Lack of reward availability in upper class - LGW-MCO

Hi

Tried to use my miles to get 2 UC seats to MCO in June 2011 and nothing! I've got over 300k miles and this is the 2nd year I couldn't use them as availability on most routes seems so limited. Any tips on bagging 2 seats? ?|

Is it always this bad? I looked at BA and they have availability in CW almost every day even though they only have one flight a day rather than the 3 on VS. Think I may have to use my BA miles instead!

[Neil]

Well, there are two points I would make really.

Firstly, flights for June 2011 have only just been released, and not all of June is yet available. It is quite common for reward seats to not be released straight away, so it is worth checking on a daily basis (maybe even more regular if you can) as they could still appear at any time.

Secondly, you are right, that reward seats, especially to MCO are hard to come by and they are only going to get even harder. From May 2011, one of the daily MCO flights ex LGW changes to the new A330 a/c which will only have Economy and Premium Economy seats, so no UC at all. This will mean that instead of 28 UC seats a day to MCO ex LGW it will go down to only 14 a day.

Have you thought about going LHR-MIA as an option?

Good luck, keep trying and let us know if you manage to bag any.

Neil

[Darren Wheeler]

The only tip I know is to keep checking.

As the LGW/MCO route has only 14 UC seats, a reward seat is hard to come by but not unknown. 2, on the same flight this early in the year is even harder.

Look at other options such as MIA.

Thanks both!

I've decided to use a companion voucher on BA for 2 CW seats as we need to get booked as it is part of a bigger party heading out.

I'd looked via Miami and New York or Washington too but not much doing. I guess as you say it may be too early, but I was looking at early June, so the 335 rule should apply?

Only 14 seats on each flight to MCO seems far too few!

[Neil]

I'd looked via Miami and New York or Washington too but not much doing. I guess as you say it may be too early, but I was looking at early June, so the 335 rule should apply?

That rule only covers the ability to book a flight. It doesn't mean that every single fare code/reward availability is released straight away. Quite often you will find that the first few weeks only the higher fare codes are released and then they start releasing the lower fare codes and some reward seats.

Neil

It's not impossible to do (just pretty difficult ). We have managed a couple of reward seats per year in U/C for the last 3 or 4 years, but thinking about it, its probably been more of the case in booking the holiday around the reward availability rather than trying to get seats on specific days

David

Im the same we travel to mco in late september on G reward seats and on a saturday as well!!!!!!
So they are definately there but i think you have to book around whats available and not when you specifically want it.

cheers

alex

We had he same problem recently in trying to get three UCS using FC points from MAN to MCO in April 2011.No seats were showing on the route so I looked at the LHR - MIA option and saw three UCS available.I kept the screen on and rang VS to check. The agent told me that she didn't have the availability showing from LHR even though I still had the information on the screen. I mentioned MAN and she immediately said that she could reserve three seats on VS73 - still not showing on my monitor!I asked her to book these immediately and paid the tax as a result. It was a little ( more than ) confusing but I was relieved that the seats were obtained but still mystified as to what shows up where and when. I would suggest ringing up rather than relying on the information on the screen in future.

[Nottingham Nick]

.... I would suggest ringing up rather than relying on the information on the screen in future.

A very good tip at the moment. The VS website still seems flaky for all sorts of things, and the information you see on screen isn't 'real time', as I found out last week when I was looking at DXB flights.

I appreciate that I have the advantage of the Premier Team, but I have always found VS phone staff to be very helpful and they can see things on their screen that we don't have access to.

Nick