Complimentary business upgrade from Flex ticket for Plat member

[the8guy]

Hi everyone, just trying to understand some experience from fellow members who have had success on getting complimentary business class upgrade from Flex economy fare for Platinum member. I can see there are business class seats available for purchase for my flight and was told by CS that it's not available for my upgrade. The only available upgrade for me is a flight 12 hours later. Am I not doing something right here or is this just the way the complimentary business upgrade benefits work? If so, this is a very poor benefit for Plat member as the system will allocate their availability based on their own algorithm instead of what's really available for sale?

 

[markis10]

Upgrade me upgrades require availability of a seat in the appropriate fare bucket, it doesn’t mean any available seat. For instance J seats may show as available but there maybe deadheading crew expected on the flight.

 

[Bagpuss]

You need to see a "Business Reward" seat available as the upgrade uses the availability of rewards seats when searching for points based bookings on the Virgin Australia booking website.

 

[Steven of Mysore]

It's just another example of a benefit which sounds fab but isn't.

 

[the8guy]

Thanks for the clarification. Indeed it sounds fab but hardly usable. Guess it’s time to find other alternative frequent flyer program

 

[muppet]

It's just another example of a benefit which sounds fab but isn't.

Yep. Not to mention half the time Flex Y can be close to or more expensive than Discount J. Good for corporate pax who cannot book J I guess.

Not sure if it was a mistake, but last time I redeemed it to CNS I was able to upgrade both legs despite Business Rewards seats only showing one-way.