Why is Virgin Atlantic more expensive WITH airmiles?

[Deleted User]

I am looking at booking a trip to Tokyo in the new year. It's been getting more expensive over the past few years but when I looked just now it was cheaper if I didn't spend airmiles!

The normal price is £617. If I do miles+money it jumps to £626 and 2000 airmiles!

I might try calling them on Thursday, just to hear the explanation. Same flight, same class (economy).

Unfortunately I am pretty much stuck with Virgin. It isn't worth saving ~£50 and flying via Europe and Virgin have the best arrival time (9.30AM so you can use that first day). The only other people who go direct are BA (I'm not mad enough to risk them) and JAL. I went with JAL once and while their flight was by far the most pleasant they arrive late in the evening. Since I normally sleep on the plane that means massive jetlag.

Doshwaster

Buying economy tickets with miles is usually not very economical as you must pay the tax yourself. On some tickets tax takes up a large proportion of the total price - so you don't save much. However, I can't explain why it is cheaper without any points! Probably something to do with the availability of different "fare buckets". Airline ticketing pricing logic is an advanced branch of hyperdimensional maths which us mortals aren't meant to understand.

You are usually better off buying an economy ticket and using miles to upgrade to a nicer seat.

malkie76

Doshwaster wrote: »

Probably something to do with the availability of different "fare buckets".

Thats the answer - similarly it's often cheaper to buy a deep discount PE ticket than a full fare economy ticket.

2000 miles are almost worthless, so never expect to get much money off with such a low volume of miles.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the info. I have a 12,000 miles but as you say they are almost worthless.

The same thing happened last year and since I didn't spend miles that time I expected to gain them, but they don't seem to have been added to my total. I will look into it.

ferf1223

It depends on when, where, how long in advance you're booking...we could save about £90 each booking flights to Vegas next April with M+M. We won't because we'll fly AA instead, but we could.

I think some routes have more M+M availability, or some routes sell out on M+M availability faster, but it's worth checking at least.

photome

I disagree about 2000 miles being useless. I saved close on 100 ponds a ticket on my LAS flight this year using M +M with 2000 miles with Virgin

[Deleted User]

I am looking at booking for late February.

The lowest price I ever had was around £350 with Virgin. It's usually more like £550 though. This year it has gone up even more. The exchange rate is terrible too - a few years ago you got 225 yen to the pound, now you only get about 130 yen to the pound. Everything there is 2x as expensive as it was a few years ago!

The Euro seems to have held up much better, but since we are not in it and our currency is pretty small fry on the global stage we are suffering badly on exchange rates.