Companion and upgrade advice please!

Originally posted by Tim
Just to hijack this thread.....

How do you find out if you have earnt an upgrade?.
I have had the white card since it was first introduced, my FC account shows a 'VAA Credit Card Companion Flight Qualification', but there is no sign of the upgrade qualification.

Would I be correct in saying that if I qualified for a companion (spend £15000) then I should also have earnt an upgrade ( spend £10000)

Thanks,
Tim

The voucher will appear on your flying club statement online similar to "23 May 2007 VAA Credit Card Companion Flight Qualification" or "25 Jul 2007 VAA Credit Card Econ>Premium Reward Upgrade".

I hope I have this round the right way: The Companion voucher appears when you have reached the spending threshold for it, and the upgrade voucher appears on your card anniversary date.

I tried the search option, but could not find an answer.....so I apologise for being a numpty, but how do you get Amex upgrade vouchers and companion tickets?? I've got the black Amex and about 300,000miles.

thanks

Originally posted by sunsational
I tried the search option, but could not find an answer.....so I apologise for being a numpty, but how do you get Amex upgrade vouchers and companion tickets?? I've got the black Amex and about 300,000miles.

thanks

All in the MBNA blurb (somebody clever do a link please as it's still beyond my technological capabilities).On the black card spend £5,000 and earn an upgrade voucher (max 2 a year) spend £10,000 earn a companion voucher (max 1 a year). Both get deposited in FC account automatically.

[Pete]

On a related note, can the Amex PE Upgrade Reward be used on an ordinary mileage companion reward, or indeed on the Gold Card renewal companion reward? I suspect the answer is yes, because they would all be booked into T class - but worth checking, eh?

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by Pete
On a related note, can the Amex PE Upgrade Reward be used on an ordinary mileage companion reward, or indeed on the Gold Card renewal companion reward? I suspect the answer is yes, because they would all be booked into T class - but worth checking, eh?

Yes, all fine to use one on a normal reward economy ticket booked in T class.

So for using the companion ticket, then using the Amex PE upgrade 'voucher' for the companion, what's the best course of action - ask to speak to FC support? I need to book quite soon.
Cheers

RESULT[^]

I have just received a call from Virgin apologising and crediting me with the 50k miles that I neednÕt have spent. Interestingly she said that they were clarifying the T+Cs on their website and with their staff members as the current wording left most of them erring on the side of caution. I would like to publicly thank LRoM as I am sure his influence Ôgreased the wheelsÕ[oo]

Perhaps I should ask for the £800 back I need not have spent ?

[RichardMannion]

And now for the bad news!

VS have now closed the so-called 'loophole'. You can no longer combine a companion reward (be it VS AX or VS Au) with a VS AmEx upgrade reward.

There goes another nail in the VS AmEx coffin in my book. So you spend your money, and are limited to what you can use and when.

If you spend £10k on your black £110 AmEx, you will then need to drop the full amount of miles for an Economy reward so you can then use your 'reward' upgrades? I think not.

Thanks,
Richard

I agree, the PE upgrade should be incredibly flexible, and in my opinion should be used a check in to upgrade any Economy, Miles, companion or purchased Economy.

I am beginning to question the Black Amex card....

Grrr I knew I should have booked it sooner! That is a ridiculous policy.

[Nottingham Nick]

I suppose the secret of a marketing hook is to make it look attractive, but to make sure it isn't going to cost much money. [n]

For me, this sums up the whole companion ticket and upgrade saga. I have never used any of my vouchers. I don't foresee myself ever booking an economy seat with miles - I prefer to save up for UC seats, so the PE upgrade voucher is no use.

Unless it is really cost effective, I don't see myself splashing out on the expensive fare buckets to use the companion voucher - especially as the companion won't earn points for the flight.

Unlike others, however, I am not disenchanted with the Black Amex card. Given the amount of points I gain each year, I consider the annual fee to be money well spent.

I would much prefer it to be a Visa or a Mastercard, and I am no great fan of MBNA, but until someone can point me to another card that gets me so many FC points, I will stick with it.

Nick

Can the Amex PE Rewards be used with the Discounted Mileage offers , i.e the 36K to New York ?

Yes they can, did it earlier this year to Chicago

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by AndyK
Yes they can, did it earlier this year to Chicago

Not anymore. They can only be used on full Economy redemption flights now.

If you think this change is a bad move, then let your thoughts be known here in this thread. I'm going to be following up with the relevant team at VS as this is a major step backwards in my book.

WHY NOT???

That would have been the only time I'd use miles towards a Y (then PE) flight GRRRRRR!!!

Next year I will focus on BA miles accrual - that combined with the BA Amex 241 is a FAR better deal.

[Pete]

Definitely a bad move. As it stands, the only sensible option for use of a companion reward today is for Premium as an S class + the tax on a PE reward is less than two Ks - but even that's marginal, when you consider that reward is non-earning, and the second K could be earning you (or your partner) 1.5 x base miles.

The restrictions on using miles with qualifying fares are making anything other than an outright reward flight look less and less attractive - and as people struggle to see the value, they'll either (best case) shrug their shoulders and ignore the point of loyalty marketing, or (worse case), be thoroughly frustrated with the whole thing, which has the effect of backfiring when the customer votes with their feet.

Perhaps it's time for a radical re-think of the rules and restrictions around upgrade and companion rewards. And if the revenue guys start squealing about giving away too much, re-evaluate the reward levels or the availability.

Where, for instance, is the sense in an Upper Class companion reward if you have to pay circa £4500 for a J fare to cash it in, when Z fares can be had pretty much the whole year round at sub-£2K. That gives you mileage on both tickets, and plenty to pay the 4 limo transfers. It makes a mockery of the system.

Originally posted by RichardMannion

Originally posted by AndyK
Yes they can, did it earlier this year to Chicago

Not anymore. They can only be used on full Economy redemption flights now.

If you think this change is a bad move, then let your thoughts be known here in this thread. I'm going to be following up with the relevant team at VS as this is a major step backwards in my book.

This is such a retrograde step. If this is really the case the extended DL family(and there's a few of them) will be using their miles up and going somwhere else[n][n][n].Bye bye £115 annual fee (or whatever it is) for several family members and lots of revenue income to boot. For the last 15 years I've flown VS where possible ( even when a tad inconvenient) because I've felt that the experience has been justified.OK I'm a "leisure traveller" but I still have a choice.Mr DL no longer "needs" to to travel transatlantic (180 miles a day up and down the M4 is quite sufficent TVM [:(])so he's not bothered either.
VS please take note- customer dissatisfaction is not a good thing![n]

NUTS!![n][n][V][V]

I find the BA Credit Card mileage redemption much better. For example the companion redemtion is a matching miles ticket. You spend 50K or 100K on a ticket and you get one free+Taxes.

The net effect is that a companion ticket is worth something, whereas the Virgin ones are not. A marginal saving on my PE ticket to JNB in April was a joke.

A companion ticket should match what you buy. Discounted or not. A PE upgrade should upgrade to PE, on any ticket that is not an N, matching the mileage upgrade rules. Virgin make it overly complex , the first principal should be to keep it simple.

To me the Virgin Companion ticket and Credit Card upgrades are worthless. I've started using my BA card more again, and following an excellent New Club World reward trip to New York, will probably stop using Virgin to fly to Denver via Washington and use BA instead.

At the end of this year I'll have 2 companion rewards and 2 PE upgrades that the booking inflexibility will probably mean they will expire without me being able to use them at an advantageous level. If there is no perceived value, I'm beginning to feel I've wasted my time and affiliation.

I hope this Voice of the Customer feedback does get back to Virgin. I like their service, they need to give the customers who qualify for these loyalty rewards a little more scope to use them. As not being able to use them, or actually save some cost actually has the opposite effect on brand loyalty.

Rant over.

Mark
(Open to being invited to a focus group on this)

This is rubbish. The ability to upgrade companion flights using these Amex vouchers just about made up for the uselessness of companion tickets. Executive Club is looking more and more tempting, especially given the amount of miles I can rack up at Tesco.

Cheers,

Ben

So, they move the goal posts after the game starts. you pay the annual fee because of the currant offer on the table, then they are allowed ot wipe that offer out at any given time. Another sneaky thing they do with the card is make it good for 2 years, so that if you forget to cancel it before the anniversary date, you get lumbered with another £113? fee. I also remember reading in another post that if you cancel your Amex card, all miles earned in the last month do not get allocated to your account. Enough is enough, my anniversary is due next month and I have phoned Virgin to put my cancellation into effect.[n]

[Nottingham Nick]

Well said.
There are a lot of cards out there, if people feel they can get a better deal elsewhere, they should vote with their feet.

If enough people cancel their cards it may cause a rethink, but I am not holding my breath. (nor am I cancelling my card, though [:I] )

Nick