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Hi HFPers!
I think I have been overcharged in terms of points when using my Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card voucher – please let me know if you agree.
First the facts:
– I wanted to book a one way flight for 2 people from London to Shanghai in Upper Class using my voucher
– I am a “Red” member
– One way Economy Premium was 22500 points + taxes
– One way Upper Class was 57500 points + taxes
– Credit card terms state this:If you choose an Upgrade or Companion Reward Ticket, you can use it on a round trip, or upgrade two one-way flights. It’s subject to availability because they come from a limited number of seats in booking classes G, P and A only. You’ll still need to pay any taxes, fees and surcharges.
Now comes my interpretation of the above 🙂
My understanding is that I have two options when using the voucher
– Option 1) Companion – I book 1 ticket for 57500 points + 1 ticket for 0.5 x 57500 points – which means I pay 1.5 x 57500 = 86250 points + taxes
– Option 2) Upgrade – I book 2 Economy Premium tickets for 2 x 22500 points and get both upgraded to UC – which means I pay 45000 points + taxesIn both cases I pay 2 x UC taxes, so the cash portion is always the same.
The agent on the phone said that I cannot upgrade 2 people one way, so I went with the Companion option, costing more in terms of points.
Am I right or is the agent right? If the agent is right then fair enough 🙂
If I am right though, can I somehow get a portion of my points refunded? What would be the best way to do that?Thanks!
Hang up and call again. If the agent insists, book the ticket for person A using 0.5 voucher. Hang up. Call again to book the ticket for person B using the remaining 0.5 voucher.
Same thing happened to me in January. Booked 3 x PE from MCO-MAN and the agent insisted we could only use the voucher as a 241, not to upgrade 2. It was only PE so not a huge number of points but I hope I don’t get this response when I use my next voucher to upgrade 2 of us to UC!
@ZW, I think OP has already made the booking, so the only option may be to cancel and rebook. Don’t know how this works with Virgin though.I booked 3 one way tickets then used 1.5 voucher without any issue last week so hang up and call again
I will, if it happens next time, thanks. It would be so much easier if the vouchers could be used online!
Vouchers can only be gifted as a whole (not halves). To upgrade both passengers one way would require gifting half of the voucher (unless there is a second voucher). However, worth calling again as it’s all manually applied so may get someone who is more liberal.
Surely upgrading 2 people one-way would require a whole voucher? Also I don’t think OP says it was 2 people other than them.
AFAIK voucher would need to be in the passenger’s own account to use as an upgrade voucher. OP would have used half for own upgrade, but cannot gift the remaining half unless you have an amenable CSA.
AFAIK voucher would need to be in the passenger’s own account to use as an upgrade voucher. OP would have used half for own upgrade, but cannot gift the remaining half unless you have an amenable CSA.
All 4 agents were happy to apply my 1.5 voucher to my fife and son’s booking as upgrade voucher
That’s not how I understand it, but I have always gone off Rob’s article on the Virgin voucher which says that it can be used to upgrade 2 pax, one way.
I figured it’s at least worth calling again, but the new agent today said that there is no Economy Premium availability for my flight anyway, so using the voucher as an upgrade is not possible…
The flight is in October so I guess I can check a couple of times to see if Premium becomes available to try again.
Thanks everyone for your replies!
I’m pretty sure there only needs to be availability in the cabin you want to upgrade to, so UC in your case.
I’m pretty sure there only needs to be availability in the cabin you want to upgrade to, so UC in your case.
You need A (Economy), P (Premium) or G (Upper) availability to exist, not just space in the requisite cabin. VS have stopped publishing these codes to, e.g., Expert Flyer, which is annoying, as their own search tool doesn’t give you per-flight accuracy.
A is not split out in to the separate buckets – you’ll end up in Economy Classic.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/05/18/how-to-use-virgin-atlantic-credit-card-vouchers/
This need amending then!
Unless it has changed in the past two weeks, I booked UC with upgrade voucher without PE availability
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