How to fly Virgin Atlantic properly

[Simon Galloway]

Now that tournaments only seem to last 45 minutes.. I do seem to have more time...

[Matt.NFFC.]

Just out of interest.......when do Virign have their flight sales?

More to the point, when are the best times to book with them?

[redsimon]

They seem to do reward offers every two three months apart. If you know the dates you are going I'd reccommend booking flight as early as possible. If you book rooms seperately and prices go down for rooms you generally can cancel at no cost and rebook at lower prices.

[tonytats]

Just out of interest.......when do Virign have their flight sales?

More to the point, when are the best times to book with them?

January I believe

U can book 11 months in advance

Worth just looking twice a day ,I use my I pad once your dates are in their website it takes seconds to check prices

[Matt.NFFC.]

Yeah, I check daily, I just need to decide if I'm gonna book seperately or use say Expedia/Ebookers.

Any preference?

Booking via Virigin and say Harrah's directly is about £100 more.

[tonytats]

I've always booked direct with virgin ,wait until its a price u r happy to pay ,that's all I do

[Skgv]

At the mo there is a buy 50000 miles an get 25% free which works out at £765 on te virgin site .or is it better to use £250 Tesco club card vouchers an get 62500 miles which is the same milege  wise but normaly if u use vouchers for restaurants u would get£1000 to use?
How often do they sell miles an offer bonuses an its quite tight which way to go about topping up account?

[vegaslover]

Just been to Vegas with Virgin and flew in Economy.

Had one of the refit planes on the way out. Once they sorted out the entertainment system it was much improved. Defo more legroom in economy post refit.

had the last remaining 'old' plane on the way back. Felt like a shithole in comparison, entertainment would not work either.

I'm hoping it's just a glitch at the mo, but virgin haven't awarded me my points for flying with them, stating that my booking didn't qualify, as booked through a travel agent.

[Simon Galloway]

At the mo there is a buy 50000 miles an get 25% free which works out at £765 on te virgin site .or is it better to use £250 Tesco club card vouchers an get 62500 miles which is the same milege  wise but normaly if u use vouchers for restaurants u would get£1000 to use?
How often do they sell miles an offer bonuses an its quite tight which way to go about topping up account?

I opted in on Tesco "auto conversion" as they were giving free miles to do so.. so all my Tesco points get auto-converted into miles.  As to whether that is better than restaurant vouchers.. depends what restaurants, how much you want to eat there and how much you like flying on Virgin cheaply... i.o.w. std opportunity cost stuff.  The opportunity to buy 50k miles + bonus is only temporary afaik (usually 30k max + zero bonus) so I'd be tempted to buy 62.5k miles for £765 AND same from Tesco for £250.  That's nearly enough miles for an Upper and an economy flight atm.  By time you apply relevant taxes to the reward flights, it will set you back about £1700 all told for an Upper and an economy flight.  Given plenty of people will buy 2 economy flights next year for ~ £1700, seems like a decent spot to get Upper out of it for no extra.

Just been to Vegas with Virgin and flew in Economy.

Had one of the refit planes on the way out. Once they sorted out the entertainment system it was much improved. Defo more legroom in economy post refit.

had the last remaining 'old' plane on the way back. Felt like a shithole in comparison, entertainment would not work either.

I'm hoping it's just a glitch at the mo, but virgin haven't awarded me my points for flying with them, stating that my booking didn't qualify, as booked through a travel agent.

Thanks for the info, consistent with other reports from the new refits.  A few years ago I booked thru a travel agent for a while (as they had a "we will beat ANY price by £xx" deal, so I let them undercut Virgin's own price which they did 2-3 times before it dried up) and there was never a problem claiming missing miles from the online flying club section, gl.

[vegaslover]

Yeah, i've never had a problem with the points in the past either and have always booked through expedia/ebookers. Put in flight details for claiming missing miles and it come back as these flights not available for points. Just awaiting a response to my email.

[Simon Galloway]

Just an update on the availability moans regarding reward seats.

I've been keeping an eye really closely on this recently as I wanted two upper seats.  Given that most people complain that one seat is as rare as rocking horse poo, here is the current situation.

For WSOP June 2017, you can pretty much fly economy or Premium any time you like.  Upper is tougher, but still various dates going out ~ coming back is scarce.

The real trick is to be organised though... I knew the dates I really wanted and kept an eye out for exactly 12 months out ~ i.o.w. the very same day that the new flights were getting loaded into the system for the first time.  Things do dance around quite a bit, maybe as Virgin start selling cash fare tickets, or as other eagle eyed reward hunters snap seats up.  But there are a plethora of seats readily available and very easy to book for anyone with the slightest amount of flexibility.

Bottom line is, you can't decide in February "I want to go on 16th June... bah nothing available... what a con </click>"  You have to have that thought around the 16th June the previous year, be prepared to check twice a day every day for a while, and you are highly likely to get it.

[Longines]

This. Award tickets to popular destinations in high season are snapped up as soon as the booking window opens.

Simon, do Virgin allow bookings 365 days I'm advance? I thought most airlines were 330 days?

[Simon Galloway]

Yea sorry 11 months.  Today you can see universal availability for Aug 2017.  You will be able to see your date for flying out before the return date gets loaded in as they load one day at a time.

Aug 2017 outward:

14 days available in Upper.
0 in PE
24 days in Econ

Inward:

14 days in Upper
14 PE
31 days in Economy.

You'd have to be a fairly starchy person to find that offering unacceptable.  Worst case in months where non-optimal dates are showing, you could book say PE going out, Upper coming back, so that you have a solid booking, with a view to keeping an eye on the dates and paying a £50 fee to upgrade your PE leg to Upper anytime they change the availability.

[tonytats]

We've had 3 X£450 flights to Vegas in January ,June n last week for me n the gf this year then paid £50 each for an exit/ extra leg room seat ,that's what we pay Ryanair for Tenerife with a case each n exit seats it really is a no brainer to get a credit card put your spends on it n swap the money over from your current ac to the card ac

Reading an earlier post simon would it be better / better use of miles/ more chance of an upper seat  to fly to LA then drop down to Vegas ?

[Simon Galloway]

There's more chance with LA, as the route uses a different configuration of plane and there are more Upper seats in the cabin.  The flight starts off better too, going via Heathrow you get the drive-thru checkin+private security channel+ str8 into a better clubhouse.  LGW is quite bad comparatively.  Not that its a big issue, but the whole point of being checked in from your car is to get out the car and walk straight into the clubhouse.  At Gatwick, they check you in from your car and then drive you round the front and you go through the scrum at the front of the airport with everyone else.

That said, you still land in LA.  If you really wanted to take a day in LA I guess its ok.  If you are just planning on getting the next available shuttle into LV, then I massively prefer just flying direct to Vegas in the first place.

I guess I've never had too many problems getting what I wanted and so couldn't understand others moaning about availability. But then I definitely am sat there watching the website from even before the seats are released and for some reason it hadn't really dawned on me (until I talked to someone about it) that not everyone does that.  The person in question just pulled up a seat map for the next month and complained there wasn't much there.....