onlysuites

If I redeem UK-US the taxes on Virgin Atlantic's website are $562 but Virgin America's online flight calculation tool shows taxes as being $1,200. Which one do they charge?

RedwoodA320

Are you possibly confusing round trip and one way?

In any event I've found that they use the amount shown on VX webpage.

onlysuites

No. Their taxes are definitely around $562 return. Which sounds about right anyway. $200 for the APD and $150 + $150 YQ and the rest Airport taxes. I don't know any airline that charges $1,200 tax from the UK.

Can anyone else confirm what they were charged?

bevnetcraven

Is there a better phone # to call than the gold desk? I got the "I have to fill out a form and someone will call you back" response....

RedwoodA320

Keep calling

onlysuites

Bump. Anyone?

RedwoodA320

I paid $500 something for a one way LHR-JFK

RedwoodA320

Never booked round trip originating in UK.

Call and ask, and point them to the VS fees if they tell you it'll be $1K

onlysuites

^

gnomey

am i correct that using VX points to redeem VA LAX-BNE/SYD/MEL J cabin seats is basically chasing unicorns?

anyone has any recent experience to share? how far out do you need to start looking?

italdesign

No personal experience, but I'm tempted to book whatever is available now, then look for VA availability at T-1 week. If found, book that and cancel original, paying the associated fee if necessary (decent chance schedule will have occurred, allowing free cancellation).

For 45k each way, it's cheap enough that the above could make sense.

esquesk

You can sometimes find availability about a week or two out. Anything ahead of that does not exist. Same with the partner redemption's for SQ, which are just plain non existent.

I built up a point balance of about 1/2 a million hoping to start redeeming for international J travel and haven't been able to use any of it.

Advertising partners where availability is non-existent is not a business practice I condone and have moved my 50K - 75K a year in spend elsewhere. VX was a fun 1 year experiment but the ride is over for me.

gnomey

thanks both. yeah i never collect miles in VX all this while. but now suddenly i have a pile of them bc of the Jetblue match. so i am figuring out what to do with it. i guess the other option is to wait till VX merge with AS and hope VX points become AS miles. but the problem is my VX points are expiring in Dec 2017 so need some plan to either use it or prevent it from expiring.

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i guess besides VA to australia, my other options are

1) VS to london. but this has high fuel surcharge
2) EK flights ex-Dubai to wherever
3) HA to maui.

are these also chasing unicorns?

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other questions
* what is this burn desk that everyone is talking abt? is that the award redemption dept?
* is it much easier to redeem VA domestic flights using VX points?

anothertraveller12

I just got back from a trip to Australia. I booked my flight out the day before I left, and then my flight back just after landing. Use delta.com to check for availability before calling the burn desk. Use expertflyer to predict which flights will be available. I booked business class, and if a flight had >=12 seats available, it ended up becoming reservable with points anywhere from 1-6 days ahead of time. Mid-week is much more likely, but I did see weekend availability with as few as 4 seats showing as available in business (but only released the day before).

FYI, 90,000 points return (since I ended up having to book 2 one-ways), plus $100 or so in fees. I booked separate Virgin domestic flights to get to LAX.

eponymous_coward

Exceedingly easy. Just do it off of the website.