Christmas 2010 prices OMG!

We have been trying to organise our Christmas flights to Miami and have reluctantly given our business to BA. There is over 2,800 difference each and obviously I cant justify that amount of money just to fly VS.
I know its always a busy time of year but I held on so long trying to get VS flights we have ended up flying into Tampa and out of Miami on BA for a considerable saving.

It will be interesting to see if Tampa is better than MIA for Homeland Security, hopefully it will certainly be quieter and the car journey is only 30 - 40 minutes longer or as our driver confirmed, an extra $25.00.

Of course the major pain is that now we have lost our status its the seating issue - not so bad when its just the two of us but Miss A has decided to honour us again with her presence.

Recession - what recession!

quote:Originally posted by avalon
Of course the major pain is that now we have lost our status its the seating issue - not so bad when its just the two of us but Miss A has decided to honour us again with her presence.

Of course you can pay to book seats - 20/25/60 per passenger for Y/WT+/Club respectively. Not ideal but since the saving is so good [:)]

FM

I had the same issue flying to Sydney. If I flew out on the 8th December, I got a discounted UC fare, If I flew out on the 9th December, there were no discounted fares at all, despite UC being totally empty, meaning I'd have to stump up at extra 1500

[Pete]

As aspence7 hinted at, the reason you're seeing the big difference on BA and VS for the dates you're looking at is not because BA & VS price differently (their fares are normally within a spit of each other), but more likely because there is discounted availability on BA, but not on VS, so you're looking at two different fare buckets.

It may be because VS have already sold their buckets of discounted fares, or haven't yet released any. On certain peak flights, they may never release discounted fares if they're confident they can sell them all at full price. This is where a tool like ExpertFlyer comes in very handy, because you can take a look at how busy the flight is already to work out whether it's selling out (and therefore you're unlikely to see any discounted fares), or whether it's wide open (meaning the chances are that they just haven't loaded the discounted fares into the system yet). In the second scenario, if you can hold your nerve and wait a while, the Z class seats are likely to appear at some point, and you'll be able to pick up the flights for prices close (if not the same) to the BA discounts; plus you won't have to pay to choose your seats.

If, on the other hand, you want the peace of mind knowing your flights are already booked for an important trip (I'm kinda like that 80% of the time), then go with the BA flights that are available today.

Pete

But why the different approach? Why are VS not competing right now

[Pete]

Any number of reasons. BA might have more capacity, or historically VS sell out in that cabin for those dates. Maybe they've already pre-sold the initial availability of discounted Upper to Virgin Holidays (who take bookings before the normal 336 day limit for VS direct). We're also only just into the booking period for flights at the end of the year, so it could simply be that they've not loaded them up yet.

There are many possible reasons, but I doubt any of them are because VS 'don't want to compete'. The amount of discounted fares available on any specific flight is a finely balanced formula, worked out by the Revenue Management team based on dozens of variables. It's easy to wonder why they won't take your money and let you go to BA, but that's not to say they might consider they have a good chance of getting two or three times the price from someone who isn't looking for the cheapest discount. This is a business, afterall.