V-Flyer

Evening ladies and gents.

A couple of weeks ago I booked economy return, LHR-SFO through a Thomas Cook branch. Normally I wouldn't touch TC with a barge pole, however I had a large amount of vouchers through a work incentive scheme I wanted to use up.

I booked a 'Q' class fare 27/07/06 rtg 31/07/06 (for the marathon). £737.40. (ouch)

A week later I thought, the day after the marathon, I'm not going to be in great shape, let's see if I can pay the upgrade fee to 'L' and then use 30k miles to upper. (I.e. just the return leg)

I rang FC, they said I needed to get TC to upgrade it to 'L', then ring FC back to upgrade to 'G'. They said there was only one 'G' seat left.

So I ring TC. They fob me off and say they will ring me the next day. To cut a long story short, they managed to spend three days not doing what I asked, and each time claimed they couldn't get through to VS's travel agent department ("we were on hold for three hours" = sure you were!). Eventually I gave up and rang VS to see if they could sort it out, by which time the 'G' had gone. Hence me being livid with TC (complaint letter already sent).

So I have to face the thought of sitting in Y the day after the marathon.
Well, FC said once I've flown on the ticket (i.e. arrived in SFO), I can then ring them to upgrade the return leg as 'G' availablity may open up.

Does this happen much - do you think it's likely? Given it's a busy time of year, etc.

Cheers
Andy

There are only three cases where G availability will open up:

1) Revenue management feel it necessary to release more reward seats between 336 and 7 days before travel. VERY rare - but it HAS happened before. Don't bank on this - once the initial release is done 336 days before, they very rarely add inventory.

2) Someone cancels their reward seat on your flight. You'd have to check every day for this (it can be done online) - but it's an arduous task, and again, unlikely to happen.

3) 7 days before departure, VS do a release of more G/U/T seats for the flight, based on how full the flight is. If they're pretty empty, they tend to release a few more seats a week before to at least get *something* for the seat. You do, however, run the risk of leaving it to a week before to find out.


Eventually, the final option is always to try on the day of departure at the airport. At this point, all bets are off - but is definitely a way forward if 1, 2 and 3 don't happen.