V-Flyer

Hi all, new to the site and first post. I've been collecting Virgin Miles for a few months now and should get the vouchers on card anniversary early next year. Looking at the detail it appears the benefits are not as good as I previously thought - can't combine, can't upgrade a reward/voucher flight with miles, need to buy a more expensive ticket to initiate the voucher.

Have I understood the situation correctly and if so, what is the general consensus on best use of the vouchers? At this rate I may just use the miles to upgrade some flights and avoid an expensive but voucher applicable ticket.

Thanks for your help,

welcome to v-flyer

Could you clarify which voucher(s) you are expecting to get. The Y>PE upgrade or the Companion?

The usefullness of both varies.

Thanks for the reply. I'm hoping for both based on current expenditure.

The PE upgrade voucher can only be used in conjunction with a Y miles redemption. You cannot then use miles to further upgrade to UC.

You cannot use the Companion voucher in conjunction with the cheapest fares in each cabin but it's a lot less restrictive than it was (so you can, for example, now use it with an 'H' fare in PE which is often not that much more expensive than the cheapest fare).

In UC, though, it's only usable with the most expensive 'J' fare so if UC is your aim it's pretty much worthless except for business travellers on fully flexible tickets.

Best use of miles these days is on Y and PE redemptions which are very reasonable but VS have clearly decided they want to make UC redemptions harder to attain.

Many thanks - UC was my aim so looking like my best option is to buy a ticket and upgrade using points. And no doubt it is the more expensive economy and PE fares that you can upgrade to UC with miles! Thanks again for the info.

I've never used my vouchers.
I have either bought economy and upgraded to Upper, or
bought the cheapest PE, or
this year used all miles for a full redemption which I now think is the best use since the upgrade miles required have made such a massive hike.

Dick D

I've just used my EC-PE upgrade vouchers and found great value in them. I'd recently switched my earning efforts into avois as we are interested in going east for our next big trip so that left us with one 60k points in my FC account, these on their own are only enough for 2x return EC tickets but with the vouchers we could enhance these points by using them for PE. I know its no UC but i'm sure we can 'slum' it First world probs.

gumshoe wrote:In UC, though, it's only usable with the most expensive 'J' fare so if UC is your aim it's pretty much worthless except for business travellers on fully flexible tickets.

I thought this has changed to I fares and up. It's so difficult finding anything on their website but did stumble upon:

"You can save a seat onboard for a friend when you buy a full adult ticket in all booking classes, except for our lowest price tickets (N, O, V) in Economy, (K) in Premium Economy and (Z) in Upper Class."

https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/fl ... ewardseat1

mikethe3rd wrote:

gumshoe wrote:In UC, though, it's only usable with the most expensive 'J' fare so if UC is your aim it's pretty much worthless except for business travellers on fully flexible tickets.

I thought this has changed to I fares and up. It's so difficult finding anything on their website but did stumble upon:

"You can save a seat onboard for a friend when you buy a full adult ticket in all booking classes, except for our lowest price tickets (N, O, V) in Economy, (K) in Premium Economy and (Z) in Upper Class."

https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/fl ... ewardseat1

That was something I asked the other day, as it contradicts what it says on the credit card terms & conditions page, with no answers as I'm not sure anyone knows the answer.

"Spend £15,000 on card purchases on the Virgin Atlantic White American Express® Credit Card, or £7,500 on the Virgin Atlantic Black American Express® Credit Card, by the end of any year and you will be eligible to receive a complimentary companion return flight reward the next time you book a full fare qualifying flight with Virgin Atlantic. (A full fare qualifying flight are those tickets purchased in booking classes: Y,B,R,L,U,M,E,Q,X,W,S,H and J. Companion rewards cannot be booked online, only over the phone, so agents are able to explain the booking classes at time of booking.)"

http://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/foo ... -card.html

Does that clarify the use of the credit card companion voucher as opposed to a standard companion reward using miles?

Interestingly I had an email yesterday afternoon from MBNA reminding me of the benefits of my Virgin Atlantic Black Card, including the companion reward and PE upgrade vouchers (odd timing if the speculation is correct that MBNA are about to scrap the Amex).

The T&Cs at the bottom of the email says:

"Spend £7,500 on card purchases on the Virgin Atlantic Black American Express® Credit Card by the end of any year and you will be eligible to receive a complimentary companion return flight reward the next time you book a full fare qualifying flight with Virgin Atlantic. (A full fare qualifying flight are those tickets purchased in booking classes: Y,B,R,L,U,M,E,Q,X,W,S,H and J. Companion rewards cannot be booked online, only over the phone, so agents are able to explain the booking classes at time of booking.)"

Still no mention of any other UC class than J.