I just had a situation this morning with Virgin that has me very annoyed and I was wondering if anyone else has experienced it?

I am an Elevate Gold Member and have a flight booked next week. My friend is flying on the same flight. They are not a gold member.

Last week they told me that Virgin had sent them an email asking if they want to bid on an upgrade to first class? Today they told me their bid cleared and they were upgraded.

As a Gold member, my understanding was that we were the first to be able to upgrade and that was 24 hours prior to departure time (12 for Gold). I would still have to wait almost another day to do that.

I called the Gold member line and asked what the deal was. They said that they and only heard of this twice and that it was random and anyone can get these emails to upgrade. I asked to speak to a supervisor and the agent came back and said they spoke to 2 and they both told him the same thing, that it was random and there was nothing they can do about it.

So basically, Virgin is now offering upgrade options to random flyers and taking away the upgrade benefits for those of us who have remained loyal? When I go to try to check into my flight 24 hours in advance, I already know of 1 less seat available. I'm sure they do the bid for MCS too.

I wonder if they would charge me more to upgrade than the bid my friend put in to?

I'm not that upset about the seat, I am upset with the principle of the matter and the process. I am also upset that when I called 2 supervisors didn't feel I was worth getting on the line to speak to about it. This is the number dedicated specifically for Gold Members and my status was acknowledged. You would think they would want to hear your feedback, but I guess not.

Has anyone else been experiencing things like this post-merge?