August 2011 flights.....

[alibeau]

Hi Guys,

I am currently watching VA waiting for Aug 2011 flights to be released. We are also toying with the idea of a trip in Feb 2011 too and I am looking at those prices also.....

I have had a look on Expedia and Ebookers and their prices seem to be a tiny bit cheaper than booking direct with VA, so a couple of questions...

Has anyone booked with either Expedia or Ebookers? Is it straight forward? Can you still 'manage your booking' on the VA site? Do you still earn miles? Also I thought at one point I had seen a 'price match' guarantee on the VA website but can't see it now? How can these other websites beat VA own prices??

As much as I like to think we would try indirect, I'm afraid we always seem to come back to wanting to do direct to MCO from Man...

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Ali

 

[2Tiggies]

I have used eBookers. It was some years back, but they were very prompt with sending out the tickets. I had no problems so there was no need to deal with them any further and so I can't report on that aspect of their service. I also didn't try to manage my booking online at the time. Don't know if that helps much, but it was very straightforward and uneventful - which is a good thing I booked over the phone, not online with them, if that makes any difference.

 

[wayneg]

Used Ebookers for hotel once, Expedia for flights lots of times including last August and this August, this year paid £1170pp direct with Delta they were about £1700pp, the reason for ours being cheaper were Expedia mix and match KLM/AF & Delta thru codeshare, our transatlantic legs were KLM tickets even though we were on Delta planes, internal flights were Delta tix & Delta planes. Booking thru either KLM or Delta were far more expensive than Expedia.

Can't see us going direct with Virgin again soon, far too expensive, next May they want £796.79, indirect from £430. Waiting for them to release August but not hopeful.

 

[heatherbelle]

Can't see us going direct with Virgin again soon, far too expensive, next May they want £796.79, indirect from £430. Waiting for them to release August but not hopeful.

Me neither, having looked at the price of early July I reckone they will be over 900.00 when they are first released, and by xmas be around 1100.00. We will see.

Maybe we should all club together and charter our own jet LOL.

 

[2Tiggies]

Maybe we should all club together and charter our own jet LOL.

Wow, that would be an awesome DIS meet! We could have an advertising sticky:

DIS MEET @ 35,000 feet.

 

[originalkk]

Booked VA flights to West Coast through Expedia for this summer. We got miles with VA and could manage the booking via VA website.

The only issue is that Expedia ask for first and middle names, and on VA's system these were concatenated together into the first name box, so that was what was expected when retrieving the booking on VA's site.

 

[2Tiggies]

Booked VA flights to West Coast through Expedia for this summer. We got miles with VA and could manage the booking via VA website.

The only issue is that Expedia ask for first and middle names, and on VA's system these were concatenated together into the first name box, so that was what was expected when retrieving the booking on VA's site.

I have never given my middle name for my flight. They have always just asked for first and surname.

 

[2Tiggies]

Hopefully this saves someone any grief with online booking and inserting names. This is off of VA's website

Your booking and ticket must reflect your first and last names only. Middle names are not required.

 

[originalkk]

Hopefully this saves someone any grief with online booking and inserting names. This is off of VA's website

But the Expedia site does provide fields for both first and middle names, and quite frankly, the interface with VA's system should be able to deal with them properly. Virgin's system also populates the default API data on the booking in the same way, even though there is a separate field there for a middle name.

It shouldn't be up to the user to know that Virgin's system can't handle what the booking web-site is requesting. I don't recall this issue when booking with other airlines through Expedia.