New VS book flights options on web site

[Neil]

Originally posted by jilly
I agree - for PE it seems to show either a W or a K class, so trying to find an S class fare seems impossible.

I too am having this problem, was looking at various options for PE flights next year and not one search returned an S class fare, so I decided to play about a bit and just put some random flights in and still not one S fare returned, is this a problem or will S only show when there are no K or W fares available??

For the minute it looks like a call to FC again

Neil:)

Originally posted by Attitude23

Originally posted by jilly
I agree - for PE it seems to show either a W or a K class, so trying to find an S class fare seems impossible.

I too am having this problem, was looking at various options for PE flights next year and not one search returned an S class fare, so I decided to play about a bit and just put some random flights in and still not one S fare returned, is this a problem or will S only show when there are no K or W fares available??

For the minute it looks like a call to FC again

Neil:)

Just out of interest, give me the route/date/class you are trying to book, and I will have a look too, cos as I said, it seemed to work fine for me.

Andrew

[Neil]

I was looking to book LHR-JFK on or around the 4th April 2007, only showing W (or Y, when I had PE flexible selected??)

Thanks
Neil

Originally posted by Attitude23
I was looking to book LHR-JFK on or around the 4th April 2007, only showing W (or Y, when I had PE flexible selected??)

Thanks
Neil

Aha! Think I may have found the problem. In about the middle of the 'Flights' page, under 'Choose your flights' there is a selection box that allows you to select a filter - Price, Outbound Times or Inbound Times. The default is Price, and obviously this is giving all the lower class fares. Switch to Outbound or Inbound times, and you will get a selection of fares at the bottom of the page if you choose one of the main cells, showing the various classes and prices. Many of those were S class.

Hope that fixes it for you! If not, and you already tried that, sorry, and let me know!

Andrew

Originally posted by preiffer
When you do a search for NYC, it offers CO codeshares as well as VS metal (just done it). [:?]


Can't find the mileage upgrades though - just ones for cash [?]

I was referring to the internal US flights VS used to offer with CO... such as EWR-SYR which was operated under a CO codeshare agreement with a VS flight number. I've used these a few times. In the past 6 months or so the VS website would always let you search on say Syracuse to London round trip, but always come back and say that no flights were found. Now they've completely removed those cities that used to be serviced through CO codeshares, such as Syracuse, from the reservations system.

I also just did an Orbitz search for Virgin and it came back with:
CO2393 SYR-EWR
VS2 EWR-LHR

VS1 LHR-EWR
CO2920 EWR-LHR

Must be VS has discontinued the agreement with CO, as these used to come up as VS3xxx numbers (operated by CO Express). I can't find any CO operated VS codeshares anymore, with the exception of the trans-atlantic ones.

[Neil]

Thanks Radar it does work when you change that middle box[y], also I was searching for flexible fares (thinking as S was upgradable it would be as a flexible fare) when infact I needed to search for lowest which gave me both the options for K & S fares.

Much appreciated
Neil:)

Originally posted by webdes03

Originally posted by preiffer
When you do a search for NYC, it offers CO codeshares as well as VS metal (just done it). [:?]


Can't find the mileage upgrades though - just ones for cash [?]

I was referring to the internal US flights VS used to offer with CO... such as EWR-SYR which was operated under a CO codeshare agreement with a VS flight number. I've used these a few times. In the past 6 months or so the VS website would always let you search on say Syracuse to London round trip, but always come back and say that no flights were found. Now they've completely removed those cities that used to be serviced through CO codeshares, such as Syracuse, from the reservations system.

Yep - they used to have Ft Lauderdale on there too, my office's local airport, but no longer. The connections times were always lousy anyway - up to 6 hours wait at NY (can't remember which airport).

Andrew

Andrew I've persevered with different dates and it finally through up the odd S fare.

I would presume that there are very few S fares available, but ISTBC.

Tried both IE and Firefox just to be sure and noticed that they are now showing the same display.

Jilly

Originally posted by jilly
Andrew I've persevered with different dates and it finally through up the odd S fare.

I would presume that there are very few S fares available, but ISTBC.

Tried both IE and Firefox just to be sure and noticed that they are now showing the same display.

Jilly

Don't know about the availability of S fares - that is one for the full gurus (I'm just an apprentice [:p]). It does seem as though they are doing some minor tweaks though, as I had a string of 404 pages (page not found) at one point.

Andrew

[mcmbenjamin]

Still issues with displaying how many miles you will earn a VS codeshare with SQ.

agreed it's much better - but currently quotes me 150,000 miles for an UC return into LAX, out of SFO in March 2007 - has something changed?

Andrew

Seems to change booking class sometimes.......

Just tried PE (lowest) from LHR-SYD and it gave me a W ticket.
Clicked on book now and it was a K fare on the next pagee.

A most welcome update. However, am I alone in thinking the layout and font look a bit - well, a bit basic????

Aha! Think I may have found the problem. In about the middle of the 'Flights' page, under 'Choose your flights' there is a selection box that allows you to select a filter - Price, Outbound Times or Inbound Times. The default is Price, and obviously this is giving all the lower class fares. Switch to Outbound or Inbound times, and you will get a selection of fares at the bottom of the page if you choose one of the main cells, showing the various classes and prices. Many of those were S class.

That seems to work for some flights but I think that is due to availability. Still can't use that method to get an L fare out. Also doesn't seem to work at all if there is only one flight per day on the route (as you don't get the filter box).

Oh well!!! Thanks

Nice, but I'm still missing the possibility to pay online for a booking with an non-UK issued creditcard. This is a shame.

Ooh, this is a lovely little upgrade! It's had an immediate impact for me as well, with the ability to browse reward availability an absolute Godsend. Only last week I was reduced to grinding out multiple searches one-by-one as I trawled for flights to the West Coast! (I know I could have called the Premier Team, but these were 'any new inventory released' punts on my part, so I doubt they'd have appreciated me calling in every other day!)

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I was able to find an ideal updated itinerary within 10 minutes of browsing flights in and out of LAX/SFO. That's a huge improvement on the old system.

Darryl

I'm being really thick here (nothing new!). Where is the page to search & view reward bookings over a calender month?

Cheers,
-Steve

[Neil]

On the main Virgin Atlantic web page in the search options there is a button to click, called spend miles! this is the one to use for reward bookings etc.

Neil:)

Humm, that's interesting. Just checked reward availablity for London to Dubai out on the 14 feb UC [:X] back on the 19th Y. It comes up with a charge of 100k miles. I thought dubai was 80k miles if your went upper both ways. Should the charge not be 60k miles?

Cheers Neil, knew it had to be simple:)

Sailor I'm confused to:
LHR - JFK and return (out 17th Sept back 23rd Sept) both PE = 67500
LHR - JFK and return (out 17th Sept back 23rd Sept) both Ec = 45000
Same trip and dates Econ out and PE back ranges from 75000 to 90000

-Steve

I think a little tweaking may be required by VS. Still it is a real step in the right direction

Originally posted by Stevieboy
Cheers Neil, knew it had to be simple:)

Sailor I'm confused to:
LHR - JFK and return (out 17th Sept back 23rd Sept) both PE = 67500
LHR - JFK and return (out 17th Sept back 23rd Sept) both Ec = 45000
Same trip and dates Econ out and PE back ranges from 75000 to 90000

-Steve

Yes, I've found the same for LHR-DXB, for 2 people:

UC both ways : 160,000 miles total
UC out, PE back : 220,000 miles total

I always knew it was better to fly Upper, but I never realised it was 60,000 miles better

Thanks,

David.

I've been playing around with the new booking options, and give it a big [y].
However, my company travel agent has just booked my next flight, which is sadly in Y due to the fact it is classed as
"Assignment Holiday" travel, rather than a business trip (go figure!).

So I am trying to find out if they were totally cheap and got me a non miles upgradable ticket. (Which I fear it is).

It would be nice if the fare class of your ticket was also shown on the "Manage your flights" page... And then it would be even nicer if there was an "upgrade" button to save me calling FC.[:o)]

I've just been playing out with this and was quite stunned that with the same start / end dates for an LHR-LAX PE return trip I could save £450 by taking VS024 back rather than VS008

....or should I look at from the p.o.v. of it costing costing £450 more to take the earlier flight...

..but £450 just to move your travel a few hours [:w]

..and if I flexed dates away from weekends another £350 was shaved off the price.

Nice options if you have the flexibility...

Paul

I suspect I picked a peak period around Easter, but was quite surprised by the difference.

Is it me or are Virgin including the time difference or something else in their travel times? Was just looking at flgihts from LGW-LAS and it says about 37-38hours flying time each way.

LHR-SFO says 38h25 outbound and 10h10 back......

Even worse flying fom LHR-EWR (New York, Newark):


VS001 takes 2h5 outbound and either 1h30 or 6h40 back
VS003 takes 25h35 outbound and either 1h30 or 6h40 back.........
etc

Not bad that......3h35 flying time, so I'll not bother with anything above Y for that time