR-JNB for march 2023, but Virgin is showing lots of KLM business class flights that can be bought with Virgin points.

I could sit an hour in the queue to the Virgin helpdesk and ask them directly , but does anyone here know if they will allow me to use my upgrade voucher for a KLM flight marketed by Virgin?

Alternatively are there any long haul destinations where I will be able to find Upper Class availability?

India has good availability. Hope you make it to Namibia, I’m going next week via Jo’berg.

[FREEFLIGHTS]

If you are trying to get info or make a booking in UC (Upper Class), DO NOT give the helpdesk a call, instead call the UC team, they are the only ones that can make an UC booking and therefore are in the best position to help you. You will still probably get told no with respect to the voucher, but you never know. I had to call them last week and the phone was answered in a couple of rings.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Froggee]

For what it’s worth I just booked 4 tickets to Barbados in February (from Edinburgh) for which they have got oodles of availability. It seems like a very premium cabin dense layout for a leisure flight out of Jockland.

There’s a small chance that I had a companion voucher on my account given extensions (although I suspect not) but gave up holding to find out and just booked online.

That is of no use to you.

In March from London you currently have a sniff at:
-Boston
-San Francisco
-Washington
-Delhi
-Hong Kong
-Tel Aviv
-Lagos

depending on your exact dates.

[Aliks]

Many, many thanks for that info Froggee, in fact Edinburgh to Barbados is OK for us, and I just booked a couple of Upper Class tickets this morning.

Data points – I phoned Virgin on the stroke of 7am, some 3 weeks ago just to check on details, and got through in a minute or so.

I was not so lucky this morning. I got into the queue at 7:07 then waited 65 minutes to be answered. Luck of the draw I guess. Anyway, kudos to the guy on the phone, he was great – polite, efficient, and well informed about vouchers.

Next stop is InterCaribbean airlines as we want to hop over from Barbados to Guyana for a week of birds and wildlife. . . . .

[Froggee]

Thanks for letting me know. It’s nice to have actually helped someone. Enjoy your trip. It’s much more adventurous than hanging out at the Hilton in Bridgetown for ten nights but life changes when you have kids. My wife would be highly unamused if I flew to South America to check out the birds for a week. Even if I just looked at them…

[The Savage Squirrel]

Froggee wrote:

My wife would be highly unamused if I flew to South America to check out the birds for a week. Even if I just looked at them…

🤣🤣🤣

[Angelamc11]

India has good availability. Hope you make it to Namibia, I’m going next week via Jo’berg.

@Amy C We are also off to Namibia on safari next week via Cape Town.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Aliks]

An interesting development – Virgin have cancelled our reward flights from Edinburgh to Barbados and booked us onto the Manchester – Barbados flights for the same dates.

Virgin are offering all reasonable costs of getting to Manchester, which is nice.

However, it would be better for us to fly from Heathrow – can we insist on LHR instead of Manchester? There are unlikely to be any reward flights available from LHR but this should not matter as Virgin did the cancelling.

Pushing it further, do we have the option to fly to Johannesburg instead of Barbados? Or does this kind of change depend on availability of reward flights?

[ChrisC]

Re LHR you can ask them and they may say yes but you can’t insist.

Re JNB that’s a huge change in destination and would count as a voluntary change requiring reward seats to be available and payment of any additional miles and cash elements.

[Aliks]

Result : after an hour on hold (despite calling in a 7am) I got through to the right team and they rebooked me onto a Heathrow to Barbados flight.

I had to remind them that Virgin had cancelled my flight from Edinburgh, and the agent had to get his manager to approve, but it was all done efficiently and without fuss.

Kudos to Virgin!

[Froggee]

We’ll done you. My loss is your gain!