Virgin Atlantic Flying Club - Spending Virgin Air Miles....What a joke!

The Utter Uselessness of Airline Loyalty

Jim and I are learning the hard way that there are no rewards for using the same airline in order to gain air miles. We have been flying with Virgin Atlantic since we met in 2000. We have lots of loyalty air miles, 200,000 nearly traveling from Heathrow to LAX loads of times. However, we cannot use them for when we want to fly home for my brother's graduation & the 4th of July nor Christmas. We cannot buy flights outright with them, and we cannot even use miles to pay for part and money the rest. Neither can you use air miles to travel during hot months. The last two times we have travelled home, using air miles in part would have cost us more than buying the regular fares. So we just bought regular fares, earning more useless miles!

I am longing for scorching temperatures and a 4th of July in America, but it's not going to happen for me this year. For shame, Virgin.:(

Anyone else to add comment!

Not being able to find reward seats during peak travel periods (Summer holidays, 4th July, Christmas would be good examples of those ;) ) is not a problem unique to Virgin. I presume you're not wishing/willing to travel in a non-premium cabin, as Economy rewards tend to be a lot more available even in peak times.

Also remember they have a MUCH smaller fleet than the likes of BA/UA/AA etc, and therefore capacity is limited.


Having said that, I've never had a problem getting the exact flights I want with VS, including in Upper.

I have never had much of a problem booking my reward flights with Virgin either.

If you are looking to travel at peak times you have to have a large degree of flexibility and it is best to book as soon as the flights become available - ie 11 months in advance.

If you can't buy flights outright for the dates you are looking for, presumably because the planes are already full, so there is no chance of getting reward seats on these flights.

Nick

Have you thought of using VS' points for flights on partners?

NZ for example only requires 50K and 75K miles for award travel between LHR and LAX.

Try the other FC partners, DL, CO too...

As with the other comments above, you are pushing it kinda late to book award seats in the peak of summer. So try to be flexible a bit.

always got the seats i wanted HKG/LHR and vv, even after the SYD extension started.. and why? because i booked 11 months in advance..

Hi,

Whilst LAX/SFO and the LGW routes ( MCO/LAS) are limited in availability and the LGW routes only have 14 seats in Upper class , so the earlier you book the better, I was able to use miles to upgrade LHR-IAD on 28th April to 6th May to upper class with only 17 days notice.

New York was also availible for Easter just a short while before .

It does pay to be flexible though.

Regards

TBS

The Utter Uselessness of Airline Loyalty

Jim and I are learning the hard way that there are no rewards for using the same airline in order to gain air miles. We have been flying with Virgin Atlantic since we met in 2000. We have lots of loyalty air miles, 200,000 nearly traveling from Heathrow to LAX loads of times. However, we cannot use them for when we want to fly home for my brother's graduation & the 4th of July nor Christmas. We cannot buy flights outright with them, and we cannot even use miles to pay for part and money the rest. Neither can you use air miles to travel during hot months. The last two times we have travelled home, using air miles in part would have cost us more than buying the regular fares. So we just bought regular fares, earning more useless miles!

I am longing for scorching temperatures and a 4th of July in America, but it's not going to happen for me this year. For shame, Virgin.:(

Anyone else to add comment!

There were loads of UC award seats LAX-LHR throughout July/August when I was looking around xmas time. 1 or 2 seats almost every day for the whole peak period, and 4 (!!!) at least one day per week.

So basically, you just left it too late. But I looked at NYC-LHR a couple of weeks ago, and there was still some UC award availability for July/Aug, so maybe you could work something on CO+VS via NYC.

Alternatively, you could book paid PE, and try for MFU; you can UG at checkin even if you can't confirm an UG in advance. There does not seem to be any artificial capacity control on this (IOW - if there is a UC seat open when you check in, you can UG).

What's with the OP anyway?

1 post just to rant about FC and then he doesn't even come back to check and answer?

What's with the OP anyway?

1 post just to rant about FC and then he doesn't even come back to check and answer?

If you look back over recent posts, it seems to happen quite a lot on this board. :confused:

Or indeed book a refundable ticket and hope that award availability opens up 4-5 days prior to departure, as is often the case.

Well everyone Im back in town now....Im sorry I left for a few days, I did'nt think so many people would miss me!!. Im looking at your posts on here and I will take all your advice about booking early. I must say though that I have flown half full flights before and paid for that flight fully, after not suceeding with airmiles which is weird?. But then what ain't weird. I have also found that using miles plus money cost more than using a sale fair!. which is even weirder! But I will take all your advice, throw it in the blender and see what trips I can make next year!!. Thankyou very much :)

PS I am an economy traveler in cattle class, maybe this is some of the problem

Check the new (starts april 23rd) LHR-ORD route. New routes tend to have better availability and you could get a cheap flt on Jet blue from ORD to Longbeach.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/161)

Just got two UC LHR-LAX, SFO-LHR awards for the Christmas break.. So goes to prove it's all about flexibility in plans!

Well everyone Im back in town now....Im sorry I left for a few days, I did'nt think so many people would miss me!!. Im looking at your posts on here and I will take all your advice about booking early. I must say though that I have flown half full flights before and paid for that flight fully, after not suceeding with airmiles which is weird?. But then what ain't weird. I have also found that using miles plus money cost more than using a sale fair!. which is even weirder! But I will take all your advice, throw it in the blender and see what trips I can make next year!!. Thankyou very much :)

PS I am an economy traveler in cattle class, maybe this is some of the problem

Being in economy is exactly the problem it seems to me. If I want a cheap flight I cannot spend my miles. We wanted to upgrade to Premium Economy using our airmiles but as we went for the cheapest economy seats and not the ones 300 pounds more we cannot upgrade. If we paid for the more expensive economy seats we would only have to pay another 50 pounds for premium economy anyway!

I was very surprised to find such stingy availability in the shoulder season on award.
For one seat in Upper Class there are some sporadic single seats in February
For 2 Seats nothing at all till April :eek::confused::rolleyes:
I have been working hard at earning all my partner miles with Virgin. However as much as I hate to say this I am thinking of abandoning the entire program and going back with a vengence to BA.

They both have outrageous fee scams for redemption
However when the playing field is leveled BA has decent respectable enough award availability and options for vastly more destinations
putting Virgin in a very negative light. Perhaps I am missing something here?
When did Virgin become Delta and Qantas :D
Looks like I am going BA or AA which is fine.
I'm wondering if they will load more seats for Februaruy which typically is a very inexpensive month even to purchase tickets
Experience all? Thanks

I was very surprised to find such stingy availability in the shoulder season on award.
For one seat in Upper Class there are some sporadic single seats in February
For 2 Seats nothing at all till April :eek::confused::rolleyes:
I have been working hard at earning all my partner miles with Virgin. However as much as I hate to say this I am thinking of abandoning the entire program and going back with a vengence to BA.

They both have outrageous fee scams for redemption
However when the playing field is leveled BA has decent respectable enough award availability and options for vastly more destinations
putting Virgin in a very negative light. Perhaps I am missing something here?
When did Virgin become Delta and Qantas :D
Looks like I am going BA or AA which is fine.
I'm wondering if they will load more seats for Februaruy which typically is a very inexpensive month even to purchase tickets
Experience all? Thanks

Surely you knew this before you joined Virgin?
Also have a look at the BA Board about availability of seats to popular destinations.....

I was very surprised to find such stingy availability in the shoulder season on award.
For one seat in Upper Class there are some sporadic single seats in February
For 2 Seats nothing at all till April :eek::confused::rolleyes:
I have been working hard at earning all my partner miles with Virgin. However as much as I hate to say this I am thinking of abandoning the entire program and going back with a vengence to BA.

VS redemption seats used to be released when flight bookings became available, now it's more random and very probable that more will be made available as dates near. It pays to keep looking, but I have never had an issue other than a little date flexibility.

They both have outrageous fee scams for redemption
However when the playing field is leveled BA has decent respectable enough award availability and options for vastly more destinations
putting Virgin in a very negative light. Perhaps I am missing something here?
When did Virgin become Delta and Qantas :D
Looks like I am going BA or AA which is fine.
I'm wondering if they will load more seats for Februaruy which typically is a very inexpensive month even to purchase tickets
Experience all? Thanks

Well, poor us in the UK because yes both BA and VS charge fees - but it's not all that simple is it. For example if you want to use miles on AA to upgrade Y to J don't they charge $350 each way intercontinental? I don't know about other airlines, but the AA story shows it's not all that simple.

As for BA offering vastly more destinations well, erm, yes they do ;).

Surely you knew this before you joined Virgin?
Also have a look at the BA Board about availability of seats to popular destinations.....

No I did not.
Joined years ago and when I looked over the past number of years for availability I found it to be satisfactory enough in major markets.
With flexibility of say one week there were at least some options for premium seats. Added to the challenge is this time as shocking as it may seem I needed 2 seats :)
I think that may be compounding the problem without question.Its rough enough for one seat!

The issue I have is that though they have as high an excessive fee structure as BA the award seat availability appears on the whole much worse than BA or AA.
Have always looked the other way to some degree because the award seats with BA were there.
It looks likely I will stop the heavy spending I once did with Virgin and rarely use the program. I left Delta long ago and in the past year or two moved away from United where management has ruined one of my favorite programs of all time. Will now concentrate on AA,Alaska and BA and all their partners
I expect tight seat supply in high season not shoulder/low season :eek:

BA has gotten worse yes but in the markets I travel still manageable.I just redeemed 700,000 miles on their metal and One World partners
The biggest casualty was giving up first class from Sydney to Hong Kong on Qantas.Forced to fly business class :(;)
Although BA remains pricey and in some markets unworkable I remain impressed in a small number of key areas.
They certainly seem bashed far more than probably deserved IMHO

For one seat in Upper Class there are some sporadic single seats in February
For 2 Seats nothing at all till April :eek::confused::rolleyes:

UC Award Availability for 2 in Feb actually looks very reasonable:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.6/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
NYC New York Metro NY US = JFK LGA
LON London Metro UK = LHR LGW STN LTN LCY QQS QQW ZLS ZEP XQE
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -------------------------------
Awards Available:
CS: 2/6/9/12/13/16/20/26/27 Feb

UC Award Availability for 2 in Feb actually looks very reasonable:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.6/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
NYC New York Metro NY US = JFK LGA
LON London Metro UK = LHR LGW STN LTN LCY QQS QQW ZLS ZEP XQE
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -------------------------------
Awards Available:
CS: 2/6/9/12/13/16/20/26/27 Feb

Appreciate the heads up^
And my sincere thanks
When I originally checked Virgins site just days ago only one day in the entire month of February showed up with two available seats
in Upper Class two weeks before my departure.Having said that
Funny to hear from you folks and perhaps a little irony here :)
I tried becoming a subscriber to KVS after being gifted a subscription and eventually gave up
I could not figure out how to navigate your website or sign up easily :(:o
Have been really looking for a user friendly site to see available inventory
I will check Virgins site out and see if perhaps new inventory has been loaded
and report back

:confused:
Just went online ZERO inventory for two seats entire month of February
Their website takes you to March instead showing you the only 2 days in an entire month seats are available in Upper Class fore 2 :rolleyes:
I will give them a call to see whats up
To bad I cant book through KVS ;)

Confirmed with Supervisor no seats available entire month of Feb for 2 persons in Upper Class
Absolutely nice folks on the phone otherwise
They did suggest Newark as a back up plan.
Probably book with BA as they do have seats on all days that I am looking at Same awful set of extortion fees :D
At least they have the bloody seats! :cool:

Very limited availability out of EWR and only at 8:00 AM departure.
That's a waste. It means overnighting the night before and an extra hotel night in london on the evening of arrival
after the extortion fees and hotels its cheaper to buy your ticket!

Appreciate the heads up^
And my sincere thanks

Very limited availability out of EWR and only at 8:00 AM departure.

Our original search actually included both ex-JFK & EWR flights.

If you limit your criteria to JFK only, then the closest available flights are, indeed, not until March:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.6/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
JFK New York John F Kennedy Intl NY US [KJFK]
LHR London Heathrow UK [EGLL]
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -----------------
Awards Available:
CS: 2/16 Mar


Having said that
Funny to hear from you folks and perhaps a little irony here :)
I tried becoming a subscriber to KVS after being gifted a subscription and eventually gave up

We still keep your Gift Certificate on-file and you are more than welcome to redeem it -- just download the KVS Tool from http://www.KVSTool.com/ and use the Registration Wizard to apply the Certificate to your account.

I have actually had a reasonably good recent experience with VS on awards. For a forthcoming visit to the US in early October, I wanted to travel at specific times in order to maximize holiday time within the constraints of work commitments for two of us. We took advantage of the VS 50% award sale in August to book two seats LHR-NYC in Y; I would normally not use miles for Y travel, but at 50%, and where the flight was the most convenient option on any airline for our travel plans, it was worth it. I was planning to book J on another airline to return.

Of course, by the time we finalized our plans to return, J eastbound transatlantic availability was quite limited on any airline where I had miles (I was bemoaning the demise of BD's *A membership!), particularly once I took into account somewhat rigid time constraints, and every option I did find disappeared by the time I managed to confirm it worked for the rest of our itinerary. I ultimately booked 2x PE on VS, ORD-LHR, with a domestic US connecting flight on UA (and complaining that I had missed the BA fare sale cut-off for 21-day advance inexpensive WT+ fares by 12 hours).

Last week, and about 5 days after booking the flight in PE, I checked availability, and found that two UC award seats had opened up on ORD-LHR for my desired day of travel. I called VS, and for payment of the differential in miles & taxes they happily upgraded my ticket from PE to UC with no change fees or penalties. I have not had such positive experiences on other airlines--I expected VS to say that I needed to cancel the ticket (with cancellation charges) and rebook in UC, if the seats were still available by the time the miles were credited. I was quite pleased with the outcome. It also suggests that for those who can not get UC availability on desired flights, if PE is acceptable it may be advisable to book PE, and keep checking UC availability to see if additional seats are released.

Booked 2 seats First class on BA with BAs Cash and miles
For my needs I will be moving much of my revenue away from Virgin
I'll continue to bank as a rainy day program no more as my primary Int program
I've been happier with BA and its hard to beat their First Class arrival and departure experiences.
Not to mention their ability to get you all the way to your final destination with a multitude of choices
And the cost is the same when in business class.
There are some markets where BA has severly overpriced their products and I avoid those markets with them

I looked at availability for your dates and I agree it was poor -- in fact, strikingly so. I was astonished to see such little availability from JFK. However, I am pretty sure you would have found that seats opened up nearer the time. (I know it's too late for you now.)

I've been happier with BA and its hard to beat their First Class arrival and departure experiences.
Do you mean ground experience? Interesting comment -- VS on the ground is a very strong product at LHR and JFK...

I looked at availability for your dates and I agree it was poor -- in fact, strikingly so. I was astonished to see such little availability from JFK. However, I am pretty sure you would have found that seats opened up nearer the time. (I know it's too late for you now.)


Do you mean ground experience? Interesting comment -- VS on the ground is a very strong product at LHR and JFK...
Thank you for your post and interest
Only because its shoulder season is the stinginess vastly disappointing
I expect limited options in high season
and even if it was high season there should have been a few dates available in a 30 day period.
In the few dates that were available in February and out of EWR it was only 8AM departures :eek:
I'd still use Virgin in a pinch or redeem for V Australia and Virgin America or in a pinch I'd get lucky
Leaning on BA/ program going forward.

The other deal killer in Virgins program is the fact that if you want one way awards on partners V Australia,Virgin America there are none.
In comparison with One World every partner is available for redemption one way.
That sometimes makes the difference between a successful booking and one sometimes that is a completely failed attempt. With less connections,partners,lounges and award availability IMHO Virgin needs to work harder on everything. A better more versatile program and acceptable redemption when compared to the lion’s share of competitors

With BA there are certain things you can reasonably count on
They get whipped in the press and by their very own customers but to their credit here are some aspects of what more recently impressed
me and some of these amenities, perks have been around for years.

A great arrival experience with BA First Arrival lounge for starters

• A private dining room breakfast with table service for hot and cold items
• Arrival/departure Massage
• Really attractive typically well run lounges with separate first and business class facilities
• Hot soups on and off board
• Nice buffets in addition to the private dining room service for those on the go
• Good choice of magazines, newspapers
• My flight was delayed and came in late. A private entire bus arrived first for the few first class passengers
bus came in and whisked us away privately and then everyone else in a bus that followed.
Even after a departure mechanical failure they created a sense of calm upon disembarking by differentiating for premium pax with a greater degree of service

BAs boarding process can sometimes be very good and civilized
Off topic and about their program

Exceptional partner award redemptions for short haul on their metal and partners at 4,500 each way with respectable availability
So at the end of the day there is a variety of factors

Other than lounges with separate F/J facilities is any of that different to VS?

Plus VS offers CDC, drive through check in and a private security channel at LHR.

As we have continually said, availability often opens up nearer the dates, currently there is availability LHR-New York in UC on:

Feb 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 26 and 27.

Now if you can't be patient that's fine, and yes VS redemption availability is sometimes irritating when trying to plan.

As for on the ground services you can't really compare First and Upper Class, they're separate classes and you should compare BA Club to UC for a real comparison. VS's on the ground service however at LHR and JFK to a degree matches that of BA First IMO (and beats the pants of AA First which is just dire) ... and yes you get hot soup on board with VS, and VS doesn't bus you to planes like BA does at LHR.

I totally get your comments about redeeming miles on the One World network - but that's something of the obvious really, if that is an important consideration for you then you need to place it higher than others.

Being in economy is exactly the problem it seems to me. If I want a cheap flight I cannot spend my miles. We wanted to upgrade to Premium Economy using our airmiles but as we went for the cheapest economy seats and not the ones 300 pounds more we cannot upgrade. If we paid for the more expensive economy seats we would only have to pay another 50 pounds for premium economy anyway!

You have to accept that the airlines have turned the game very much to their advantage. Mileage programmes build the brand and encourage loyalty, and in the absence of any oversight / regulation they give very little value back.

Someone has to pay for those hot air balloon rides.

As we have continually said, availability often opens up nearer the dates, currently there is availability LHR-New York in UC on:

Feb 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 26 and 27.

Now if you can't be patient that's fine, and yes VS redemption availability is sometimes irritating when trying to plan.

As for on the ground services you can't really compare First and Upper Class, they're separate classes and you should compare BA Club to UC for a real comparison. VS's on the ground service however at LHR and JFK to a degree matches that of BA First IMO (and beats the pants of AA First which is just dire) ... and yes you get hot soup on board with VS, and VS doesn't bus you to planes like BA does at LHR.

I totally get your comments about redeeming miles on the One World network - but that's something of the obvious really, if that is an important consideration for you then you need to place it higher than others.
Appreciate the helpful comments but thats not the direction I am traveling in :)
Good to see some seats in any direction :cool:

For 2 Seats JFK to LHR in all of February 2012 there were 0 Seats through much of March. From Newark
which isn’t my preference had some scarce seats if one is willing to overnight before departure the next morning or arise at 3:00 AM and drive there with traffic to make the only available flight.

As for the rest I suppose it’s subjective
However the word on the street( I have no recent experience) is that Virgin Food service is severely lacking when compared to other premium carriers
On my last flight on AA in first they did much better than BA though there were no soups :(
And I prefer the British and their superior service skills and professional personable style.

Has it improved since this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html

Oh please don't drag that letter out again !!!

VS food is pretty good and recently better. BA does have better wines though however if you take a look at some trip reports on v-flyer dot com you'll see a lot of positive comments lately.

OK yes, sorry, got the direction wrong, just did a dummy booking online with VS and for two UC redemptions:

New York to LHR available on 2, 5, 6, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27 Feb
LHR to New York available on 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 23, 27

All there, right now - where are you actually checking availability on ???

New York to LHR available on 2, 5, 6, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27 Feb

As was discussed earlier on, only EWR flights have reasonable UC Award Availability -- there is not much available ex-JFK:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.7/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
JFK New York John F Kennedy Intl NY US [KJFK]
LHR London Heathrow UK [EGLL]
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -----------------
Awards Available:
CS: 20 Feb



[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.7/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
NYC New York Metro NY US = JFK LGA
LHR London Heathrow UK [EGLL]
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- ----------------------------------
Awards Available:
CS: 2/5/6/12/13/16/19/20/26/27 Feb

Oh please don't drag that letter out again !!!

VS food is pretty good and recently better. BA does have better wines though however if you take a look at some trip reports on v-flyer dot com you'll see a lot of positive comments lately.

OK yes, sorry, got the direction wrong, just did a dummy booking online with VS and for two UC redemptions:

New York to LHR available on 2, 5, 6, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27 Feb
LHR to New York available on 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 23, 27

All there, right now - where are you actually checking availability on ???Departure dates: New York/JFK to London Heathrow
Very kind of you for caring

Only one day has opened up according to Virgin's site since all of my checking and calling.
That's a big improvement from none :eek:
They must have been reading our posts or someone cancelled!
Available only 20 February 2013 at 7:40 AM
My original date options were 14,15, or 16
Online answer no. Called and they confirmed no seats for 2 in the month of February unless looking for some select single seats
The nice agent did suggest we fly separately on different days of the month however that is not a reasonable option for us
Booked the 16th on BA with the ability to cancel for $40.00

My apologies for digging that old letter out of the kitty litter but the meal still haunts me as does the baked pea mustard dessert :p
Hopefully that caterer has found a new career that makes them happy :D
And I'm fine with a ham club push comes to shove even at Subway!

Incidentally both these letters still comes up at travel industry marketing conferences as does the Hilton one with the power point presentation "Yours is a terrible Hotel"
Early on my professors would always say there is no such thing as bad publicity as long as they are talking about you :)

As was discussed earlier on, only EWR flights have reasonable UC Award Availability -- there is not much available ex-JFK:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.7/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
JFK New York John F Kennedy Intl NY US [KJFK]
LHR London Heathrow UK [EGLL]
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -----------------
Awards Available:
CS: 20 Feb



[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.7/Diamond - Shares: Awards/VS] (http://www.KVSTool.com/)
NYC New York Metro NY US = JFK LGA
LHR London Heathrow UK [EGLL]
FRI 01 Feb 2013 | 2 Seats

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- ----------------------------------
Awards Available:
CS: 2/5/6/12/13/16/19/20/26/27 Feb


How about a KVS school for dummies? :)
I'll be your first sign up or I'll pay you to walk me through it
I'm sure its pretty easy once you are accustomed to using the site

You won't want to pay for KVS for VS redemption availability and I don't know why they keep posting - it's way expensive for something you can get free on the VS web site.

I do see you comment about EWR being inconvenient - betya more options open up in the coming period!

You won't want to pay for KVS for VS redemption availability and I don't know why they keep posting - it's way expensive for something you can get free on the VS web site.

I do see you comment about EWR being inconvenient - betya more options open up in the coming period!
Thanks for the kind feedback and thoughts.I admire the folks here in this forum who are helpful and polite like you.Can't say that about every airline forum :)
Not mentioning any names to further flame proof myself :D

I would be willing and happy to pay for any service if it was user and graphic friendly to have one tool that saw all award/most availability.
Do see a value rather then looking at sites one by one like Qantas and others where the system is so poor to see inventory.
I'm a big fan of AAs website for seeing available seats.
Despise the smoke and mirrors of United's website especially with their poorly clarified transparent mixed cabins as to which of the flights are economy.
It's highly misleading IMHO intentional to deceive

Won't be in New York City and the flight out of EWR leaves at 8:00 AM in the morning.We wil be at Hyatt Long Island hotel in Hauppauge,New York
I spent my whole life in New York before moving West and I would venture a 3:00 AM departure from the hotel would not make us particularly happy
Nor the traffic not limited to the Belt Parkway frequently a parking lot and certainly no pleasure on a cold frigid winter morning :eek:
Added to that the general challenge of February weather possibilities in New York.Ice, snow, freezing cold and even a blizzard!

How about a KVS school for dummies? :)
I'll be your first sign up or I'll pay you to walk me through it
I'm sure its pretty easy once you are accustomed to using the site

We would be pleased to provide a walk-through, so that you can [finally :)] redeem your KVS Tool Gift Certificate -- please send a note via http://Contact.KVSTool.com/

Popping in from the BA forum up-the-road.
Interesting thread, and highlights VS availability in UC is perhaps not as strong as is occasionally its made out to be on the BA board ;).
So so marginal for me whether to collect 200,000 rainy day VS miles, or 100,000 for most one-ways (2 travellers). No use if can't redeem 'em :(.
Is PE reward space relatively reliable? PE >> WT+ so I suppose doable at a stretch 1-way.

Now the KVS discussion caught my eye. Very insightful.
How do I get KVS to show 2 seat availability for a chosen month (VS and/or BA ?) ... wow!
I'm a Diamond and never saw that feature. Will save me hours, if I can only find how to set it up.

Now, if only VS had a 2f1 :p (Y doesn't count)

I'm popping in from the UA thread and have found this to be interesting. All the problems at UA have made me look more closely at VS (or Virgin America) miles, or BA (or AA) miles - being the only other airlines on my principal route.

However, as bad as UA has become, it does seem that redemption options are still somewhat better. Whilst Business is very difficult to get, First is fairly easy (and not much more expensive) and there's always the option of paying double miles for any seat.

I'm popping in from the UA thread and have found this to be interesting. All the problems at UA have made me look more closely at VS (or Virgin America) miles, or BA (or AA) miles - being the only other airlines on my principal route.

However, as bad as UA has become, it does seem that redemption options are still somewhat better. Whilst Business is very difficult to get, First is fairly easy (and not much more expensive) and there's always the option of paying double miles for any seat.

Thanks for this helpful information and post
Can you share what routes/brands/partners for example you find First Class reasonably easy to redeem on?
United once was the only airline I would fly on revenue earn and redeem with.
Today while the program is more interesting than Delta or US air by far its still a must avoid in my book.
I see the greedy Continental folks as destroying a legendary program that once was the Gold standard. Not that it wasn't already in serious decline before they got their hands on it.
Unless Virgin Atlantic gets worse I'd venture to say I'd still use their program over United. Having said that I'm back with BA,AA and Alaska
For friends and family a dabble in Southwest who on a rainy day allows free baggage and no cancellation penalties for non elites and the flying public
which in today’s program of excessive fees for anything is a breath of fresh air even if I dislike the brand and won't fly on it myself.

Now the KVS discussion caught my eye. Very insightful.

Please see our reply in the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/virgin-atlantic-flying-club/1235547-kvs-availability-tool-vs-virgin-atlantic-flying-club.html#post19438027 Master Thread.

Please see our reply in the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/virgin-atlantic-flying-club/1235547-kvs-availability-tool-vs-virgin-atlantic-flying-club.html#post19438027 Master Thread.

thank you.
(Wish BA could do it too :D)