Virgin Flying Club - can any members help, please?

[Hilary]

I've just enrolled for the Virgin Flying Club, and I've been looking through their website.

BUT, I can't find out what my 'miles' are worth - e.g. how many Virgin miles would I need for a flight / upgrade / any other goodies that can be 'bought' with miles?

Is there something blindingly obvious that I'm missing?

 

[Penny12]

Here you go Hils In the top left menu, go to Flying Club and then Spending Miles

The 'important' bit (ie freebies to Orlando) is Economy - 30,000 for a free Companion Ticket, or 40,000 for a free individual flight (you still have to pay the tax on both of those options though) I worked it out once - you get better 'value' spending your miles with the Companion Ticket than the free flight option if you can do it that way.

 

[Hilary]

Thanks, Penny You guessed right as far as the 'important bit' goes! I think it will take a few more flights for me to earn 30,000, but it gives me something to aim for!

So, I take it there's no list of 'prices' as such - you just have to type in a request and wait for it to come back as 'sorry you don't have enough miles for that route'? LOL

As the Orlando route earns around 8,000 and costs 30,000, does it follow that all Virgin miles are 'worth' around a quarter of the required miles to spend? (i.e. four Orlando flights will earn roughly enough miles to pay for another Orlando flight).

 

[Penny12]

For a companion flight, yeah, about a quarter of it's value. Of course, the best way to get the most value is to earn your miles at the cheap times of year and then redeem peak period like August or Christmas - that way you're getting more bang for your buck

No, there's not a price list as such - but then again, there is. That link I gave you - if you put the value up to 150,000 it'll list all the options for Economy, PE and Upper Class and how much they are in one swoop. However, it only does it route by route which is a bit of a pain.

The other half of the screen further down lists hotel offers.

Personally I just transferred to the Virgin Credit Card that earns FF miles as well, plus I'm a Worldpoints member (BAA loyalty scheme) which you can transfer to Virgin (a little laborious collecting those little beggars though ), and if you book flights and holidaysthrough Virgin Travelstore you can collect miles. It's not much in the grand scheme of all those thousands needed for a flight, but every little helps

 

[marlouwrig]

I too thought I had been missing something on the Flying Club website.

This clears it up a little, but what is a companion ticket?

 

[Penny12]

Essentially it's 'buy one get one free' - If you buy a regular ticket, you can get a 2nd person's ticket (to fly with you at the same time, not a future purchase) for 30,000 miles + tax.

Unless you are a solo traveller, it's better to go the companion ticket option (for Florida atleast, I didn't check for West Coast)

 

[MickeyMcMouse]

The flying club is great - as we have just found out..

There is a minus side of virgin points however. In the very small print you find out that the companion ticket deal is based on one FULL price economy ticket. (When was the last time you paid full price for a ticket )

The upgrade deals ie econ to p/e or p/e to u/c are again based on certain priced tickets.

And tickets bought thro virgin holidays (ie flydrive) can not be upgraded.

.... and I assume (maybe wrongly) that there is a number restriction per flight on any of their deals.

I am sounding very negative but the free econ tickets for 40000mls seems to be the way to go or it was for us.

David

 

[Hilary]

....... and another question:

Am I right in assuming that points from two (or more) memberships cannot be combined to use for one flight?

 

[kazzie]

Hilary,

You CAN combine points from family members but have to use exactly the same number from both.So if you and your DH had 15,000 each you could combine these to book one flight needing 30,000 miles.They won't allow anything other than half and half exact amounts,I know I've asked!

If you want to use family members miles they need to call Virgin Flying Club and have you as a registered user of their miles!

 

[Penny12]

I was under the understanding that full price just meant what Virgin quote's rather than a cheaper third party agent's price (which you couldn't do anyhow because you can't redeem your miles that way), and the Virgin site is usually pretty competitive - for economy atleast. Not that it meant that you had to buy the no-restrictions type of ticket.

However, that said, I've never actually tried it. Has anyone actually redeemed for a companion flight?

If it is all the bells and whistles then the free ticket is best, but for what is a difference of only about 1,500 miles in redemption I'd be surprised if there was the huge difference that would be caused by paying full whack for the 2nd ticket. I viewed it as Virgin's way of trying to drum up more business by encouraging a 2nd person to fly

Oh, and yes - there is a restriction on the amount of flights that are available using FF miles. However there is a special booking engine for flights on miles where you can check availability and book online just like the regular online booking system, though that's only for the free flight option, not the companion option.

 

[kazzie]

Penny,

I'd love to know where you can check for availability on the quota left available to book with Virgin Miles? You said there is a special booking engine,can you tell me where please?

 

[MickeyMcMouse]

Has anyone actually redeemed for a companion flight?

When we spoke to them last week about a companion ticket for premium economy, I was quoted something like £1500 + for one ticket which would be valid for the free companion ticket.

I "think" bon voyage quotes around £700 per p/e ticket if you also take a car, so for us the companion ticket was not an option.

David

 

[Penny12]

Aha!

Ok - that was my qualifiying statement above, though perhaps badly worded.

the Virgin site is usually pretty competitive - for economy atleast.

When you compare Economy prices on the Virgin site they are often the same or pretty close to everyone else - infact a couple of times I've actually bought direct from them because they were the cheapest, but PE is <i>always</i> rack rate whenever I've looked. I've never seen a good deal on that on Virgin's site.

Kazzie, I'm not sure if the link will work because you have to be logged into your FF account, but here it is

If it doesn't work, you go to the Virgin Website, log in to your account, on the right underneath the little grid showing your miles/tier etc, there are some buttons - one of which is 'Spend Miles' - this brings up a window that looks pretty much the same as the regular booking page, but when you select your flights the price given is in miles + tax instead of £££ - you can then go on to book it online there and then, so I'm assuming it must be accurate as to what availability is left.

 

[kazzie]

Thanks Penny,the problem with that is as has alreday been mentioned.The site won't allow you to check how many miles you need for certain flights unless you have enough miles to qualify for the flight!If you don't have enough it just tells you you don't have enough miles!