Welcome reduction in those nasty redemption fees
 

From VS website's reward flight sale page:

"Hold that thought! You may have noticed that we've lowered the amount of Fuel Surcharge on these long haul Economy flights. This change won't just apply to this offer period, so keep up to date via our Reward Flights pages as more information follows."

The reward sale is a 25% discount on miles needed. Based on what I paid on my only ever VS redemption the taxes/fees element seems to have a similar level of discount. This is really welcome news and makes this offer well worth looking at if you have miles (which I don't).

I know people on this forum generally prefer premium cabin redemptions (don't we all?!), but offers like this make economy redemptions better value.

Does anyone recall VS doing any premium ec or upper class reward seat sales like this? I can only remember seeing economy. I plan to start saving for a uc redemption once I've gotten enough VS miles to transfer to reach my Hilton redemption goal for this year.

Interestingly, when I try to price up my whole family the adult fares get the reward seat sale rate, but the two children pay full mileage rate...

Somebody raised the on the VS facebook page and it was sorted / corrected when they phoned rather than doing an on-line booking.

No I can't recall them doing PE/UC sale of this nature.

Can someone say how much the fuel surcharge has actually been reduced by? Because unless it is significant they shouldn't really be trumpeting it as some major achievement !

Hi,

On a Y fare to SFO I think the previous level of taxes and fees was £384, now it is £240 I think
from here;


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ing-first.html

Regards

TBS

I can't believe it! A week ago we managed to scrape together the 100k miles we needed for two Y returns to Tokyo and now there is a sale and the taxes are over £200 cheaper!! :mad:

I've looked into cancelling and rebooking and that seems a no-no (losing 25k miles is fine, but my understanding is that they so not refund the original fuel surcharge YQ of circa £480!).

The other option is amending the booking. I know there is a £30 charge (per ticket?) for this, but I don't know if that would trigger a recalc of the fees and taxes per the current schedule?

I was happy paying what I originally did, but obviously if I can somehow get some of that back it's a bonus!

The word 'tough' comes to mind.

We have all been caught out with buying something just before a sale starts and it's just something we have to live with.

It happened to me a few years ago. I emailed VS to complain and got a polite 'sorry your disappointed but we are not going to give you any money back' response.


And yes you are correct - they won't refund the YQ. They will refund the airport fees and the APD (less an admin fee) though.

It was exactly £100 less on LHR<->NRT. Significant in my opinion. Not necessarily saying this is now the best use of points, but much better when you factor in the fuel surcharge reduction and reduction in miles required.

I feel for you Essexadventurer. I would be looking at the same trip, but only have enough miles for one redemption. We'll be travelling as a family of 4. I'm BA Silver, so the increased miles for my status and for the kids (as they can be part of BA HHAs but not with Virgin) and bearing in mind that BA give full miles on cheapest economy ticket but VS only give half, it's a messed up situation for me... I have enough avios to book for all 4 of us based on VS's rates. We shouldn't think too much about these things!

Reduced YQ in VS economy, +25% points discount
 

See the article below. Although primarily about a current deal on mile redemptions (~25%) on VS, The Points Guy also reports that YQ has dropped for economy redemptions, and unlike the redemption deal it looks like the YQ drop might be here to stay.

I tried an LAX-LHR return flight, and found one for 35,000 miles + $401 fees, substantially less than the normal 45,000 and ~$700 in fees. With most currently available economy return flights priced at ~$1201, this is actually not bad value for VS, and from what I can tell gives a better cpm rate than any of the competitors on most transatlantic routes, despite YQ.

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/06/virg...ards-worth-it/