Advice on upgrading an e siting ticket to UC

Hi Everyone,

I'm hoping that someone might be able to offer some advice (or at least tell me I'm not going mad!) as I've just had a really frustrating conversation with VAA on the phone.

At the moment I have an outbound MAN to MCO ticket booked for 2 adults and a lap infant, departing on 19th Feb and returning on 2nd March. The outbound is a M+M PE fare with the return being UC M+M. Total price I've payed is approx £2,500.

So, I've been interested in upgrading the outbound leg for a while and have been keeping an eye on prices - so much so that I have checked with VAA on the phone twice over the past 2 weeks and have been quoted a total upgrade price of £1,200 for all of us.

Prices haven't moved recently and I finally decided that if the £1,200 price was available I'd take it. So I called again and was told the upgrade price would now be £6,500!!!! I queried this and was told that was today's price and that as the return portion was now a higher price she had to reprice the whole journey. What's even more strange is that when I do a price check on the website the total price for a brand new UC return for all of us is LESS than the upgrade price I've been quoted. I asked the agent to check with colleagues, she went away but came back with the same answer. I did say that two of her colleagues over the past week had priced it differently but she just said they must've been wrong.

I completely understand that prices do change, but I simply can't get my head around why a price to upgrade a single leg should be so expensive and actually more than the current return price that's quotes on their website.

Sorry for the rant! Im just hoping there's an explanation that makes more sense than the one I've been given .

Cheers,

Colin

The usual advice in such situations is call back and try another agent. It's not uncommon to get different answers sadly.

Hi, not sure this is relevant but I have had a similar issue around prices quoted on the phone. We had originally booked Lgw-Mco UC out and PE return. These were revenue tickets and the booking showed a return upgrade to UC as 400 each. Left it for a few days and the offer disappeared from the booking so I called VA and was quoted £4000 to upgrade! I declined and left it a few days called again only to be quoted £5000!!. Given that I could book a return UC ticket for £1700 on the same day. I queried this with the rep and she said she could calculate it manually rather than take the figure from the system. Revised figure £414 each. The rep said that the higher figure was for a fully flexible ticket and the lower figure was very restricted, no changes etc. As this a family holiday are arrangements are fixed so not really a problem, we have insurance for unforeseen problems. Also I would recommend asking to speak with a rep dealing with UC bookings as they seem more on the ball. Hope this helps, good luck with the upgrade.

I was wondering if she was quoting fully flex, but I gave up arguing in the end. I will definitely try again and maybe ask them to calculate manually. Like I said, I can understand price increases but not a price way above what their own website is saying for a brand new ticket.

Thanks for replying .

did you speak to the UC team?
As you already have UC as part of your booking, you should be able to speak to the UC team.

Changing an existing booking is often more expensive than a new booking. It's been that way for ages. Not just with VS though.

It's complicated by the issue of change fees as well.

Yours is additionally complicated by the fact it is an M+M fare as well and there has been strange pricing of those as well over the years e.g. being more expensive at times than a straight cash fare.

You will also be starting to be hit by the advance purchase periods starting to close off.

I managed to find the sometimes elusive chat facility on the website this morning. Chatted with a very helpful agent called Sarah who re-priced it all manually for me and quoted a total upgrade price of £1,200 for the 3 of us (one infant). She also confirmed that was converting the outbound to full revenue from the M+M fare. Slightly more than I originally wanted, but a lot better than the £6.5k quoted yesterday!

The inconsistency in advice is pretty astonishing......but I'm happy now .

Thanks for all of your replies.

Colin

Good news well done and enjoy your trip

how do you find the chat function? I've just been told on the phone that it would be £5k to upgrade to PE for 2 of us. Seems a bit excessive considering in the sale PE return is only £600 each way for a new booking

It seems to come up randomly, but I've had more luck when hovering around the booking or contact pages.

how do you find the chat function? I've just been told on the phone that it would be £5k to upgrade to PE for 2 of us. Seems a bit excessive considering in the sale PE return is only £600 each way for a new booking

Not tempted then ?

The chat facility always comes up when I am putting flight details to price a trip up