Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points - Half price sale!

WellTravelled

Just a note on anyone thinking of using the VA Companion flights. You get these on the Black Card after just £7,500 spend. This is in addition to the free PE upgrade you get when you hit £5k spend. The miles required are doubled for the White Card.

Anyway, the biggest issue I have with the VA system is that you can only upgrade \ use companion flights on the most expensive fare classes. This makes the deal very unattractive as most discount fares are 1/2 the price of the full fare anyway.

The main attraction of the Companion ticket is to be able to take the other half on a trip paid for by your company (assuming its travel policy is to fly you Business Class). This is the only scenario I can think of that is any use.

I would love to hear from people with other experiences though as I have a companion ticket burning a whole in my account >8 )

_Andy_

WellTravelled wrote: »

Just a note on anyone thinking of using the VA Companion flights. You get these on the Black Card after just £7,500 spend. This is in addition to the free PE upgrade you get when you hit £5k spend. The miles required are doubled for the White Card.

Anyway, the biggest issue I have with the VA system is that you can only upgrade \ use companion flights on the most expensive fare classes. This makes the deal very unattractive as most discount fares are 1/2 the price of the full fare anyway.

The main attraction of the Companion ticket is to be able to take the other half on a trip paid for by your company (assuming its travel policy is to fly you Business Class). This is the only scenario I can think of that is any use.

I would love to hear from people with other experiences though as I have a companion ticket burning a whole in my account >8 )

I find 'L' fares reasonably good value - e.g. I've bought an L return LHR-SFO for c£700 this year and using 60k miles to up to 'G'.
Agreed with you about companion tickets - although this does depend on time of year (i.e at peak times they can provide good value). E.g. 2xPE, one as 'S', the other companion.

thelawnet

johnedwards3005 wrote: »

Nobody has mentioned that (in my opinion) the very best value Virgin Atlantic flight redemption is straight Upper Class (NOT upgrading). OK, it takes 100,000 miles return (each!) for most destinations and the taxes etc are higher (although there are occasional reductions) but you're getting many £000 in 'value'.

Well not really.

A Faberg! egg is 'worth' millions of pounds, but not to me, to me it's worth perhaps £500.

That being so, a return business class ticket is, for the vast majority of fliers, not really 'worth' more than a few hundred pounds more than the economy ticket. It's no use saying you got a £5000 seat for a few miles and some fees, when there's no way in hell you would have paid £5000 for it in the first place, and given that it's non-durable, after the flight is over you're left with nothing.

People only make miles worthwhile by buying into the premium travel cult.

malkie76

when there's no way in hell you would have paid £5000 for it in the first place

I disagree slightly - once you've experienced premium travel it's extremely hard to ever fly at the back of the plane again; if you really value your personal comfort then you may be inclined to pay for it.

For some people part of the fun of a holiday is the comfort of travel there, rather than being something that's painful.

However I do agree that the premium customers get to the destination at exactly the same time as the economy passenger (at least post SST). It also becomes very dull very quickly if experienced regularly as part of your job.

thelawnet

malkie76 wrote: »

I disagree slightly - once you've experienced premium travel it's extremely hard to ever fly at the back of the plane again; if you really value your personal comfort then you may be inclined to pay for it.

Well yes, I agree that the frequent flyer clubs do a very good job of upselling to the joys of business/first class. They do a good job in getting people to spend significantly more money with the airline, as, as you say, people suddenly become convinced that a much comfier seat and better food + beverage is worth hundreds or thousands extra.

Compare a basic hotel at say £60/night, a luxury one at £200/night, or a super-luxury one at £500/night, then £5,000 extra for 2 return business class flights doesn't look great value....

malkie76

It's each to their own I guess, and I can't actually disagree with your post - it is a lot if money for a seat in a metal tube. However for business reasons a proper sleep ahead of landing is priceless, and even if on holiday I'd prefer not to spend the first day getting over jet lag, and hence I'm prepared to pay.

Other people could argue that the money is better spent on activites when on holiday; better meals or a more expensive hotel. I'd say have both, but that's me! I'd prefer to holiday less often and have an amazing time than compromise my comfort at any point of my holiday.

Most people don't have an issue with economy flying; it's just a means to getting to a new location. I'm 6foot4 and struggle with economy seating - it's really not how I want to strart a holiday. The better food and drink on board is a bit of a red-herring; it's not that much better - you'd be better grabbing a carry-on hamper from PlaneFood including champers! It's all about the personal space for me.

thelawnet

malkie76 wrote: »

Most people don't have an issue with economy flying; it's just a means to getting to a new location. I'm 6foot4 and struggle with economy seating - it's really not how I want to strart a holiday. The better food and drink on board is a bit of a red-herring; it's not that much better - you'd be better grabbing a carry-on hamper from PlaneFood including champers! It's all about the personal space for me.

Not if you're flying on Virgin

malkie76

I'm not entirely sure what you mean ?

thelawnet

malkie76 wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure what you mean ?

PlaneFood is in Heathrow T5, which only serves BA, not Virgin.

malkie76

Gotcha! I'm sure there are some sort of equivalent at T3 with Virgin (I only tend to fly BA long haul)