Virgin Australia Staff Travel

[AviatorInsight]

Can you use staff travel to go to the states? would it be on United?

If you wanted to go direct it would be UA or DL.

Otherwise staff travel being mostly luck you could try, HA, AC, NZ, FJ, CX, etc.

 

[Steven of Mysore]

How all very timely and interesting. I am a VA Platinum plus Gift Platinum (nose high in the air now) and had 'booked' Business Upgrade via points (waitlisted) from Choice, last month. Denpasar to Gold Coast. I could see a vacant seat for 24hrs before and on check-in was told it might go with staff travel - someone was on hols but check at the gate.

I did check (same friendly fellow) and yup a staff travel (holiday) had bumped me off. I would have thought I rated above staff holiday travel, afterall, aren't these seats supposed to be 'at risk'?. Not as if they couldn't have got back - they could have had my 3A! No names used as the check-in fellow probably shouldn't have told me what he did.

Thoughts? Please play nice, I don't care much for J VA as my domestic flights are so short and 3A (usually) is nicer.

 

[Human]

Thoughts?

Well, obviously there are competing interests here. On the one hand VA should be about maximising revenue from paying customers (even if they're "paying" in points rather than currency).

On the other hand, VA should be about looking after its (lets face it, long-suffering) staff and if that means occasionally giving a Business Class seat to a staff member ... well, none of us know the backstory.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that I can see both sides and I have no idea!

 

[twinaisle]

How all very timely and interesting. I am a VA Platinum plus Gift Platinum (nose high in the air now) and had 'booked' Business Upgrade via points (waitlisted) from Choice, last month. Denpasar to Gold Coast. I could see a vacant seat for 24hrs before and on check-in was told it might go with staff travel - someone was on hols but check at the gate.

I did check (same friendly fellow) and yup a staff travel (holiday) had bumped me off. I would have thought I rated above staff holiday travel, afterall, aren't these seats supposed to be 'at risk'?. Not as if they couldn't have got back - they could have had my 3A! No names used as the check-in fellow probably shouldn't have told me what he did.

Thoughts? Please play nice, I don't care much for J VA as my domestic flights are so short and 3A (usually) is nicer.

They couldn't have bumped you off if the company didn't decide to take your points upgrade. It's like QF where they don't always take points upgrades and keep J seats free.

Flight closure means the seat would have been free and thus allocated to staff.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

They couldn't have bumped you off if the company didn't decide to take your points upgrade. It's like QF where they don't always take points upgrades and keep J seats free.

Flight closure means the seat would have been free and thus allocated to staff.

Agree.

VA decided the seat wouldn’t be available for an award or upgrade. Two possible reasons (a) they think they could have sold the seat, or (b) they don’t want people booking cheap fares and taking away revenue by upgrading. If upgrades were ‘guaranteed’ on an empty seat, fewer people wouod book premium to start with.

Once chicken closed and the seat was still free, it would be available for staff seating.

 

[MooTime]

Agree.

VA decided the seat wouldn’t be available for an award or upgrade. Two possible reasons (a) they think they could have sold the seat, or (b) they don’t want people booking cheap fares and taking away revenue by upgrading. If upgrades were ‘guaranteed’ on an empty seat, fewer people wouod book premium to start with.

Once chicken closed and the seat was still free, it would be available for staff seating.

Chicken closed....haha.