Forces discounts

Hello,
For anybody out there who is serving in the military (or a dependant) remember to check out the forces discount booklet! I did by pure chance this morning and noticed that Virgin offer discounts for all serving military personel.
Even though we have already booked our flights and paid the deposit I thought I would take a chance and see if they would still honour the discount.
The were so helpful, and said they would indeed give me a 10% discount on our booking providing I could fax through an MOD certificate of eligibility(these are at the back of the discount booklet, just take it to PSF and get it stamped)
I faxed through the form, then half an hour later customer services called me to say that they were please to tell me £340 had been knocked off my outstanding balance! how good is that?

Also, Virgin offer a great discount on their wine for military personel. Free membership to the wine club(booklet says it usually costs £50 to join) A free 13th bottle of wine with every case thats ordered, and a free £20 voucher to use with your first order.

Finally, there are huge discounts to be had with BCP parking, and airport hotels, and for anybody travelling to Orlando they have special discounts for theme park tickets, and the best bit is that serving coallition forces get free entry into seaworld and busch gardens for themselves and 3 dependants! Just remember to take your ID, there is a seperate line for military personel at both entrances to these parks which also cuts down on que times.

Im sure most of us forget that we get at least 10% discount on the majority of products and services, from hotels to restraunts to leagal services etc, so its well worth asking your hubby to bring home a copy of the booklet from work!

[fozzyo]

Wow - how cool is that? Grea that they offer the discount, even better that they were happy to refund the 10% on an existing booking. Go them!!

Thanks for sharing and letting us know Gixer.

Foz xxx

Originally posted by Gixer1000
...and the best bit is that serving coallition forces get free entry into seaworld and busch gardens for themselves and 3 dependants!

If you go to see the Shamu show they have all coallition forces stand up so that everyone can give them a round of applause

Phil (Buffy)

Hi Gixer

As you will probably know, the same Forces Discount Book offers similar discounts to civil servants. So, armed with the book, I phoned VS to enquire as to the level of discount I might expect. The very helpful young lady on the other end wasn't too sure and went to find out. Wihtin 90 seconds she was back and the discount for Economy (which was the one I was interested in) was to get a flight LHR-JFK at anytime of the year for £380 + tax. Not bad thinks I but checked the VS site and found that LHR-JFK when I want to go next year (May 23-ish) is only £374 + tax!![8)] No doubt the best savings will come if one books at peak times and gets the flight for £380 + tax. Don't quite know where your 10% came from though:)

Hi Treelo,

Not sure how your discounted flight ended up more than a regular flight? I had the book with me and was chatting to customer services explaing the situation, said I'd seen that BA offer 10% off all routes and thought I would check if Virgin would do the same. Gave all our details etc, and after a short time on hold she came back to me with 10% off the booking price, I thought they were excellent, the op I spoke to said she new our RAF camp well, had friends in RAF etc so not sure if that helped? I thought they had either "priced matched" type of thing with BA, or that 10% is the standard discount we could expect on all flights. I will try and find out!

Gixer, sounds like are booking through Virgin Holidays and got something similar to the 10% discount for FC members.

Treelo, did you ring Virgin Atlantic direct? This could be where there is the confusion. Also, £380+ tax might be a very good deal depending on what fare bucket it books into

Gixer,

Don't think your chat up would have got you any more discount than the next man:). I did my 'time' in the RAF before joining the Civil Service so am quite familiar with the discount books, and there are some pretty good deals in them. I have used the BCP site for parking at Manchester and the DFDS Seaways discounts too - great!! However, on phoning the number in the booklet (that's the number for Virgin Atlantic, anteo)the offer I described above was the only one given.

As I said previously, the people who are going to benefit are those who book flights during the more expensive summer season but, as I generally book through Virgin Holidays and get a 10% FVC discount, this makes the VS 'discount; even more unattractive. But if VS gave or are going to give you 10% off, bite their hand off[y][:o)]:)

Edited by Treelo to amend dumb spelling mustookz

Originally posted by Gixer1000
Also, Virgin offer a great discount on their wine for military personel. Free membership to the wine club(booklet says it usually costs £50 to join) A free 13th bottle of wine with every case thats ordered, and a free £20 voucher to use with your first order.

Well the rest of it sounds great, but if the above is regarding Virgin Wines, then (AFAIK) that's only what any FC member joining gets anyway (IIRC it's never cost any money to join - and if it did, I certainly wouldn't have paid £50 to join!)....hope no strawberries have been harmed in the posting of this message

Cheers

Michael

Offers in the Forces' Discount Brochure are a mixed bag, though some are pretty good. The online version of the brochure is accessible from this page and is certainly worth a browse every now and then by serving personnel and their families. It shows a crystal clear 10% off any published fare by BA, and a rather vaguer promise to offer "discounted fares for travel" by VS - I think Gixer got a pretty good result on that one.

A number of companies offer discounts that can be matched or beaten by other means - car hire is a good example, and Virgin Wines appears to be another one. Nevertheless, the overall collection of discounts that are available in the 300 and something pages of the brochure is pretty good, and is worth a look before any big spending.

Nice to see the RAF contributing to the site, Gixer - if your husband is anything to do with the Air Transport fleet perhaps he might offer a TR highlighting differences between VS and RAF Customer Service. I think it's time the RAF considered an update on their W and J products [}:)]

Best wishes

David

Hi David,

Hubby's trip reports recently have been pretty good ones, but thats probably due to playing around in Merlins (they call it a job? nothing but messing around with a big toy and endless beer calls IMO!)

Trip reports from adventures in Hercs are usually negative, having to watch the loadie and the heavy smacking hell out of the landing gear with a sledge hammer to get it to relase and drop down was probably not one of the better "jolly's" he's been on

Just to confirm - I have spoken to Virgin this morning, Virgin Holidays offer a standard 10% discount on all holidays and fly drives booked with them. (we booked a fly drive)

Either way, my strawberries are still firmly intact and I am also £340 better of than I would have been without taking a chance and asking.

Hope this clears it up?