Time for a 50% off Award Seat sale?

[Carrots]

So let me see if I am understanding this right -

You want them to have a 50% off sale on award seats?

Has the definition of award seat changed? You still book an award seat with points right??

Just trying to determine where the cashola is going to come from to pay for cost of these award seats....

 

[straitman]

I'm guessing u got in just before the call centre went down then.

That was many hours after the main call centre was taken down.

 

[Harthagan]

That was many hours after the main call centre was taken down.

Well I can tell you that since yesterday I can't even get through. Maybe it's a lottery system where a tiny fraction of calls get through and all the rest have to try again. Who knows!

 

[ozstamps]

So let me see if I am understanding this right -

You want them to have a 50% off sale on award seats?

Has the definition of award seat changed? You still book an award seat with points right??

Just trying to determine where the cashola is going to come from to pay for cost of these award seats....

Clearly you did not READ post #1.

Days later the same lame alleged sale still soldiers on as the headline offer on website - SYD-ADL for $129 one way cheapest coach - they are living on another planet.

Flying Empty seats COST money.

The one plus for airlines right now is that avgas prices have dropped like a brick, so the cost of flying each Km is lower than for some time. That is no consolation on 25% full planes.

Business are not flying people now unless totally essential. Do a $$$ super sale too at same time, of Business Class seats. - Indeed on all seats woud not hurt

What is load factor now on the huge A330s flying transcon?

Adding a double status credit might also help - right NOW Virgin need every seat filed, DSC costs zero real money.

If I could see Biz seats to Perth or Darwin at half usual rate we'd be in, especially if DSC applied - I do not bother with "what if" issues like flying right now, but clearly many do,

They need to pull out all stops this month in my view, or they might not have an airline to offer anything with soon.

Right now in the current alleged "SALE" - SYD-PERTH is $2000 return in Biz - they really are living in cloud Cuckoo Land if they want to sell seats to anyone still game to fly in this crisis.

Virgin Australia Specials and flight sales

Find flight sales and airfare deals for domestic and international flights with Virgin Australia.

specials.virginaustralia.com

 

[Carrots]

If Virgin had any brains they'd have a massive award sale right now - for 6 months out - ''50% off'' or something.

Clearly you did not READ post #1.

Days later the same lame alleged sale still soldiers on as the headline offer on website - SYD-ADL for $129 one way cheapest coach - they are living on another planet.

Nope I read your post. I also read your thread heading. Clear as day it says "award".


Maybe you've not read, both carriers are cutting capacity? Why? So planes don't fly around empty over the coming months.

Is there likely to be a short term oversupply until the capacity cuts occur? Yep, of course.

Why would either carrier want to drop their pants today, when they're cutting capacity tomorrow and can monitor what needs to be done. I'm sure like many (or rather all) airlines globally, they would have their yield management and actuarial teams crunching the numbers constantly trying to find the balance needed.

There's only one thing that is certain at the moment, and that is constant and rapid change. It's a pretty fine line between over and under reaction.

 

[theblank]

Near full planes will assist. Clearly.

of course, but Australians are been told to avoid travelling, and seriously, who would want to right now unless it was absolutely essential.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Clearly you did not READ post #1.

Days later the same lame alleged sale still soldiers on as the headline offer on website - SYD-ADL for $129 one way cheapest coach - they are living on another planet.

With as much respect as I can afford with the below in mind @ozstamps, you are the one that's living on another planet. People have been told to limit all non-essential travel.

Artificial increases in demand via dump sales are unhelpful at the moment. All they do is blur the real demand picture and leave airlines horribly exposed to flying more planes than they need to. This is because those who book these proposed "bargain basement" seats of yours will decide not to travel and take advantage of the very relaxed change/cancellation policies in place by airlines.

And even if they came with a "no changes under any circumstance what so ever" clause you propose - well - so do the fares being issued complimentary wavers now. You can imagine the fun the legal fraternity would have with that sort of an arrangement.

Never mind the fact that it is inevitable that many of these people will need to contact their airline in some way, which will inevitably be via phone, clogging up already clogged up phone lines.

Oh and then there's the optics of trying to encourage people on to aircraft for apparently no reason at all at a time when the world is in a pandemic and we have been told to limit all non-essential travel.

 

[dajop]

I was almost tempted to suggest VA needs to find a nice isolated ski resort to fly to and sell tickets that way , but realised it's the wrong OP.

 

[ozstamps]

Artificial increases in demand via dump sales are unhelpful at the moment.

So using your cunning logic, the usual Thursday Happy hour sale will not appear today?

Do not ever apply for a job in SALES is my strong advice. Artificial my eye.

I'd like to bet my house it DOES occur.

And if there are any real DEALS for a change, I'll be booking some, to do my bit.

Virgin needs to fill EVERY seat they can right now. Or they will be broke by June 30. That will also be rather ''unhelpful'' for them.

I collected a visitor from airport yesterday from a BNE-SYD he said was about a QUARTER full.

Even if 40 more seats were sold on that flight at $80 a seat that overpays pays crew and cabin staff right there.

 

[dajop]

So using your cunning logic, the usual Thursday Happy hour sale will not appear today?

Do not ever apply for a job in SALES is my strong advice. Artificial my eye.

I think you're not considering the different demand curve that might apply now .... I am sure airline marketing folk have a good idea of the trade off between price and # seats they could sell in this "new world" we are in now. I suspect it is more like the red than the blue in the diagram below:

 

[Must...Fly!]

So using your cunning logic, the usual Thursday Happy hour sale will not appear today?

Do not ever apply for a job in SALES is my strong advice. Artificial my eye.

I'd like to bet my house it DOES occur.

Never been a salesman. Inventory I could probably do, though.

But for the record it's well past 4pm and I see little evidence (read: none) of happy hour this week. So maybe I'd get further than others through the interview process.

Oh - when can I pick up the keys? I'm hoping your place has a view - I enjoy eating my oats on the balcony in the morning.

 

[ozstamps]

Well looks like they have totally lost the plot in there.

Click the ''Happy Hour'' website tab and you get this cool new Book Early sales portal -

Book early and save - Virgin Australia early bird flight deals

Find and book early bird flights with Virgin Australia. Subscribe to Vmail to be the first to know about sale fares and deals

specials.virginaustralia.com

SYD-ADL now $145 - it was $119 when I looked yesterday.

Virgin are doomed sadly. My million+ points are off to Kris Flyer now.

If Qantas today furloughed 20,000 of their 30,000 workforce, the industry here might not just lose Virgin and Rex sadly.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Well looks like they have totally lost the plot in there.

Click the ''Happy Hour'' website tab and you get this cool new Book Early sales portal -

Book early and save - Virgin Australia early bird flight deals

Find and book early bird flights with Virgin Australia. Subscribe to Vmail to be the first to know about sale fares and deals

specials.virginaustralia.com

SYD-ADL now $145 - it was $119 when I looked yesterday.

Virgin are doomed sadly. My million+ points are off to Kris Flyer now.

If Qantas today furloughed 20,000 of their 30,000 workforce, the industry here might not just lose Virgin and Rex sadly.

Good idea, if you feel that to be a less risky proposition. But given you just lost the house...

While you're logging in to the SQ website can you check and let us know if SQ offered 50% off award (or $1999 return MEL-SIN J) seats yet?

 

[jase05]

Well looks like they have totally lost the plot in there.

Click the ''Happy Hour'' website tab and you get this cool new Book Early sales portal -

Book early and save - Virgin Australia early bird flight deals

Find and book early bird flights with Virgin Australia. Subscribe to Vmail to be the first to know about sale fares and deals

specials.virginaustralia.com

SYD-ADL now $145 - it was $119 when I looked yesterday.

Virgin are doomed sadly. My million+ points are off to Kris Flyer now.

If Qantas today furloughed 20,000 of their 30,000 workforce, the industry here might not just lose Virgin and Rex sadly.

At a guess I’d say the prices may have changed because they have loaded the new route cuts into the system. ADL-SYD and ADL-BNE down to 3 daily now and ADL-MEL down to 6 daily

 

[ozstamps]

Good idea, if you feel that to be a less risky proposition.

Well we all make our own decisions in life, and this is a very easy one for me, who lost a million or whatever Ansett miles. Gone forever. The “wisdom” of us all then on Flyertalk was it would *never occur.* It did. And occured VERY fast.

All bookings I’d made with Ansett in their death throes were not honoured by partner carriers. As will occur with all awards made on Virgin ticket stock I suspect. Delta or Etihad or SQ etc, do not get *paid* by Virgin until that Award Ticket is taken AFAIK, and booking something now for Xmas on one of these is just a pipe dream I think.

These million Velocity cost me $50k to 100k of my own money, and darned if that is all going down the plughole. Yes I could have ordered 30 toasters or hair dryers from the web store I guess instead!

We are both Virgin Plats for another year or two, and will still fly them obviously, and I really do hope they survive this horrible mess - not of their making - except the totally the ''asleep at the wheel'' inertia of the past week or two, with no REAL fare sales to shore up the bottom line and fill up skelton pax load planes. Quite Insane.

For 10 years or so as Platinums we got our benefits, Virgin got our money, and everyone was pretty happy with the deal, and a vibrant Virgin kept Qantas a little more honest! Let’s all hope it stays that way for the sake of ALL travellers.

However if Virgin go belly up by June 30, which looks 99.9% certain to me sadly, the miles are now safe. Unlike the Ansett bust, who foundered in isolation, EVERY carrier globally right now is close to the wall, so no-one is about to pick over the carcasses anywhere – and there will be dozens by June 30.

If Qantas furloughed 20,000 workers of their 30,000 today, and grounded all overseas flights, the bells are ringing very loudly - sadly.

If the world carrier fleet gets down to two, SQ will certainly be *one* of those two! Plenty of pointy end award inventory, a wonderful market leading soft and hard product, and a great Star Alliance partner route network. We are both lifetime Star Alliance Gold million milers, so SG is a good fit really.

 

[mickismick]

@ozstamps raises part of the issue here. The fact that transferring points away from VA to KF or JBHifi or wherever people are spending there points is a huge risk to VA. Sure, award seats won't generate money, but they'll certainly reduce risk.

I have 200,000 velocity points right now. I could transfer that to KrisFlyer or gift cards, OR I could book some redemption flights at great prices and keep that money within the Velocity/Virgin coffers. If I was VA, I know what I'd be doing right about now to reduce the risk of mass-exodus of points holders.

 

[ozstamps]

Exactly - there is a REAL and IMMEDIATE $$$$$ cost to Velocity for each airline mile transferred out to David Jones or JB HiFi or Priceline or whatever, in funding Gift cards. A $1000 David Jones gift card COSTS Velocity serious money. Right NOW, exactly when they are running short of it.

There are many posts here that great numbers of Velocity points holders and doing just that - buying gift cards. Terrible value for money, but many like me feel the program will fold in the very near future, and a $1000 Gift Card is better than a Velocity account full of worthless miles.

If they had a REAL decent fare sale on - Biz Class RT to Perth from East Coast to $999 at specified future dates of THEIR choosing to offer, 1000s would be booked, that EARNS 7 figures in dollars right here and now, or award seats to LAX or Japan etc, for later year, at 50% off, that means many will lock those in, rather than bother transferring points - saving these immediate cash outlays.

If Velocity falters, those tickets are landfill. But they costs Velocity zero to write.

Clearly as they are asleep at the wheel this month, none of this basic savvy marketing has occurred. The best they can do is a $145 cheapest class ticket SYD-ADL .... FAR higher than the weekly boring Happy Hours! They lost the plot totally here.

Yes, a COVID is one-off situation no-one had predicted, but they DO have 10,000 staff, and one or some of them should have been proactive here in both creating revenue and at the same time, protecting a Tsunami of points being transferred into gift cards. Companies get just ONE chance in such crisis's - they either do it well or they implode.

If Virgin has the same massive level 20,000 staff Furloughs (66%) that Qantas just announced, some of those 10,000 might be wishing they had a little more forward vision in mid March.

 

[Harthagan]

The only thing I can assume is that we (the customers) are the ones over reacting with panic and the airline owners are actually more informed than us and the companies more robust than we are giving them credit?

 

[Must...Fly!]

The only thing I can assume is that we (the customers) are the ones over reacting with panic and the airline owners are actually more informed than us and the companies more robust than we are giving them credit?

It is their job to remain calm and keep the house in order.

Unfortunately, like runs on banks in times of crisis, a huge back up of gift card redemptions is likely going to make things worse.

 

[ozstamps]

The only thing I can assume is that we (the customers) are the ones over reacting with panic and the airline owners are actually more informed than us and the companies more robust than we are giving them credit?

Any idea how the Orchestra playing calmly on the ''Titanic'' situation worked out in the end, while the passengers ''over reacted''??

Sadly we have that here. Was not the fault of the Orchestra, or the White Star Lines or the passengers either, but the result was the same. The Ship Sunk.