Virgin Credit Card Air Miles Rip Off!!!

Deepskisam

Hi all,

New to the forums so please bear with me.

A few years ago I decided to take out the Virgin Atlantic Air miles credit card. I looked upon it as long as I paid of my balance every month I would soon tally up enough air miles to go on holiday.

I am now in the position that I have saved in excess of 80,000 miles. I decided to book a holiday with Virgin to Australia.

I would take them up on their offer of a companion flight or an upgrade to the flight which I was paying for.

Being a bit of a planner I decided to plan well in advance and a year before the date I wanted to fly i called Virgin and asked what was available. they informed me that I could buy any ticket for the flight but that there were no upgrades or companion flights available. They explained that you can only book a year and advance and there were none available.

I then asked if I called at midnight the following day when the flight for a years time would be released could I get a seat. They said to try but alas the same thing the next day. I then asked if there were any seats available to anywhere with the air miles as I wished to spend them. I was politely informed that there were none available.

I have now had to pay cash for 2 return flights to Australia with no upgrades available unless I go first class. If I had that kind of money I am pretty sure I would not be on here complaining about collecting air miles.

I am extremely disappointed that they can allow me to spend so much money on their card on the understanding that I can use them to get flights yet when I try I cannot get a flight. I am fully flexible for the next 5 years as to when they let me have a flight but to no avail.

No idea what my next step should be. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Maybe if someone has Richard Bransons' address that may help but no doubt he has sold this part of his empire on.:mad:

maggie46

I need to vent my frustration, and anger and this is the only place where i think I might find some sympathy

Over a year ago i signed up for the black virgin atlantic credit card (american express) It cost £115 a year, but promised big rewards, for example for every pound i spend i get 2 airmiles with virgin, and when i spent more than £5000 in one year i get a free upgrade from economy to economy premier with virgin atlantic

I have just paid another £115 yearly fee, I have also amassed well over 100.000 airmiles

So i am travelling to new york this month with virgin atlantic FOR THE LAST TIME, AND I AM CANCELLING MY CREDT CARD

WHY: i rang virgin atlantic to book my economy flight and use my free upgrade they where very pleasant, but could not give me the flights i wanted, saying they where unavailable (not if i was booking online and not claiming free miles). so i accepted the flights they gave me and then they said i would have to pay the fuel surcharge and tax, which came to £291.

If i just booked online with economy it would have cost me £335, I do not think i got a good deal there is nothing free with virgin and what have i paid £230 for a credit card for, tell me have i been ripped offMr. Lewis???????

ElusiveLucy

Airline flights are usually made available about 11 months ahead of the date of travel. They have very limited allocations for free/upgrade/companion flights and these do change over time.

I have a Flying Club credit card and have just booked a free economy flight for April/May next year to Barbados, and then used a free Premium Economy upgrade I got from the credit card. Of course I had to pay the taxes (in this case £287), but with the other ticket we bought being in a sale we did manage to save about £600 in total. I also used a free companion ticket last year, however because the paid-for ticket has to be booked in certain (more expensive) classes, and the taxes on the "free" flight still had to be paid, this wasn't a massive saving.

The woman I spoke to at VA said that they do sometimes make free flight allocations available nearer the time of travel, but if you're looking to book a big trip you don't really want to leave your flight unbooked til then.

emmah123

we had same problem not being able to use airmiles on trip to vegas we had enough to go for free 2 return flights next may we were told that there was no avaliablity at all using airmiles to vegas the lady told me that it was a very popular destination and didnt very often get people able to book using airmiles but amazingly we could book if we paid the full price!!!!

oxmatt

I also have the Virgin Black Amex and have been very pleased with my rewards. First of all because of the taxes it is nearly always a complete waste of time using miles to pay for an economy flight anywhere. As you have mentioned a cheap economy ticket to the US (e.g. New York) is often £350 of which £290 is taxes and fees. Therefore 45,000 to save £50 is pretty pointless. However 45,000 plus an upgrade voucher to PE, or 65,000 miles to save £300 on a premiume economy ticket is pretty good and paying 90,000 miles to save £1500 or so on a business class seat is a very good deal.

If you compare these to cashback credit cards you are getting a very good rate of return if you try and save for the premium classes - not so good if you look at economy. You can also look at buying certain economy tickets (semi-flexible - not the cheapest ones) and using the miles to upgrade to higher classes.

As for availability Las Vegas, Orlando and Australia are very difficult routes to get rewards in any class as it is so busy. New York, Los Angeles, Washington, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston etc are much easier.

It does take a bit of planning and you may need to be flexible with dates but you can get some very good deals but you need to save enough to go for the higher classes to get a good deal.

Emma - you could probably get a flight to San Francisco or LA and connect on to an internal flight in the US for around £50 - it would be about an hour flight down to LV from there and both are interesting cities too.

kingjs

I had the VA Black card for 2 years, and in that time managed to amass 100,000 miles , but that was with the help of friends and family who if travelling on Virgin got them to book on my card as you would get 4 miles per £ spend.

I never once used the free premium economy upgrade , companion flight that was rewarded as they are pretty much usless due to not having availability and prices being a rip off.

But I managed to book myself a upper class flight to Johannesburg on Xmas Eve for 100,000 miles + £440 in taxes. In effect its cost me £440 + £230 (2 years annual fee for card) but it was worth it as my aim from the outset was to fly Upper Class + use Virgins clubhouse at heathrow which is amazing.

I booked it 3 months in advance online where availability was low, but as it got closer to the time, there were plenty dates available.

Overall if you know you have a year of big expenses, then its worth saving for miles especially if you are going to use the Heathrow club house.