Amend booking to add FC number?

I booked a flight and upgraded it to PE using miles. (Gotta use em up somehow!).
If I go into 'Amend Booking' on the VS website, my booking doesn't seem to have my Flying Club number in there anywhere. This happens whether I'm logged into my FC account or not.
I've definitely seen the option in there before now to change FF numbers - on other bookings - but it doesn't seem to be there this time! Given that I booked the flight on the phone with Virgin, why have they not put my Flying Club number in there? And how do I go about getting it onto my booking, without going through the horror that is trying to speak to someone on the phone at Virgin. Should I wait until I checkin online and add it then?

Also, I've been trying to view my booking using viewtrip.com or checkmytrip.com but neither seem to be able to retrieve my booking details. My PNR starts F9L... is that an internal Virgin reference, rather than the reference that would be seen on the GDS doodaa? Should I be able to find it on one of those websites?

Cheers, oh wise ones.

x

[mitchja]

Just give Flying Club a call. They will add your FC number to the right place in your booking (it's in a part of your PNR you can't access yourself online)

VS changed the way reward flights are issued a while ago so not to have your FC number in the PNR in certain places as people where claiming miles for reward flights when they shouldn't have been.

That's why now if you get a boarding card for a reward flight it only has a FC # 00500500500 printed on it.

You wont be able to view your VS booking anywhere other than on the VS website as VS use their own reservation system. viewtrip.com is for Galileo bookings (VH use this now for worldwide package bookings) and checkmytrip.com is for Amadeus bookings (BA and BMI use this)

Regards

[Neil]

Originally posted by mitchja
That's why now if you get a boarding card for a reward flight it only has a FC # 00500500500 printed on it.

Regarding this, I thought that the crew on board would only know what class you were flying and not how you bought/paid for the flight so as not to create a possibvle divide in service, however on our flight to SFO the crew knew that Lukes ticket was a reward one because of this number, so does this not kind of defeat the object?

Neil

Ok, called 'em and they added it for me quite happily. Was only on hold for about 5 mins too - must be a new record!
I knew that the viewtrip/checkmytrip sites belonged to the GDS systems, but I thought that most airlines reservations then showed up in those systems at some point soon after the reservation was made. For example, booking directly with BA results in a flight showing up in Amadeus. What I didnt realise was that Virgin have their own system. I'm sure I've looked up VS flights on viewtrip.com before, but that was probably when it was booked through a travel agent - so I guess it would have gone through the GDS in that case - is that right? Slightly baffled about how this works. (But I'm a geek and a travel affectionado so am quite interested!)

Neil - you make a good point too. We upgraded to Upper on a flight back to London a few weeks ago, and I at times felt a little uneasy ... as if I wasn't a fully fledged UC passenger, and wasn't as deserving of the pampering that should come with a purple boarding card This feeling of unease is 10 times worse when I've been lucky enough to get an operational upgrade. This has happened both at the gate (so my new seat number's been scribbled on my PE boarding card) as well as at checkin, so I had the UC boarding card in the first place. Do the crew know who's been upgraded? Is there a policy to give priority service to those who've paid full whack for their ticket (for which there is a strong argument that I will not try to counter)? Are the crew made aware on the manifest as to whom is upgraded? I believe they're told who is a gold card holder - and in fact have seen the manifest stuck to the galley wall indicating this...