Fee Changes
 

Probably will be looked at as bad news, but I'm indifferent:

As of today:

Long Haul Flights are now $250 per seat for a standby upgrade to F/C (was $175)
Seattle-LAX flights are now $100 per seat for a standby upgrade to F/C (was $50)

Long Haul Flights premium seat upgrades are now $50 (I think was $25?)

If VX can make money good for them. This makes F class an even better "vaule" if you want extra legroom.

Nice of them to put it out on a friday night, now when do we get info on eleVAte?

I'm just glad the change fee is still a very reasonable $40. But with Jetblue recently increasing it from $40 to $100 (and some legacy carriers now at $150), I wonder how long the $40 will last.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that long-haul upgrades used to be $175. I just looked back at my credit card statement and that's what I paid in Dec 2007 (JFK > SFO).

Okay, edited OP

This really sucks for me, since I was scheduled to fly SEA-LAX tomorrow. Just when I checked in online, I thought the upgrade fee was a mistake! I flew in from LAX to SEA this Wed and only paid $50 (and so did 7 other ppl I believe), and now I am hit with $100. I don't know... but the price increase is really steep.

Well, at least it doesn't apply to SEA-SFO. ;)

The other thing is, let's see what we could buy in coach on a SEA-LAX flight....

Movie: $6
3 drinks: $15
Cheese plate and turkey wrap: $18
Leg room in exit row/first row: $15

So that's $54- as opposed to a $50 seat with a wider massage chair and better food. Yeah, clearly VX was underpricing F on SEA-LAX.

And VX is changing prices constantly. When I first flew them (3/18) a movie cost $8, some drinks cost $6, a cheese plate cost $12, a turkey wrap cost $9, and the same legroom. However in your scenerio the person buys two meals (cheese plate and turkey wrap) as opposed to one. Still $46 as opposed to $50. Good call by VX.

The movies were $7 on my flights earlier in the week, and the meals were $8.99, except the vegetarian one was $8.50. There were four fresh food choices in Y: cheese plate, turkey wrap, caprese half sandwich w/ bean salad, and the antipasto cold-cut salad.


$100 u/g for SEA-LAX is still reasonable, considering it's a full three course meal. It's transcon service on a 2.5 hour flight.

The price increase for the premium seat fee on trancons is really unfortunate. I had my first VX experience this weekend and I thought it was one of the coolest travel experiences I have ever had. However, the legroom was disturbingly bad and I wasn't able to open my laptop when the person in front of me reclined. That's fine for a cheap shorthaul but unworkable for a longhaul flight. $100 round trip for exit row/bulkhead is a lot of money considering every other airline gives it to elites for free. Having power is nice, but it's useless if you can't open your laptop.

Regarding the increased Premium Seat fee, I looked into what Jetblue is charging for it's new "Even More Legroom" seats with 38" and what United is charging non-elite members for a buy-up to Economy Plus at booking:

Jetblue JFK-SFO: $20
United EWR-SFO: $61

Checked in today at SEA for the evening flight to LAX, paid $100 upgrade fee reluctantly and after much consideration, (in hopes of being the only one in First Class). I asked the check in lady what she thought about it, and said the entire day, people were relunctant to pay the change fee and First Class flew out pretty empty on LAX flight. She said it was unfortunate because the First Class is so good. Ended up there were only 2 other people in First Class, both were long time Alaska Airlines member trying to fly VX for the first time, and were very impressed.

Someone is reporting on airliners.net that VX is contacting people with Premium Seat bookings for future transcon flights and telling them that the fee has increased to $50 and that they must either pay an additional $25 to keep their seat or be reassigned to a non-Premium Seat (and have their original $25 refunded). Has anyone else been contacted in such a manner? I am a huge fan of VX, but this seems like a good way to generate much ill will among your customers.

I am shocked at the story reported on a.net. If true, it's a really bad move on VX's part to try to get extra money for already-booked seats and allegedly refuse a refund of the entire fare.

I choose to disbelieve the story until I see an actual copy of the letter or confirmation from someone firsthand. If and when I see it, my opinion of this airline will change dramatically.

ditto.

It really doesn't sound like something that the VX I know would do. This would change my opinion too. What a crummy thing to do (if true).