Any point to VA Silver Flying Club

[Twilight Terror]

Right, we are still looking for flights for September to Orlando. We always travel PE and our trip this time would take us into Silver Flying Club members, if we travel with Virgin. But as far as I can see, there are no real advantages to the next level of Flying Club other than getting more miles per flight. There doesn't seem to be any type of discount on flights, or anything like that. All the bonuses of silver seem to be the norm if flying PE anyway.

So, my question is, do we go ahead and book with VA, which are extremely overpriced, and would no doubt result in a seat downstairs instead of upstairs (with seats which I still protest are smaller than the bubble!), or cut our losses, forget Silver flying club, and go with BA, whose World Traveller class (equivalent of PE), is £400 less at the moment?!

Answers on a postcard please!

 

[Disneymad]

I'd definitely just go with BA unless you had a number of future trips already planned with Virgin throughout the year. Silver gives some lovely perks for many airlines but Virgin isn't one of them (though in fairness Silver status is also generally harder to reach too). Bar the few extra miles it's basically just cosmetic and for perspective you can actually purchase 27,000 Virgin miles for £405 with the money you saved!

 

[2Tiggies]

I ran out of postcards

I would go with the better price. Unless the extra miles you earn would equate to equal or more than the value of what you will save by booking with BA.

Are you sure that there are no other advantages to the Silver Card? Reason I ask is that with KLM Silver and Gold loyalty card members could "bump" anyone out of a seat they wanted right at check in It isn't a very nice thing to do (coming from someone who has fallen victem to this - my 3 year old moved 20 odd rows away from me by a gold card member on a longhaul flight ) but I guess if you are the one with the better card ......

Every airline has their own incentives but at the end of the day, all they want is to make you less likely to fly with another airline. For me the price would be the deciding factor, especially since the difference seems to be substantial!

 

[Disneymad]

Are you sure that there are no other advantages to the Silver Card? Reason I ask is that with KLM Silver and Gold loyalty card members could "bump" anyone out of a seat they wanted right at check in It isn't a very nice thing to do (coming from someone who has fallen victem to this - my 3 year old moved 20 odd rows away from me by a gold card member on a longhaul flight ) but I guess if you are the one with the better card ......

Nah, closest Silver comes to that is if the flight is overbooked you jump to the top of the queue for standby (unless there's a Gold Membership ahead of you of course). Only other perk comes if you're flying Economy, you still get to check in at the PE desk.

Really, Silver benefits aren't that great. The extra mileage is nice if you're going to fly with them anyhow, but definitely not worth going out your way for.

 

[Twilight Terror]

Nah, closest Silver comes to that is if the flight is overbooked you jump to the top of the queue for standby (unless there's a Gold Membership ahead of you of course). Only other perk comes if you're flying Economy, you still get to check in at the PE desk.

The PE check-in is not a perk for us, since we don't ever travel Economy, we always travel PE anyway! So that's something else that would go 'against' Silver for us.

Really, Silver benefits aren't that great. The extra mileage is nice if you're going to fly with them anyhow, but definitely not worth going out your way for.

Normally, we book well in advanced, so get the cheap fares anyway. However, this year because this will be our second vacation, we left it until after the first one, which was last month. And I've just been watching the prices climb and climb knowing there was nothing I could do about it because we just couldn't afford to fork out that kind of money again at such short notice after the first pay out.

We'll no doubt be back to Virgin next year once we are a little more settled and sorted with finances. So, I guess the next question comes in how the two compare VA PE vs BA World Traveller Plus. From looking at Seatguru, the VA PE are 21" wide, while BAWTP are only 18.5", a mere 1" bigger than economy. Is it really worth that extra money for 1" of room? Or has seatguru not been updated?

Plus, I will miss the DTD check-in facility. I assume BA have nothing similiar, so it will mean losing a few extra hours in the park in order to go to the airport to check in and be bored for several hours instead of just turning up and boarding a plane

 

[2Tiggies]

This is where it becomes not quite so straightforward because you have value on other benefits which are not monetary.

It is really a case of deciding whether the DTD check in and an extra inch or two of seat is still worth the additional cost. Is that £400 extra per person or collectively?

 

[Twilight Terror]

The £400 is collectively. The DTD check in is only because I am so used to have have a 3-week vacation, and since I have started my new job, I am only allowed to take 2-weeks max at a time, so that limits a trip to Florida from 19/20 days to 10/11 days, and I'm feeling it! lol So I want to make the most of every single second that I get there.

 

[Dimplenose]

The £400 is collectively. The DTD check in is only because I am so used to have have a 3-week vacation, and since I have started my new job, I am only allowed to take 2-weeks max at a time, so that limits a trip to Florida from 19/20 days to 10/11 days, and I'm feeling it! lol So I want to make the most of every single second that I get there.

It still takes time to check in at DTD. Although I prefer to spend my last day without my luggage in the boot of my car the year DTD was closed for security reasons, I was able to get to a park really early and have a really packed morning/early afternoon.

Checking in a DTD meant the parks were already open by the time I got there, I had had to do a detour to get to DTD and I had to wait to check-in. If I'd had access to online check-in I think that would have been a better option (apart from either having the luggage in the boot or in storage at hotel.)

 

[islandmum]

The Silver Club seems to be just as irrelevant as the Red Club - save for a few more miles. I would go for it if you are cruising towards Gold Card and want to get there.

We have Gold Club and its a HUGE difference from Silver and Red:
upgraded seats when space (DH has been bumped from PE to Upper 4 times already when flying on business)
miles awarded for the kids seats (which makes a big difference when trying to keep the Gold card each year)
dedicated booking line
access to lounges round the world
priority boarding
check-in through Upper Class check-in
etc, etc

If its a case of money go with BA - if its a stepping stone to getting to Gold Card then go VA.

 

[Twilight Terror]

The Silver Club seems to be just as irrelevant as the Red Club - save for a few more miles. I would go for it if you are cruising towards Gold Card and want to get there.

We have Gold Club and its a HUGE difference from Silver and Red:
upgraded seats when space (DH has been bumped from PE to Upper 4 times already when flying on business)
miles awarded for the kids seats (which makes a big difference when trying to keep the Gold card each year)
dedicated booking line
access to lounges round the world
priority boarding
check-in through Upper Class check-in
etc, etc

If its a case of money go with BA - if its a stepping stone to getting to Gold Card then go VA.

To be honest, I don't think there's any chance we would make Gold flying club. Even if we went UC on our trip next May, it would only take us to 22 tier points, which would include using some of the tier points we were using now to convert to Silver!

We'd never fly UC unless some amazing deal came along, and we certainly wouldn't be able to do the three UC flights a year in order to keep the Gold membership. I'm only allowed three sets of holiday a year (1-week, then 2-weeks, then 1-week) and I certainly don't have the time or money to be making a UC flight every time my holiday allocation comes around, so Gold is pretty much out of the question.

Coming to that conclusion, then Silver is pretty much pointless as well!

 

[Twilight Terror]

It still takes time to check in at DTD. Although I prefer to spend my last day without my luggage in the boot of my car the year DTD was closed for security reasons, I was able to get to a park really early and have a really packed morning/early afternoon.

Checking in a DTD meant the parks were already open by the time I got there, I had had to do a detour to get to DTD and I had to wait to check-in. If I'd had access to online check-in I think that would have been a better option (apart from either having the luggage in the boot or in storage at hotel.)

Being PE, we don't have to wait at DTD to check-in. It's never taken us more than 30mins to get in and out before, and usually much less - 15mins. Once checked in, we go to a character breakfast anyway, as not desperate to get to the park (since we know full well we'll be back again soon enough!)

What is going to take more time now is leaving the bags at the hotel, going to a park, coming back to the hotel to pick the bags up and driving to the airport several hours before we normally would, plus adding in the fact that BA flights leave Orlando an hour or two before VA, which eats up another few hours! lol

 

[Claire-Bear]

My parents both have silver flying cards. The main perk they get is sporadic upgrades i.e. if there is space in Upper Class (they normally fly PE) they are most likely to award the seats for free to silver flying card holders and upwards. They have received free upgrades to Upper Class on several occasions.

 

[Twilight Terror]

That's a nice perk, but it's not a regular perk. We travel at less busy times (generally September), which sounds good, but by the time we travel, it's down to one plane a day instead of two, so there is rarely any space. So chances our that perk would never apply to us. Plus, there is three of us, which is not a nice easy number to upgrade!

 

[Disneymad]

Well perhaps the other way to view it is not so much whether you'll be flying Virgin again during the next year but what the chances you'd be prepared to fly BA again at any point in the future because ultimately the biggest pain in the backside is that your miles are going to be split over 2 frequent flyer programs.

The current trend at the moment seems to be that Virgin are out-pricing everyone - however, if you're feeling fairly confident that you'll be able to book early and therefore get competitive prices in the future then effectively any BA airmiles you earn have no value as you'll not be flying again with them to follow up on the membership. In turn this means it's not just about losing the 25% Silver bonus on miles but the fact that you're losing 35k miles or so because the bulk of them are being earned on an airline that you may not fly again.

If you think there's a chance you'll use BA again in future and can build up your miles eventually they actually look to have fairly decent scheme when it comes to upgrades etc. So perhaps this is as much about deciding whether you're open to idea of flying with BA again in future than it is about not flying Virgin this one time.

 

[Elise79]

I had this same dilemma for our November trip. I had been waiting and waiting for a sale which has never materialized and now Ba were £400 cheaper. We are 2A & 1C.

I ended up booking a VH flydrive for £25 more than the VA price but that includes our dtd check in which we also really value.

I read some reviews of BA WT+ and decided for us Virgin was the way to go. With BA there is no dedicated check in or crew and no priority boarding or disembarkation. We didn't want feel the extra money was worth it over economy all you get is a slightly larger seat, & extra case which we don't use.

We also prefere the later flight time of the vs15 as it gives us more time in Orlando and it means DD goes to sleep for longer as it is nearer her bed time when we board.