Virgin Atlantic - Unfair Pricing / Dissapearing Seats

budgetflyer

bigadaj wrote: »

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

Yes, its pretty clear that they have over complicated pricing. Most of the legacy carriers margins and profits are abysmal compared to the low cost carriers
Most people dont really care about fare buckets. They want either flexible or cheap. So really they only need 2 types of ticket for each class of travel. Easyjet have proven that.

Lh chart is 2012 figures. RH chart is % change from previous year

Chart 1 turn over


Chart 2 margins

NewlySingle

richardw wrote: »

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

True but most commercial businesses have to honour pricing as displayed - when I selected the £866.75 upper outward fare not only did the economy and premium options disappear but the previously displayed upper of £1299.20 increased by £402 to £1701.20. This meant the £866.75 fare displayed was not available with any combination of flights available on the initial screen. In most situations this would be seen as false advertising (a deal isn't a deal if you can't click on any combination to take advantage of it!).

bigadaj wrote: »

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

True - I found the whole experience to be very frustrating - if the airlines were easier to use maybe more people would book direct and they'd make better profits..

budgetflyer wrote: »

Yes, its pretty clear that they have over complicated pricing. Most of the legacy carriers margins and profits are abysmal compared to the low cost carriers
Most people dont really care about fare buckets. They want either flexible or cheap. So really they only need 2 types of ticket for each class of travel. Easyjet have proven that.

:T
I definitely agree, if fare pricing was simplified if would make it a lot easier to make travel arrangements. I don't have a problem with airlines making profit, but I'd prefer not to feel like they were trying to scalp me while handing over our hard earned cash!

Nic

bigadaj

The unfortunate truth is that airlines lose money not because of teh pricing system but because they are inefficient, at least long haul legacy carriers. Look at how difficult it was to sell virgin, if you wan transparent pricing then go for a full flexible fare, £2000+ for economy, all other options are discount and your complaint is only really that you can't get the right combination of discounted fares, which have been set to maximise revenues, so unsurprisingly you can't combine popular and easy times on discounted fares.

Business is business, companies maximise their retrurns and if you don't like virgin then go to ba, American, United etc

It's a bit like kolos aying in children's holidays, the market will move prices to the maximum they can bear, if you don't like it move your times or your location.

richardw

Having played around a bit on the Virgin website, it certainly does increase the inbound sector if £866.75 uc is selected.

Virgin does disclaim under Legal Information "the prices displayed above are subject to change and are not guaranteed"

So what's displayed can and does change, with the fare rules kicking in to make the changes.

budgetflyer

Its not just Virgin. Same has happened on BA.com to me.
ie last year pricing up LHR to BOM. out 4 April £288. back 19 April £344

Change the "back" date and the out price also changed

Out 4 April. 308 back 20 April 356.

They can call it what they like. Fare buckets, yield management, what ever. I call it a lost sale.
My last trip, their o so sophisticated and clever computer programme had a single from Malaga to LGW economy priced at 40 € . Club Europe was 800€ !! Club Europe was empty. ECONOMY packed. Id have paid 100 for CE no problem, but not 20 times the price.

NewlySingle

Yep it doesn't seem well worked out - we're slightly wider folk (I'm size 20) and we find the economy seats to uncomfortable to sit in for long periods.

The price difference between economy to premium seems to be worthwhile (we understand that they can't quite fit in as many rows as they have to recoup costs) but the price difference when you get to upper doesn't seem to be great value (unless there's an offer on or you can upgrade with your miles)

As frequent flyers it's a constant source of frustration that the pricing isn't more transparent and don't even get me started on trying to use miles up! :rotfl: