Virgin flights for Oct 17 ridiculously expensive!

[meryll83]

The deal I managed to secure through flydrive has actually gone up today.

Think I've learned to expect some crazy moving prices for the first few days, but to still keep an eye on them, check premium and flydrive options, then just go with a deal I'm happy with!

 

[Jon84]

I've never done v-room before, is that something that can be added on?

It's only for Virgin Holidays customers. They pay extra for it unless it's thrown in to get you to buy!

 

[meryll83]

It's only for Virgin Holidays customers. They pay extra for it unless it's thrown in to get you to buy!

I guess I could pay to add this given I went with the flydrive option in the end, but I'm happy pottering around the airport, so not sure I need to...

 

[meryll83]

Just thought I'd give you all a further update - a day or two after I booked my flydrive, another interesting thing happened...

The price to do premium both ways came down in line with what I'd paid for just one way, so through VHols online chat I was able to sort taking advantage of that too - so we've ended up with 2 x return flydrive premium flights for a total of £1500, versus the 1 x return economy flight at £1300 with VA which I first saw. Got in at the right time, as the flydrive price has increased since then.

VA prices have dropped a bit since then, and flydrive has gone up, so they now seem more in line with one another, however what has kept cropping up throughout the experience is that premium has continued to be cheaper than economy at times.

Still a minefield, but very happy with our deal! Gives us the option of a car, Disney Springs check-in without an additional fee, and only having to pay a deposit at this stage
Good luck everyone who's still searching, have faith your deal is out there!

 

[mike230652]

Hi

FWIW, I've just ( as in 30 minutes ago at 11.30p.m. on Dec.21st ) just booked with Virgin for 4 x adults and 1 x child ( 7 ) to fly out on Tues October 24th and back on November 27th 2017. Total cost for all 5 of us was £3402.40 for PE, flying Manchester to Orlando. It will be our grand-daughter's first trip to celebrate her 7th birthday so why not ?

Looked at Thomson's Dreamliner but at the price they were charging for PE..... almost £4900 it was a total no brainer!

 

[RossK]

versus the 1 x return economy flight at £1300 with VA which I first saw.

Such a crazy price for an economy seat! We just booked LGW-MCO Virgin Upper Class for October for £1,800 return!

 

[meryll83]

Thanks to the advice on here managed to book our flights, virgin fly drive with premium economy both ways, 2 adults and infant (on lap) and v-room for £1700 all in the car is almost certainly going to not be collected get upgrades and insurances are in believable would have added up to £750 to be a useable car and adequate insurance level

Glad my ranting helped!

 

[mike230652]

The prices with VA are all over the place... UC varies from £1645 to £3240 ...... EC £499 to £1593 WHAT! and PE from £717 to £1707 in October!?!?
Not a lot of consistency there.

I guess it depends how many seats are left and as they're sold the price gets hiked accordingly?

 

[Simon2881]

Im currently getting £2350 for 2a and 2c lon-mco on 15th-29th Oct which im not prepared to pay considering the sub £1800 prices for most other dates in Oct. We've decided to move our dates to 16th-30th and fly direct to Fort Lauderdale for £1430 and hire a car (£340) saving us £600 and i get a car for 2 weeks

 

[meryll83]

Im currently getting £2350 for 2a and 2c lon-mco on 15th-29th Oct which im not prepared to pay considering the sub £1800 prices for most other dates in Oct. We've decided to move our dates to 16th-30th and fly direct to Fort Lauderdale for £1430 and hire a car (£340) saving us £600 and i get a car for 2 weeks

Which airline and from what airport do you do direct to Fort L?
Not an option I've thought of before!

 

[Woodview]

Which airline and from what airport do you do direct to Fort L?
Not an option I've thought of before!

Have you looked at Aer Lingus ...... London to Dublin ( Change planes & go through Customs & Immigration )

Then Dublin to MCO direct ........

 

[OldSchoolReasons]

I bit the bullet and booked today £888 for Economy - bleh. We've added it to our package so we can at least pay bit by bit. I guess that'll teach us for flying home in half term...

 

[NatalieMT]

So glad we are able to go outside school holidays - direct with Virgin (MAN-MCO) very end of August £590pp which I was quite pleased with. Happy you managed to get everything sorted in the end, such panic when half the things are booked and then you have no reasonable flight options!

 

[MrsIncredible1974]

Blimey, just checked flight prices for our trip in July / Aug. More than twice what we paid when the flights were first released - eek :-(

 

[RossK]

The best bit of advice I can give on flight bookings for Virgin is that - at some point, the prices you saw the year before are likely to appear again this year - though this could literally be for a couple of hours. For the flights I was looking at, the price almost halved at about 13:00 in the afternoon and were then back up by 16:00 the same day. Madness.

If you go to flights.google.co.uk and make your search as specific as possible for what you want (select which airlines you are prepared to travel - e.g. Virgin Atlantic and BA), select your dates, select stops: "non-stop" (to stop any crazy routes coming up).. This will show you the cheapest price of flights available on your given options. You will see the option of "Track prices" - turn this on. Google will continually monitor the flights on your behalf and you'll then receive an email when this price drops. Google will also often tell you what it expects the price to do based on historical data it has. I did this a few weeks ago and it saved me over £2,000. Interestingly - for my search of LGW-MCO, Virgin, October, Upper Class, it told me it was £1,800 cheaper to book the same flight through Delta's website - and it was true. I would never have even thought to check the Delta website (despite the fact they are in partnership). The exact same flight on Virgin was massively cheaper when booked via Delta's site. If you travel at around the same time each year, you'll get a feeling for the "lowest" fare that your given class will ever drop to (e.g. for Upper in October, the lowest I've ever seen it is for £1,650), so you know that if you see it at say £1,800 - its probably worth nabbing for the piece of mind that for £150 more than the cheapest ever fare you've seen, you're locked in and don't need to stress anymore! Even once booked, keep the fare tracker turned on - so you can get a feel for when the prices tend to rise and lower (for next years booking!!).

Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[Jon84]

Blimey, just checked flight prices for our trip in July / Aug. More than twice what we paid when the flights were first released - eek :-(

yeah our June/July flights with TC are crazy now!!

 

[Saz2891]

I had the same problem when I came to book my flight for 28th October, for Manchester - Orlando I was looking at around £1300 rtn (I'd allocated myself a limit of £900). Then I started looking at Gatwick which was considerably cheaper however then I would need to add a night in a hotel and train fare! In the end it was cheaper for me to add a night as Disney (so now going on the 27th Oct for 15nts) and got my flight from Manchester for £638 rtn