[Anonymous]

[eirtraveller]

Thought I would share this: honestly, I don’t expect much with my airmiles, but this I can’t make sense of.

Trying to spend Virgin miles that have been sitting unused for 2 or 3 years. The last time I managed to make a redemption, BMI was in existence and had a reasonable relationship with Virgin. I’m travelling from Dublin – and this all worked quite well.

I spoke to a very helpful Virgin agent on the phone yesterday – the objective: to find 1 or 2 upgrades to Upper transatlantic to NYC, from Dublin, through LHR. You can’t even choose DUB at all on the Virgin website anymore, so how they get any passengers through from Ireland, I don’t know.

After quite some time of looking at dates – she found one option in the months of September and October – booking a “qualifying” PremEcon fare and upgrading, but only one way. Return was just in PremEcon.
The grand total: €1900 for 1 ticket + 10,000 miles. Any time around those dates I would also have the option to fly Business in Aer Lingus for €1400 or fully Biz all the way on BA for €2000.

Net result, I cannot find a justifiable way to use the miles as an upgrade tool. Which is fine, I know how this all works, but mainly provides me no incentive whatsoever to fly with Virgin over airlines that are *comparatively* easy to get redemption with.

Not a rant…..just some thoughts!

[Ellwood]

I am planning to use my mileage balance for over 25 return trips to MAN, EDI and ABZ as these seem to be the only redemption options that are good value.

I can’t see any UC to anywhere (except Tokyo) at any decent times and so am happy to pretty much write off a lot of miles and use them for weekends visiting friends and relatives who will wonder why I am suddenly there every weekend!

[Julian8]

I think the problem is miles seats are often not released far in advance as the plan is to sell them. It is a business and needs to maximise revenues so this is not unreasonable.
I think you will find a better chance of reward seats a week or two from departure than several months ahead.

[Jimmer7]

Good luck with that is my first thought!

My experience redeeming miles with Virgin was extremely painful as they have one of the most difficult to redeem mileage policies in the air.

Last year I had 120k to use up with the idea that I could buy a couple of premium economy tickets and then upgrade to upper class with miles. Turned out that:
a) You need a certain class premium economy tickets to be eligible for an upgrade (normally more expensive than discounted upper class anyway)
b) There is never more than one seat available on whatever flight you are trying to redeem against no matter when you are travelling.

The conclusion I reached was it is best not to try and upgrade with miles but redeem against a free flight and pay the tax instead. Even then you will struggle on the popular routes.
In the end I managed to get a free upper class flight to Vancouver as it was shortly after they launched that route so availability was good. The only other place that I could get was Capetown.
Another point which you have already seemed to cotton on to is to speak directly with the upper class flying club as they are considerably more helpful than trying to find a flight on the website.
Since redeeming my miles I’ve shredded the flying club card as it’s pretty useless and changed airlines.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

You are much better to redeem points outright for a flight on Virgin, rather than use to Upgrade a sector from premium to business. But you should also check with an agent what fares they have in premium (that are upgradeable) as a Premium from London to New York can be got for less than €1900 (and upgradeable). However you may have to split ticket which can be problematic should there be any delays.

Either way – save up points and use outright. However if you are a corporate you should also enrol in Flying Co, the corporate scheme. If there are no seats to upgrade instantly on there scheme they will waitlist you and you get it at the airport if seats come free, so much better.

[eirtraveller]

Yes, good advice. I understand finding reward seats is – depending on your approach – very frustrating or something of a game. The main shock in all of this was that I could, almost any time, pay less elsewhere and get more – even if Virgin had bags of seats available.

Due to them having no feeder airline alliances from Ireland, part of the €1900 (a whopping 450) was for a connecting flight on Aer Lingus from Dublin.

In contrast, I’ve been able to use BA miles and Aer Lingus miles very usefully over the years – and BA’s website is much easier to figure out. Virgin’s feels like searching for peace in the Middle East. It’s a shame, I enjoy flying Virgin – but I don’t think they’ll get much business from me any day soon…

[Shearer]

This might help.

Works from London only. I think.

http://www.rewardseats.com/

Availability in G class (Upper Class Reward class) to NYC is difficult on Fri and Sun

[Cloud-9]

Typical Virgin (any company with that name!).
Nice and glossy appearance: it is not until you scratch beneath the surface that the rot appears.

[Shearer]

Surely all a bit harsh?

Virgin don’t fly from Dublin so you’re not going to get same connectivity than BA can offer.

The Virgin website gives a month grid for straight forward redemptions, so if you are looking for Upper Class just type in a date and click ‘Redeem Miles’.

The best value for miles is actually to upgrade from Y or PE to J and this is where VS make it tricky and where their site falls over.

I do hope you have success – I am flying with them in November and can’t wait!

[judynagy]

I’ve had mixed experrience with purchasing an Econ or Prem Econ and upgrading to Upper … availability is OK out of New York if you’re fairly flexible but really difficult from San Francisco, my home airport. I’ll give them one more chance for a trip in 2014 but if they remain so stingy with the Upper Class tix, I’ll form another loyalty bond. Their res agents are lovely to deal with, tho.

[GrahamC]

eirtraveller, it sounds like you’er looking at a Miles Plus Money redemption. These very rarely represent good value, in fact you’ll often find it cheaper just to book the ticket for cash.

I’d book the flight from Dublin as a separate (paid) ticket and concentrate efforts on trying to find reward availability on the London to New York flight.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Judynagy

Do you fly on corporate business (or have your own business). If so then look at Flying Co which allows you to waitlist upgrades. My client had this coming back from SFO to LHR and even though the flight was only only selling 2 Full fare Business Class seats when booked (and zero a couple of days before he travelled) he got to use Flying Co points and upgrade at Check In. It is only 10,000 points for a one way upgrade (slightly lower earning rates than Flying Club) and if you use some fares only available through agents you can get cheaper S Class flexible fares that are upgradeable using either set of points.

[judynagy]

This is good to know, Tim, I wish I was more flexible.. My Virgin flights are mostly for vacations, and if I can’t confirm first when I book, I won’t go. I tried this tactic with Continental years ago and found that I was looking at the trip with dread until the waitlist finally cleared. I like to ENJOY thinking about an upcoming trip! I do own the business so I can be pretty flexible about timing. Virgin tells me to book 11 months out for decent availability,, so we’ll see how that goes next month for a trip to Germany.

[MarcusUK]

I recently decided to ditch Virgin Atlantic, least year.
I held a Gold card with them and when possible long haul flighyts in U/C or medium in PE.
Experiences were always getting poor on board with various regular problems, and the consistency just got so predictably bad.

The Club miles were an on going issue, and hassle. Using the shopping section to actually book flights and travel earned a lot of miles, but was constant hassle to have them awarded some taking months. You complain, but after spending months for a few miles at a time, you realise it is not worth your time, and they do not care either.

I accumulated 250,000 miles, and decided enough was enough.
I booked 2 Business Class returns on the Malaysia Airlines A380 LHR – KUL. You can use your miles on their partners, and better Airlines, and not always for more miles.

VS sneekily incresed the miled needed for free flights by 20% last year, on some routes(HKG and CPT for eg) and also the level miles needed by 25% for your Gold level. Miles earned stayed the same for low fare cabin classes, such as Z in UC.

The charges they levy on Ex LHR flights for redemptions are really some of the highest of any Airline, with fuel surcharges exceeding £450.
If you use your miles One way INTO LHR you dont pay for these?!

Total charges ex HKG-LHR are £49 in U/C if you can find a seat.
Outwards is over £450+ in total, each seat

So i spent the lot on the MH A380 and went out with a bang.
I haven’t and wont fly with them again, as they administer the FFP so badly, and it is less value and hardly any avaialability.
The upgrades or Companion vouchers are so expensive in class you must pay, that is is cheaper to buy both tickets.

The cloaked changes mean less value, for more mile, less availability for an Airline who’s standards have been going down and down. I hear and see people leaving them regularly, and dropping their FF program to switch to more decent ones and Airlines with bigger groups.

I highly recommend to use your miles into LHR on a full flight redemption,wherever possible or book another partner Airline return ticket, with your miles, and leave VS FC.

Sad but, that;s the score with VS these days.

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