Is International Virgin Reward availability now worse that QANTAS?

[wxxnxs]

Any idea when VS releases J award partner seats?

I just rang the VA contact centre to book a flight for May 2018 (9 months out) but they didn't have any seats. none in economy either within a week either side, so the contact agent said they probably haven't been released, and to call back in a week.

I just booked later Mar 18 and back early Apr 18 on SQ biz, no issues at all, plenty of seats available on VA site, all legs are on 388 and 77W.

 

[RAM]

Calling up can work and it can fail dismally.

I needed to change a booked Velocity award flight on EY.

So I rang Velocity and got one of their Philippine based CSAs who turned out to be worse than hopeless. After 75 minutes despite checking online repeatedly and finding available seats - she kept insisting there were none. So finally booked onto 3 leg flight to get to MUC and when charges quoted I knew they were wrong and said so. Ask to speak with supervisor etc - no supervisor available (false but normal try the last two years) istead she says she'll send the confirmation through and I'll see it is all correct and HANGS UP.

Email arrives - ALL WRONG. Wrong class, charged 4x for the one set of flights (fees & charges). After counting to 1,000 I ring again and get an 'angel'.

This lady knew her stuff, asked why I would route via Melb with 4 hour layover when two different direct flights were available to MUC. I then mentioned that I had asked to book F and her reply was well the seats are available for F as well.

Then she looked further into the incorrect booking and confirmed that we had been charged, for some reason, four times. So she said she'd have to get a supervisor to look into it and refund the amounts.

Less than 5 minutes later, all booked in F for flights to MUC, 1A & 2A allocated, emails received (while still on phone to ensure spellings etc all correct). Such a difference.

Moral of the story HUACA - just like the roulette wheel sometimes your numbers come up.

POSTSCRIPT

The reversals were not done correctly, and one set of F&Cs were not refunded for the cancelled flights. 5 attempts, 7 months later and around 3.5 hours on the phone to the Philippines told there is no error and case closed. Once the 'case was closed and marked refund already paid' and they did not bother to contact me. I found out ringing after an extended delay in hearing from them.

I even sent a copy of the cc statement showing all the transactions listed for VA Gympie. Still - no refund due. Common response was fault due to your cc provider - call them, it's nothing to do with us.

So I asked for the details of each transaction they claimed had been made, including the 23 alphanumeric reference number. They refused to provide.

Finally rang the VA Company Secretary (chief legal officer) directly late last week with a raft of issues (such as refusal to provide copy of recorded calls = breech of Federal Privacy Legislation). Next morning a call from the Philippines - You were over-charged by $X,xx_ and a refund will be made to your card ending in YYYY later today. You will receive a copy of your phone call within the next 20 days....

 

[Dannyism]

Calling up can work and it can fail dismally.
....

Wow what a nightmare, good on you for continuing to push the matter.

 

[RAM]

Wow what a nightmare, good on you for continuing to push the matter.

What really concerns me, and I made it clear to the company secretary was how vehemently their outsourced call centre supervisors denied:

• Any requirement to provide phone call
• Provide access to a superior
• Acknowledge that copy of statement showed 4x charges and 3x refunds on same day
• That Velocity Frequent Flyer is not owned in any way by VA so what they said was final
• Their CEO is not answerable to anyone else over Velocity and they have no requirement for time frames
  
• That I was not permitted to contact/deal with the accounting area directly (Yes actually you are and there is an email address for it)

The contract with the outsourced call centre operator has all the various legal requirements, timelines for dealing with issues, for referring to superiors etc etc etc yet they deny it.

I wonder whether their accounting/payments function has also been out-sourced or is still run in Australia? Either way their accounting system reconciliation functions seem to be in total disarray to not pick up an outstanding balance of 4 figures after 7 months for a cancelled booking.

The way their system works is the cancellation cost is billed separately to the F&Cs. So any basic system would have a check that a cancelled flight (before flight date) should net out to zero.

Perhaps they only bother about money owed to them to reconcile?

Interesting to see what other follow-up I receive.

 

[Strategic Aviation]

Well done for your persistence and good luck with the outcome.

Interesting to see what other follow-up I receive.

Did you consider involving the Airline Customer Advocate at any point?

 

[RAM]

Well done for your persistence and good luck with the outcome.
Did you consider involving the Airline Customer Advocate at any point?

No, as it was such a 'cut & dried' issue I thought I'd let it run and see just how poor their approach has become.

Now I have a nice documented, dates, times, length of calls, responses to lay at the company's senior execs feet. No excuses for not fixing up the process.

A bit of a matter of principle. I could afford the delay in getting the refund - many cannot. Most would give up either through frustration or simply other events taking over.

Closing the issue without contacting me etc is a great way for an issue to get forgotten.

 

[JohnK]

Currently have 20% off reward flights to/from HKG.

Found availability for 2 people HKG-MEL on 05 April 22,200 points each but when I search for HKG-SYD the best offered is 95,900 points + $91.64. There is award availability MEL-SYD the next morning on 06 April on every flight at 7,800 points.

Why can't you book all sectors on the same ticket for 27,800 points + taxes which I've seen on some days?

 

[SuzieQ68]

Does anyone know how far out VA/Velocity release J reward seats to HKG? Looking at August 2018 and only see ASA (in J), nothing in PE either. Any advice appreciated. Thanks, SQ

 

[Bolthead]

Does anyone know how far out VA/Velocity release J reward seats to HKG? Looking at August 2018 and only see ASA (in J), nothing in PE either. Any advice appreciated. Thanks, SQ

No PE seats on HKG flights... best bet is to ring up call centre and see if they can help. Good luck

 

[shuuy]

This really is a YMMV.

Trying LAX-SYD in early January (2 seats, J).

QF Platinum 1 can’t get me the routing if I ask on the day I want
VA has LAX-BNE-SYD for base pricing, no problem, book on the website.

Again cough shoot and luck of the draw.. But it doesn’t feel that P1 is opening up as much inventory as it has in the past...

 

[clipped_wings]

Ok, I know finding a reward seat to LAX in "The Business" is now the Holy Grail for most of us. But the process of trying to track one down is harder than ever before.
If a Velocity FF is purely seeking some reward seats and is completely negotiable with dates/sectors etc, the current search process is exhausting and limited to the individual's temperament.

Which, in my case - is less than 5 minutes before I hurl the poor mouse across the office floor.

Why can't Virgin simply create a calendar of available reward seats? Surely it would be easier to view a monthly view of potential reward seat dates, rather than entering a proposed date that you hope includes availability. I realise the calendar would be in a constant state of amendment, but that's no different to their current award structure, which can often change on an hourly basis, but still requires you to view one day at a time.....

PS - I also acknowledge the obvious 300 or 330 day rule, but find this is the most frustrating part, as trying to calculate that window from the date you are actually online is the core problem.

 

[n7of9]

Why can't Virgin simply create a calendar of available reward seats? Surely it would be easier...

Because we would see there is zero availability in 10 clicks instead of 567...we wouldn't think that if we try tomorrow or another day ending in 'y', or between the hours of 6:03 and 6:49, that JUST MAYBE we'd get lucky

Calendar-view rewards availability are for airlines that actually release rewards seats and encourage their members to use them. I haven't seen a SYD-LAX reward seat in 1.5 years, that's why all my $ have been spent on SQ, DL and HA*. I'm even flying AA later this year because there is absolutely no point in funneling any more than the bare minimum SC's to Velocity

*Maybe that's their selling point to their partner airlines "we make it so hard for our members to use our program that they'll start investigating yours!"

 

[Vatec]

less than 5 minutes

Took less than 5 minutes searching on the virgin australia website to find 2 business rewards on 13 and 14th of Jan ex Mel
I have never had any issues getting these seats before, sure they are rare but check back in a couple of days and you should have no problem finding them?
Or maybe I am just really lucky...

 

[clipped_wings]

Took less than 5 minutes searching on the virgin australia website to find 2 business rewards on 13 and 14th of Jan ex Mel
I have never had any issues getting these seats before, sure they are rare but check back in a couple of days and you should have no problem finding them?
Or maybe I am just really lucky...

Hmm, well done. You must have found the only two days I DIDN'T search. Because I foolishly went straight for the post-300 day window, which was September 2018.
And yes, it was more than 5 minutes and counting back EVERY day to May before the mouse flew.

 

[clipped_wings]

PS - you are extremely lucky! I just perused those dates and came up with zippo. No J reward, no premium reward, nothing.

Can I get you to book my flights?

 

[Vatec]

Departing Melbourne? I'm not even logged in (don't think it affects it though)

 

[Vatec]

Are you choosing return or one-way?
If there is no reward availability on one of the dates (either departing or returning), it won't show any seats at all.
Yep I just checked with return, try one way and you'll see heaps

 

[clipped_wings]

Good grief, it's a Christmas Miracle! Take out the return leg and voila, there's a reward seat staring back at me! Thanks for clearing that up for me. I guess we'll just have to search each sector individually.

 

[supa007]

Yes, miracles do happen occasionally... I've been watching the release of J reward seats BNE-LAX return for MONTHS! Managed to find 2 seats for the outbound leg around 300 or so days out, but the LAX-BNE return leg prove to be very elusive... I've just clicked through every single day til Oct 2018 and came up with a grand total of 0 J reward seats!!!!!

I don't understand why?! Last July when I flew VA8 in J, the cabin was only half full!

If the return leg seats don't open up, I might be forced to cancel those 2 BNE-LAX seats...

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

The reasons as to why J reward seats are so elusive is beyond me TBH. I'm guessing that their revenue department is trying maximise it and we keep "buying" up what little seats are released (with points) as soon as they're released at 300 or 330 days. Unfortunately if they're flying with half-loads in J then it's really a moot point whether they're paid pax or points pax...they're still going to run with the same or similar number of crew so really all they save on is the booze and food.
I would think that sooner or later something's got to give - surely enough of us have complained about lack of availability?