Nick is pretty close. [:)]
I wrote a chapter about this ages ago, that will help here
Overbooking
A lot of people don't know that every airline overbooks its flights, and by overbook I mean sell more seats than are actually physical present. You may ask why they do this, and it is simply down to the fact that there is an ever present of no-shows for fights, some intentional and some not. By deliberate I mean, planned due to the flexibility of the ticket purchased. Plans change, and sometimes people have to shorten or extend their trip (normally business travelers) and as such they change their flights; of course they need to have a qualifying fare type, some incur a change fee, some include changes free of charge but these tend to be the most expensive fare types within the class of travel. Of course, there is the unintentional no shows, vast majority caused by transportation issues to the airport (the great tarmac car parks known as the M25 and M4 are well known culprits!). There is a great amount of calculation that happens in the background (by the Revenue Management department) that control the loads on the plane, and by how much it is oversold. Remember that even if a flight is completely sold-out, a flying club Gold member can still get an Economy seat on the flight, as long as they give 72 hours notice and pay full economy fare (Y fare class). So what happens, if more people turn up and check-in on time for the flight than the capacity (and just to let you know, Virgin policy states that customers can not fly in jump seats), well this is where Involuntary Denied Boarding (IDB) and Voluntary Denied Boarding (VDB) come into play. So what is the difference? Ultimately, not that much in terms of catching your flight as both mean you don't get on the flight. At check-in, there will normally be an early indication if a flight is going to be over capacity as there will be the sales statistics that indicate loads for the day, especially if a previous flight has gone over or been cancelled.
At this point, check in staff will explain that the flight is over and begin to look for volunteers to change flights (hence Voluntary Denied Boarding); they will put you on a list of volunteers. When the flight closes for check-in one hour before the flight, they will check again to see the loads. If they do need to deny boarding to people, they will first process the volunteer list in time order (so those who were first to volunteer will be first asked). If they need 4 volunteers and they have a list of 10 volunteers, only the first 4 to check-in will be asked and given the compensation detailed below. This process is known as Voluntary Denied Boarding (VDB).
Hopefully, they get enough volunteers via VDB to correct the over-capacity issue. If not, then the next phase comes in to play which is Involuntary Denied Boarding (IDB), where passengers will be offloaded. Again they will be compensated for the inconvenience but slightly differently to VDB, see the table below for details. This is another good reason why you should turn up early for your flight, and not leave it to the last minute; as if they get to an IDB situation, guess who are going to be the prime candidates to be offloaded, the people that were the last to arrive to check-in.
Form of Denied Boarding and Delay to destination
Voluntary Denied Boarding (VDB)
Delay of less than 4 hours to destination: Green Select Voucher + standard DB options
Delay of more than 4 hours to destination: Red Select Voucher + standard DB options
Involuntary Denied Boarding (Non-US originating flight)
Delay of less than 4 hours to destination: Û300+ standard DB options
Delay of more than 4 hours to destination: Û600 + standard DB options
Involuntary Denied Boarding (US originating flight)
Delay of less than 4 hours to destination: $200 + standard DB options
Delay of more than 4 hours to destination: $300 + standard DB options
Red Select Vouchers
So you were given a Red Select voucher by Virgin Atlantic due to an oversell on a flight, what can you get with it?
- Free return economy flight to anywhere on the Virgin Atlantic network (must be a VS operated flight), including taxes you will have nothing to pay. The exception is the Sydney route, you cannot use a Red Select voucher for a free return flight on the Sydney route unless the Red Select voucher was issued for VDB on the Sydney route. Check to see for SYD IDB that its just one return flight
or
- 50,000 flying club miles
The voucher itself is a multi part carbon copy based document, the airport take the top leaf when it is issued, and you get the rest of the document. For either redemption options you will need to send in the physical voucher to Virgin Atlantic, more on this later. The voucher booklet will have various details logged on it: your name, unique reference number, space for your flying club number (if applicable), etc.
For the miles option, simply send the voucher booklet in with a letter to Virgin, that outlines the voucher number, your contact details and your flying club account number. If you don't have an account, then you can create one online at
http://www.virgin.com/flyingclub. Note that the miles can be credited to another person than the voucher was issued to, but you will need to follow the procedure detailed below about using the voucher for a friend/family. Bear in mind of course the miles in your account don't have to be spent on a flight/reward for you. At some stations, they will be able to process the addition of the miles to your account there on the spot, but at remote stations you will have to follow the process described above.
For the free return economy flight option, there are a few more items to be taken into consideration. First of all, you need to decide where you want to go and when, and then call Virgin Atlantic on your usual flying club number. In the background, the flying club agent will be checking to see if there is availability; Select voucher redemptions are made against the N fare class. If there is no availability showing in that fare class, they will have to get a supervisor to manually check to see if any Select vouchers have been utilized for that flight, and if so how many. The reason for this is that Revenue Management will open up additional seats in the relevant fare class (N) by up to 4 seats. So if you phone up, and there is no N class available per se but a manual check shows only 2 select vouchers have been redeemed for that flight, then Revenue Management will allow up to 2 more seats to be released into the 'pool' for Select utilization. Of course the upshot of this is that your preferred dates may not be available, so you may have to try a day or two either side.
So you've called flying club and a set of dates has been found, a provisional booking will be made for you and a 6 character booking locator will be given to you. What you then need to do is mail in your complete Select voucher booklet along with a quick note with your contact details and the 6 character booking locator that you are redeeming the Select voucher against. You will need to do this immediately after the provisional booking has been made as it is only held provisionally for 7 days, after this point if the 'Select' voucher has not been received, the booking will be cancelled. So a couple of tips, a) photocopy your voucher to keep for your records b) send your Select voucher in via Registered/Special Delivery. Of course, if you send your voucher in within the time window, the provisional booking becomes a full booking, and you will receive your e-ticket/paper ticket as per normal.
Green Select Voucher
The new recently introduced Green Select vouchers are issued for VDB if the delay to the destination is going to be less than 4 hours. The options that are available are:
- £250 Voucher than can be used against a published Virgin Atlantic fare or £250 towards the cost of a Virgin Holidays holiday Ð must be booked direct with Virgin Hoidays and not via an agent
Or
- 30,000 flying club miles
For either option, the same redemption processes apply as per a Red Select voucher.
Do I earn miles or Tier Points on Select voucher redemptions?
No, like all other redemption flights, Select bookings do not attract tier points (TP's) or flying club miles.
Can I use the Select voucher for a friend/family member?
Yes in exceptional circumstances, but the person who the voucher was issued to will need to send in a letter explaining that they authorize the third party to utilize the voucher, and send both the letter and the voucher booklet to Virgin Atlantic. It will then be reissued in the new person's name. A word of warning though, Select vouchers have no monetary value Ð do not attempt to sell them as they will be voided as this is against the terms and conditions of issue (I say this as people have advertised their Select vouchers on EBay)
How long is a Select Voucher Valid for?
Each select voucher type is valid for 18 months. That means it has to be used within an 18 month timeframe but a couple of points to bear in mind:
- If you transfer them to miles, then the usual flying club miles expiration policy applies (never expire as long as there is activity in the flying club account at least once every 3 years).
- For free flights, or utilization against a holiday or fare remember that you can book far in advance, it is just the voucher that has to be utilized within the 18 month window. So for use against a flight which can be booked upto 336 days in advance, you could utilize the voucher for nearly 2.5 years in the future.
Standard DB options
In all instances of 'Denied Boarding', you can choose one of the options in addition to the monetary or Select voucher compensation:
- travel on next available VS flight to destination, or via alternative routing within the booked class of travel
- travel to intended destination via an alternative carrier in same class booked
- date change of tickets to fly out and return at different dates, at no charge
- full refund of unused portions of ticket
