No miles = No business

I regularly fly to the US, usually about 6 times a year. 9 times out of 10 I fly with our favourite carrier (Virgin, in case anyone is asleep), The other 1 is usually United to keep up my Star Alliance status. However for my coming trip in October I've decided to fly AA.

Why? Miles. All the "cheap" fares at the moment with VS are 0 miles, which just doesn't work for me. As I fly so often, miles are important to me because they do rack up and make for great free trips, however it really annoys me when Virgin have a seat sale and don't offer miles. For £300 I could fly with AA, UA, BA or VS to NYC. If I wanted miles I would have to pay £350 on Virgin. For £300 AA offered me my NYC flight, 100% miles (and a "free" connection to BOS) so I decided to try out the competition. I'd rather not fly AA, but I'm not willing to pay VS an extra £50 for something that AA and UA are giving away.

Virgin - please give miles on all flights.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

if i was just short of a reward flight i would pay the extra to get some s.miles:D

[Nottingham Nick]

I totally agree with you. I have had many email exchanges with Customer Services on this exact topic over the past couple of weeks. [:(!]

Basically, as I see it, all of the current offers result in the tickets being N class tickets, this means no FC points - unless you fly to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Tokyo, Mumbai or Delhi.

I have been trying to book a cheapish trip to BOS or IAD early next year, but can't find a decent points earning fare on the VS website at all. [:(]

I know that we should be grateful to earn points at all, when we travel in Y, but it is still very frustrating.

Nick

The bigger frustration I have is that the VS web site hides the booking class until the very last moment, so you have no clue what you're buying until it's too late anyways. I would like to be able to see the booking code much sooner in the booking process. Hat off to AA that does this (now! - they only introduced the feature a couple of months back). CO lets you search on its web site by actual booking class - VS should consider this too.

Certainly agree - there are many ways for Virgin to approach this including reduced miles for sale fares.

Hope you get a 777 that still has more room through coach though. 'Cos in every other respect (IMHO) AA is inferior to Virgin (though apart from when the price beats!!)

(edit) And searching by fare class is a most excellent suggestion dude!

What really annoys me about the miles issue is that I see it as a reward for being a frequent flier. I've lost count, but I'm sure I'm flown with VS in all classes (paid too!) nearly 30 times in past 5 years. I don't have to fly Virgin, I could fly any other carrier. On the LHR-NYC route there is usually very little difference in price between UA, AA, BA and VS. What brings me back to VS is that they have been very good to me over the years and I like the crew, service and V:Port. (The lack of legroom in Y always sucks though, but I can forgive that for miles and a smile)

On longer haul flights, I'd probably fly VS, but on the puddle jump to the US it actually doesn't matter to me that much anymore, especially for Y. US bound I usually take the last flights, so its food, movie and sleep, but on the return its always just sleep. The other factor is that I don't have money to burn anymore. Long gone are the days when I'd only fly PE on VS.

In short... stop being stingy. Miles on all fares. Sub £200 to NYC and then I'll forgo my miles, but any more £££ than that, I want miles.

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by ajp
In short... stop being stingy. Miles on all fares. Sub £200 to NYC and then I'll forgo my miles, but any more £££ than that, I want miles.

Or how about giving us the option to pay a LITTLE more, and earn miles? The idea that you can choose the class of ticket that you book on the webiste has been discussed here before, and is an excellent suggestion. It is better then it used to be though, in the not too distant past, you didn't know that yhour ticket didn't earn any points until after you had bought it!!!

It appears the Daily Mail and other promotions for some unknown reason are not aimed at semi regular fliers, who are FC members. They appear to be targetted at one off, once every few years fliers, who could care less about FC points. [:(!]

Nick