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Just spent half an hour on phone to Virgin over this and am more confused than ever. I’m jet lagged and the three hours sleep I got hasn’t helped but it sounds more trouble than it’s worth.
Usually I’d use my upgrade vouchers on myself (have done before) and that’s simple enough. However, they both expire next year and me and the OH want to go CPT next Feb. So I ring up to get my head around the 50% extra points I’d have to use for us to go UC after booking with points on a premium eco fare.
That would apparently be 66500 points for us both to go UC. I can live with that but has anyone gone there on a Virgin companion voucher booking, does that sound right? She sounded confused herself and initially told me 115k.Then I asked how I go about booking the outbound first and the return two weeks later and she insisted I would need to book both at the same time. I pointed out this is virtually impossible as I can’t wait for the return when the outbound UC would be long gone by the time the inbound were released. Booking them separately results in about £300 of extra tax she said.
Has anyone successfully used a Virgin upgrade voucher for two people to travel to CPT going from prem to upper and can explain it to me in a manner of an idiots guide.They just don’t seem as simple as BA.
the easiest way to use the voucher if you’re using points is to book in premium at the normal rate whatever that may be. Thereafter use the voucher to upgrade either one person return or two people one way from premium to uc. No additional points to pay and you only pay the difference in taxes per person. It gets more complicated if you use the voucher as a companion as then this 50% comes into play if you dont have status so it’s not as straightforward. So if you are two people and you have two vouchers you can book either a return redemption in premium using points or purchase a cash ticket in premium return. Then use the two vouchers to upgrade both of you return. Either way if it’s a cash or points redemption ticket, all you pay is the difference in taxes, no additional points. This all requires redemption availability in UC of course as well as premium if you’re booking a redemption ticket to start of with,.
Hi @Amy C – I’m afraid I can’t produce the idiot’s guide you asked for but I can confirm from recent experience that you can’t follow the BA route of book outward first with the voucher then calling to add the return later: I tried to do this last year and was told by more than one agent that this involves then having to cancel and re-book the out-leg with no guarantee that your reward seats drop back into the inventory… this is a frustrating shortcoming in their IT.
However, I DO think that it is possible for the agents (rather than you) to book your outward leg and note that only ‘half’ your voucher has been used – you then can call again when the return seats are released to book that flight and apply the other ‘half’ of the voucher. So you need two calls rather than one with the BA approach. I can’t speak to the tax point but it would be disappointing if Virgin could not adjust the tax retrospectively.
Hi @Amy C – I’m afraid I can’t produce the idiot’s guide you asked for but I can confirm from recent experience that you can’t follow the BA route of book outward first with the voucher then calling to add the return later: I tried to do this last year and was told by more than one agent that this involves then having to cancel and re-book the out-leg with no guarantee that your reward seats drop back into the inventory… this is a frustrating shortcoming in their IT.
Someone replied to my post here to say this was possible, but involves 2 phone calls.
Even if you are having trouble an alternate method would be to book a return the day after your outbound flight is released. For example if your outbound flight is Jan 1st, wait until the next day and book a return out on the first, with inbound on the 2nd. That way you lock in taxes/fees at the return price. Then when the actual return date is available you call up and change it. Downside is the outbound flight could be gone in those 24 hours and you have to pay a change fee.
the easiest way to use the voucher if you’re using points is to book in premium at the normal rate whatever that may be. Thereafter use the voucher to upgrade either one person return or two people one way from premium to uc. No additional points to pay and you only pay the difference in taxes per person. It gets more complicated if you use the voucher as a companion as then this 50% comes into play if you dont have status so it’s not as straightforward. So if you are two people and you have two vouchers you can book either a return redemption in premium using points or purchase a cash ticket in premium return. Then use the two vouchers to upgrade both of you return. Either way if it’s a cash or points redemption ticket, all you pay is the difference in taxes, no additional points. This all requires redemption availability in UC of course as well as premium if you’re booking a redemption ticket to start of with,.
Thank you all. She told me that I couldn’t use two vouchers on one booking. I have two vouchers and initially did want to use one on me and one on the other half as he doesn’t have any. However, told this was impossible.
I always found that if you talk to the upper class team – you get a service like “Brighton” from Amex, the rest of the team is like overseas amex.
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Thank you all. She told me that I couldn’t use two vouchers on one booking. I have two vouchers and initially did want to use one on me and one on the other half as he doesn’t have any. However, told this was impossible.[/quote]I used two of my vouchers to book for Mr Birdy and me to fly UC to Joburg and back from Cape Town last year. We just paid premium miles and UC taxes (around £840 each) I booked in July when Virgin released lots of extra award availability and travelled in December. He didn’t have any vouchers and all the flying club points also came from my account. Although we were initially booked on the same flights, we weren’t on the same booking ie we each had our own booking reference. This ended up working out well for us as he decided to go a week earlier to spend more time with his family so changed dates and flew to Cape Town, and I was also able to change to fly to Cape Town when some availability popped up a week before my flight. There was no issue with us flying separately even though they were my vouchers.
We’ve flown to SA with BA lots of times but this was our first time with Virgin. Going there was great (on both our flights) but we didn’t love the day flight back from Cape Town. It was very long and the food served was not enough for a 12h flight.
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