Expensive VS ticket prices?

I've got itchy feet, so am thinking about another weekend of gambling and late nights in good ole Vegas.

Been monitoring Upper Class prices/options for the last few weeeks (ideally don't want to burn miles for this trip), however VS are continually coming out expensive, to the tune of £1,100 per ticket!

Looking at direct flights to SFO/LAX from LHR:

BA NCW : £1,721.20
VS UCS : £2,825.80 (Z fare)
NZ UCS : £2,201.20

The BA saeats seem to be as cheap as chips, whilst the VS Z fare prices are more expensive than I have paid in the past.

It's a whopping price differential, surely VS must be loosing seat sales because of this - what's the chances of an Upper Class seat sale / price change I wonder?

[RichardMannion]

Its unusual as VS are not following the sale in question for some reason:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/uk ... blic/en_gb

Thanks,
Richard

[Decker]

We're having to go to EWR every month for a while and every time we speak to VS about the BA prices the response is always the same - they don't need to match as they're full. One of the knock on effects of VS having less capacity.

Thanks Richard/Decker - I did search the BA web site, but couldn't find whether it was a sale fare or not.

As for capacity issues, I've had a look at expertflyer, and on the dates I am looking at, VS J loads look rather light compared to BA/NZ, but I guess a few less seats at a much higher yield is a good thing from the VS point of view.

The annoying thing is that prices to SFO/LAX on VS are about the same as Z fare I paid all the way down to SYD.

Think I'm going to sit back and wait a while on this one....

Am I beginning to see a thread here, VS limit low cost seats and max on high price tickets, same time they cut the costs (amenity kit, wine, etc) and then also limit the amount of upgrades etc. Thus maxing the margin on pax prepared to pay UC D or J ... meanwhile on limited flight runs the premium cabins are fuller ... so consequently lower priced tickets and cabins have service cuts and upgrades are limited ... makes good business sense if you can do it!

Isn't is also largely to do with the popularity of the route?

Also - I was looking at PE for flights to Vegas - did a spreadsheet to identify the most economic dates to fly - and identified 13th September out, 27th back, to the tune of around £700 each. Aha, but when I went back a few weeks later, those same flights had more than doubled in price... I realise that prices do fluctuate, but I found it hard to rationalise such a huge hike.

Just found CO bizfirst to Vegas for only £1,650.80.

And it's via Houston on the 777's - so avoiding the 757 service to EWR/Cleveland. I also seem to remember a good review of CO on v-flyer a while back.

Good price, and mileage/tier point earning too of course, but will wait a little longer!....

[mcmbenjamin]

Not bad richard. People normally say great things about CO. And you get 200 percent miles as a UK FC member.

Originally posted by mcmbenjamin
Not bad richard. People normally say great things about CO. And you get 200 percent miles as a UK FC member.

That sounds good, but do you get any tier points as well?

Originally posted by dunbarm
That sounds good, but do you get any tier points as well?

I think you get 2 TP's per sector on the LGW-IAH sector, and 1 TP on the IAH-LAS sector, so 6 TP's in all. Not very good, but well on the way to retaining Silver!