Virgin Atlantic - Unfair Pricing / Dissapearing Seats

NewlySingle

It really bugs me when websites are deliberately misleading and Virgin Atlantic have really got my goat today!!!

Hubby and I work at a company who's primary customer base is in the USA - which involves lots of overseas travelling for both ourselves and other members of staff we have to book flights for. We like the USA so we also take our annual holiday there too.
We've spent tens of thousands of pounds with Virgin Atlantic and both ended up as Gold Members. Until the past few months we've been very happy with their service.

Recently there have been a series of glitches which have resulted in us dealing with their customer service department - the experience has not been good. Today when I tried to get an explanation of why seats (and their accompanying fares) were disappearing mid booking, I was told if I don't like the price then don't book!

My search was for a return journey London to Washington in Premium Economy.
Which turned up this £538.25 out + £354.20 back
Total £892.45 per person + taxes.

I thought that wasn't too bad but then realized they had a great price on the outward journey for upper class thought we could fly our upper and back premium...
£866.75 Upper out + premium back £354.20
Total £1220.95 per person + taxes (a great price including an upper class flight!)

However when you click on the £866.75 upper option apparently the rest of the plane is immediately FULL!!! :mad:



There are clearly seats available as if I click back to premium on the outward flight they reappear which means the only way to get the outward flight fare is to pay £1701.20 for the return flight for a total of £2567.95!!
This is £1347 more than the combination displayed and it even includes a £402 increase on the £1299.20 that was previously available on the flight back

I know prices can change on availability when you're booking tickets but these kind of "now you see it, now you don't" fare shenanigans make the whole process ludicrous.
If this was a high street shop displaying a outbound and return fare together like this they would be made to either honour it or withdraw the error, yet Virgin seems to just expect their customers to shut up or fly with another carrier...

Is it actually legal to change pricing like this?
I understand that Virgin might need to achieve a minimum fare per seat but surely it would be easier to just put that onto one flight, rather than have disappearing seats and forcing a higher price on the return leg to bump the overall fare up... (which seems both dishonest and like false advertising of fares to me).

Can anyone provide any input into this?
Sorry for the incredibly long post - just wondered if anyone else had similar frustrations?

Thanks All
Nic

Obviously_the_best

Yes, it's very simple. In that fare class, they'll only allow you to buy a single class return, so same class both ways. You can get around it by buying 2 singles.

richardw

It's all about booking classes and the fare rules.
In your case it appears the fare rules prevent split travel class combinations.

InsideInsurance

Yes, they are selling you a package.

When you pick a non-flexible ticket outbound they block you from booking a flexible inbound. Likewise, pick a non-flexible upper class outbound and you can only pick a non-flexible upper back. If you select flexible upper you can have any class on the return leg (but must be flexible).

That said, sometimes what they can do on the phone is different to what the website allows you to do, but there may be an admin fee to pay. I know when I booked a BA flight to India but returning from a different city the website was quoting something like £3k pp for PE but the call centre were able to do it for £800 pp and then an Avios upgrade to CW

NewlySingle

Hmm the "fare rules" seem to be determined by whatever the minimum price for the return trip including upper has been set to (not sure if this applies to premium and economy)

I've done some experiments and the "flexible only available with flexible" combos (as mentioned by InsideInsurance - thank you) make logical and customer friendly sense.

I've been able to mix premium and economy and I've been able to able to mix lowest upper with lowest premium producing
£538.25 Premium Lowest out and the £1299.20 Upper Lowest back.
Total £1837.45 per person

(£730.50 cheaper than the Upper only allowed with Upper £2567.95 forced choice option including the £866.75 Upper fare)

The fare rules seem determined by what the total cost is - in which case the £866.75 fare just seems to be misleading
(and maybe should not be shown in conjunction with fares that suddenly disappear and are replaced with a claim of "no seats available")

There must be a better way for a company like Virgin to get their minimum seat cost in without having such misleading pages.
Nic

Caz3121

when you select one part of the return, the fares that you cannot combine that fare with will disappear leaving the ones that you can. Many airlines have this, you would need to dig deep into fare rules to find each scenario. The ITA website should give you this information

richardw

NewlySingle wrote: »

Hmm the "fare rules" seem to be determined by whatever the minimum price for the return trip including upper has been set to...

Airlines have lots of fare rules, you are trying to be simplistic, they are more complex.

NewlySingle

I guess it was the "no seats available" that particularly bugged me - a "that combination not available" may have been easier to understand.
However the price of the Upper back also increasing by £402 is less easy to justify as it wasn't the price displayed at the time the £866.75 was selected...

To be honest if this is standard practice then maybe the whole industry should be looked at by an independent body.

Nic

richardw

NewlySingle wrote: »

...To be honest if this is standard practice then maybe the whole industry should be looked at by an independent body....

Why? They invented a system to maximise revenues, just like any commercial business would do.

bigadaj

Also they are not very good at pricing things as most airlines seem to run losses for years and years.

zerog

NewlySingle wrote: »

I guess it was the "no seats available" that particularly bugged me - a "that combination not available" may have been easier to understand.

Fair point but in airline terminology a "seat" means a seat in a particular booking class - see http://v-flyer.com/the-toolbox/fare-codes

For example there may be more than 9 seats available in W, but no seats available in H, H is much cheaper but also more restricted than W, however once your bum is in the physical seat there will be no difference in the in-flight experience