V-Flyer

I have been keeping an eye on reward availability flying eastwards (HKG and PVG) for a while. Generally reward availability has been good especially in UC. I have noticed today that a lot of the UCs dropped off and all the ones that are available are generally Tuesday/Wednesday whereas, previously, availability was good Monday to Thursday.

Hoping this isn't a sign of some changes as I have been saving miles towards a 2016 holiday for ages!

Anyone know of any reasons for this, other than the randomness of virgins revenue team? Hopefully not a sign of any changes coming.

When I have watched reward seat availability they are up and down like a yoyo. I would just grab them when they are there as there is no knowing what availability will be an hour later (or a minute later). And if you can not see them yourself, call the FC as they may have other availability unseen to us mere mortals.

I know what you mean about them generally being up and down like a yoyo, its just a touch odd that the HKG and PVG flights havent really yoyo'd much until today when the availability over the months seem to have dropped off (have been keeping an eye on it for a couple of months)

I agree with Maximus, grab them when they are available.
I have been flying to Orlando which has very few Upper rewards so I get in there on the day they are released.
I think there are too many variables to try and work out a system as the appear and disappear at random.
One year I did see my outbound choice appearing a day at a time about one month after the seats were released and I was up checking at 6 am on the day I expected the reward seats to be released and to my great joy they were. Sadly it didn't work for the inbound leg and I ended up changing my flight day when I noticed Upper reward seat available the day after my flight.
I only check about 8 times a day and have on occasions seen a different pattern there each time.
Best of luck,
Dick D

I have just had the situation where the only way I could get the flight was to treat the return trip as two separate legs.

I have seen the same as the OP. Reward availability to Asia in UC for next summer has virtually disappeared overnight.

This is really worrying as I was planning on a trip next August, and have booked the outbound successfully, just waiting for the return date to open up.

Wondering what has happened?

Hi

It's not JUST Asia - look at the reward seats available for LAX or JNB - again virtually non existant!
And if there are any, it's only Tues or Wed

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Peter

You could look at it another way, that reward availability was unusually generous for a long time, and now reset.

I've not looked at Virgin Rewards since middle of last year, and then the likes of LAX and Hong Kong were all sparse. I then decided that my reward points would be used on Boston to Washington East coast trip in the future, because those were the only ones which seemed good at the time.... Even JFK wasn't particularly good... Obviously West to East were especially sparse too...

I bagged 4 return G's LGW to BGI for July/August 2016 a few weeks ago. At the time of booking outbound for July was showing at least 4 seats in every class for pretty much every day for July. Now it's showing nothing for the whole month.

Hi All

I've noticed that for next July there's NO Seats on any day in any class to Hong Kong, there's availability in August in Upper on all Tuesdays and some Wednesdays, and NO availability in early Sept (later Sept hasn't been released - the 330 day rule)

I phoned Gold FC to ask about this. The person was really helpful, and looked through the figures for September. Apparently there was ONE Economy mileage seat available on the 5th, but that's gone, and NO seats released on the 4th - these were days I picked to analyse. She told me that they're not told anything about 'policy', but they're expecting a new reservation system in May 2016, and 'perhaps' that's part of the changeover(?)

If this is the future of mileage redemption, it's more like ANZ or ANA's system, and makes BA's system seem far superior and more attractive (for example I can see First Class BA seats available in pairs on some days to Hong Kong, and the days I can't it's possible to redeeem for LHR to Zurich, then Cathay 1st to HKG - and Cathay 1st only contains 6 seats now, yet they're willing to 'give' 2 up for mileage redemption

Is this the end of V-Flyers fun?

Peter

I just checked some random dates for next year for LGW - HAV including July and can see UC mileage seats. Interestingly no EC mileage seats though

After saving up around 240k miles to use on flights to Hong Kong next November I really hope they are not waiting on a new system before any more rewards are posted. Have back up plans for the miles if that doesn't pan out but fingers crossed this isn't the end of decent UC reward seat availability across the board!

Looks like reward space has re-opened up until September on the HKG and PVG routes again. Strange. Lets hope it continues!!

Hi

That's making me feel better. At least I can see seats most Mon-Thu days in Jul & August (particularly in UC which is what I'm looking for.
And I can see returns from HK most days from Sun to Thu in Aug

Perhaps the good times aren't going to end!

Peter

Looked a few weeks ago for Dubai in July - availability every day. Wanted to book a few days ago - no availability at all for July/August. Checked every day - no change.