Utter Dismay at Virgin prices

[cheryl.UK]

Hey folks.

Well the title speaks for itself. Usually we book our flights at the 11 month mark. This year, however, we were uncertain what was happening with my partner's job so decided to delay buying until we found out, which we did today.
it was good news BUT just checked the Virgin website and the flights are now way past our usual price and I mean way past. We usually pay around £1100 each PE in July/August. I work in education so can't fly any other time. This year they want nearly £1800 EACH!!!! That's just put it past being doable. The difference is our park tickets and car hire costs. DH doesn't cope in coach. Too crowded. It freaks him out. Even coach is more expensive than we usually pay.

Good news we can afford to go on holiday.
Bad news we can't afford to go on holiday.

I could cry. I don't know how to tell DH.

Suggestions would be really really helpful right now

 

[queendisney]

good news on the job..bad news for the flights!

do you have to go VA direct or can you not look at going indirect? Could you DH maybe cope with sitting in the extra leg room seats/emergancy exit seats near the front of the plane (behind PE)? Personally I would look at other airlines as VA are so expensive..

 

[Disney Burns]

Hey

Not sure if this helps and I don't know your exact flight requirements but we are flying Aer Lingus for 2 weeks in September. We are flying Glasgow Dublin, Dublin Orlando costing us £1348 for 2 and this wasn't our cheapest option!

I just ran a quick check on the Aer Lingus website and 2 weeks in July flying economy was only £1745 approx or 2! Also when we booked our seats you had the option of paying for premium/extra legroom seats I think they were only £18 per person (from memory we didn't pay for those seats)

I would highly recommend Aer Lingus complimentary soft drinks on flight, individual TVs on all seats and the biggy - you do US Immigration at Dublin meaning its straight off the plane at Orlando and to the car hire desk!!

Hope this helps and you find a better solution, let us know how you get on and if we can be anymore help

David

 

[cheryl.UK]

Could someone with Virgin miles please do a search on these dates for miles+money. I haven't got our card details on me and won't be home for 3 days.

July 25th - Aug 20th or there abouts

I'd be really grateful

Cheryl

 

[wilma-bride]

Could someone with Virgin miles please do a search on these dates for miles+money. I haven't got our card details on me and won't be home for 3 days.

July 25th - Aug 20th or there abouts

I'd be really grateful

Cheryl

M+M flying out 25th July, back 20th August is £1732.67 each.

As a PP asked, would you not consider indirect? If you really have to fly direct, you do know that VA aren't the only carrier flying to Orlando, don't you.

ETA: Flying out on 23rd July, back on 20th August is just over £1500 each M+M

 

[jo_de_vil]

Sorry to say it is not just VA, with this green air tax it has increased all flight prices. We found it was cheaper to get a fly drive thru Virgin holidays as we like a car and we have to get internal UK flights. I have spread sheets up the ying yang and that was our cheapest bet, for 2 adults and 1 child, internal flights, VA flight LGW-MCO, hire car full insurance, Vroom and Uni tickets and Downtown Disney Checkin with our FVC discount approx £2900. BA prices have gone thur the roof and the other airlines that fly thru Sanford when you add the extras it works out even more. Give Virgin Holidays a try you have nothing to lose.
Happy Hunting
TTFN Jo

 

[wayneg]

Could someone with Virgin miles please do a search on these dates for miles+money. I haven't got our card details on me and won't be home for 3 days.

July 25th - Aug 20th or there abouts

I'd be really grateful

Cheryl

£1,734.79 M&M

We are using Aer Lingus this summer. They have economy flights from about £700 or Business Flex are from under £1,600. Immigration done on Dublin. No way would I pay VA prices.

 

[Samaya]

Cheapest PE at the moment £1.312 but it's indirect with two changes.....
Shame you can't go economy as it's about half that price with Aer Lingus from Manchester via Dublin.

Premium Economy
Depart Thu, 25 Jul MAN to MCO – 2 stops Duration 17h 35m

Brussels Airlines – Flights 2184 - 1h 20m
Take-off Thu 6:40 MAN Manchester, ENG, United Kingdom
Landing Thu 9:00 BRU Brussels, Belgium

Brussels Airlines – Flights 8801
Operated by United 8h 20m
Take-off Thu 12:00 BRU Brussels, Belgium
Landing Thu 14:20 IAD Washington, DC, United States

Brussels Airlines – Flights 8837
Operated by United 2h 05m
Take-off Thu 17:10 IAD Washington, DC, United States
Landing Thu 19:15 MCO Orlando, FL, United States

Return Tue, 20 Aug MCO to MAN – 2 stops Duration 15h 15m

Brussels Airlines – Flights 8838
Operated by United 2h 12m
Take-off Tue 13:45 MCO Orlando, FL, United States
Landing Tue 15:57 IAD Washington, DC, United States

Brussels Airlines – Flights 8802
Operated by United 7h 35m
Take-off Tue 17:40 IAD Washington, DC, United States
Landing Wed 7:15 BRU Brussels, Belgium

Brussels Airlines – Flights 2173
Operated by Flybe 1h 30m
Take-off Wed 9:30 BRU Brussels, Belgium
Landing Wed 10:00 MAN Manchester, ENG, United Kingdom

 

[Elise79]

Not much comfort but VA school holiday PE prices started at £1250 this year.

We paid £1067 flying out on the 11th July but they jumped on the Saturday to £1250.

Looking at all the school holidays £1250 seems to be the base for PE now.

Getting PE on non-British carriers is difficult as most only have Economy and business classes.

Have you thought about looking at BA - they fly to MCO and Tampa. Or indirect with either VA or BA so you get PE on the transatlantic leg and then just a couple of hours in Economy on the internal leg?

 

[Pootle]

Have you thought about looking at BA - they fly to MCO and Tampa. Or indirect with either VA or BA so you get PE on the transatlantic leg and then just a couple of hours in Economy on the internal leg?

Indirect with BA is no longer a good option for many since they axed the MAN-LGW flight. I've used this a couple of times and it worked well, but now the best BA option to Florida is Miami via LHR, since the MAN-LHR service is excellent and frequent. Depending on cost and frequent flyer offers, we may just try this route.

 

[Elise79]

Indirect with BA is no longer a good option for many since they axed the MAN-LGW flight. I've used this a couple of times and it worked well, but now the best BA option to Florida is Miami via LHR, since the MAN-LHR service is excellent and frequent. Depending on cost and frequent flyer offers, we may just try this route.

I was also thinking about across to the east coast i.e. New York/Boston and connecting down.

 

[Mouskavik]

How about a charter flight direct to Sanford?

Monarch

Manchester to Sanford
2nd to 16th August

£1164pp in Premium

or 31st July to 14th August

£1214pp in Premium

 

[Pootle]

I was also thinking about across to the east coast i.e. New York/Boston and connecting down.

Ah yes, I see now Tracy . I noticed that the OP was from Sheffield and assumed that MAN would be the preferred airport.

Life was much simpler (flight-wise only) when I lived in the south east

 

[mikki.young]

I still fly from London rather than Manchester even if it is a bit closer for me. I booked BA to Tampa for August in the January sale and ended up with club class for less than Cheryl is being quoted for premium economy. There do look to be some good rates available from London to Miami. It's only a short flight from Miami and the US seats tend to feel less crowded on internal flights I've thought when I've done that. Or it is driveable.

 

[Kath2003]

Virgin's prices are nuts. They wanted over £1000 direct for our dates; we paid marginally over £400 indirect (an additional 5 hours travelling time total for us when you include the reduced time travelling to and from the UK airport and the time saved by immigration at the first stop). School holiday prices too (admittedly Easter, and economy).

 

[scoobydooby]

Virgin's prices are nuts. They wanted over £1000 direct for our dates; we paid marginally over £400 indirect (an additional 5 hours travelling time total for us when you include the reduced time travelling to and from the UK airport and the time saved by immigration at the first stop). School holiday prices too (admittedly Easter, and economy).

Is that 5 hours in total or each way? It's the travelling time that puts me off.

 

[Kath2003]

Is that 5 hours in total or each way? It's the travelling time that puts me off.

For us, in total. I think it actually adds 8 hours overall but we "gain" that time back in other ways (Heathrow rather than Gatwick saves us an hour in each direction, and then you clear immigration at your first stop so that hour doesn't add any additional time to your travelling as you would have to do it at Orlando anyway). We also like clearing immigration at our first stop and just walking out of the airport on arrival (with good timing, we can be at our hotel within an hour of hitting the ground). Even if it were 8 hours, though, that's a saving of £100'per person per hour for us (4 of us, so £3,200 over VA prices). Put it this way - our flights PLUS hotel cost less than half the cost of a VA flight.

Ultimately, very few people enjoy travelling - it sucks. But 14 hours doesn't suck much more than 10 hours in the grand scheme of things - in both scenarios, you arrive tired, fed up, needing a shower and a decent meal. We find that it does break up the flight a bit, too. Plus, you leave earlier on the last day which we always found was a "clock watching" day and by then we just wanted to get home anyway. Oh and you can get dinner at the airport during your connection on the return flight, before boarding the transatlantic leg on the way home - so no need to eat on the plane (food always awful on the way back) and you can get straight to sleep.

It works for us, and means we can afford to keep going, anyway. But, we don't have kids, we don't care about travelling in cattle class, we don't care about IFE (buy a book a the airport, anything in the plane is a bonus) or special requests or the quality of the meal in flight (hint: it's consistently awful) or baggage allowances or twilight check in or any of the things many other people here seem to worry about. We accept that travelling sucks and make the best of it. It's being there that counts for us.

 

[2Tiggies]

but we "gain" that time back in other ways (Heathrow rather than Gatwick saves us an hour in each direction, and then you clear immigration at your first stop so that hour doesn't add any additional time to your travelling as you would have to do it at Orlando anyway). We also like clearing immigration at our first stop and just walking out of the airport on arrival (with good timing, we can be at our hotel within an hour of hitting the ground). Even if it were 8 hours, though, that's a saving of £100'per person per hour for us (4 of us, so £3,200 over VA prices). Put it this way - our flights PLUS hotel cost less than half the cost of a VA flight.

But 14 hours doesn't suck much more than 10 hours in the grand scheme of things

What she said

We really prefer indirect. Even with a slightly longer layover, certain routes break the trip into two manageable chunks instead of one long one. For example, going with United via EWR was just over a 6 hour flight, we cleared immigration really quickly, did a quick bag drop, had time for a snack and something to drink before boarding a 2 1/2 hour flight to MCO where we just walked off the plane with the domestic travellers ... and it cost us just over half the price of what VA and BA were quoting for the same dates. Given the choice of direct and indirect for the same price, I'd be inclined to go with indirect.

 

[Kath2003]

What she said

We really prefer indirect. Even with a slightly longer layover, certain routes break the trip into two manageable chunks instead of one long one. For example, going with United via EWR was just over a 6 hour flight, we cleared immigration really quickly, did a quick bag drop, had time for a snack and something to drink before boarding a 2 1/2 hour flight to MCO where we just walked off the plane with the domestic travellers ... and it cost us just over half the price of what VA and BA were quoting for the same dates. Given the choice of direct and indirect for the same price, I'd be inclined to go with indirect.

We need to be Team Indirect. I don't think I would ever pay more than £100 each extra to fly direct. The benefits aren't worth it, especially given the reported immigration times at MCO lately...

 

[scoobydooby]

Well I agree with you about food, twilight check in etc, etc not been a good reason to fly direct. I also fly economy. Flew PE once and I think it's 'the Emperors new clothes' so its not that either. It's just the time. The kids loathe the 9 hour flights so I've never even considered indirect. However, whilst I can still afford Virgin direct I'm starting to object on principle. And the kids are older now. Still flying Virgin this summer but will start to at least explore indirect for 2014 I think. Bit daunting I know nothing about it!