Load Checking and Upgrade Advice...

Hi All.

New to the forum - its wonderful!

I am Gold Card owner (just requalifed for the third Year)and love travelling on Virgin!

Normally travel PE and try for upgrades.

Can someone give me a simple explanation of load checking? Read about it several times on the forum - how do I find it out and how does it help me?

Also, I have generally asked for upgrades via the flying club or at the airport. Most of the time its worked out well. Does anyone have any other advice?

I am travelling on VS045 to New York on Sunday....

thanks! David

Hi David

When people refer to load checks, they are usually using a tool which shows how many seats are left in each fare bucket. This looks something like this:

J7 D4 R4 Z0 W0 S0 K0 Y0 B0 L0 and so on.

Knowing how many seats there are available for sale can let you know what your chance of upgrade is. So, if the economy cabin and PE cabin are showing as zeros, but there is availability in upper - your chance of being upgraded is higher - whether that's an operational (free) upgrade or a miles one.

With your v-flyer membership you get a free trial of Expertflyer which is what many regular flyers on here use. Others have access through their work to industry systems.

Reading the availabilty isn't that difficult when you know which fares relate to which cabin, and you realise that some are a sub set of the other. So in the example above there are at least 7 seats available to buy in Upper on a full fare J, with 4 of those available on a D fare or an R fare. 7 is usually the highest figure you will see. These figures are not the same as the number of seats showing as "free" on seat maps.

Regards
R3dV

Reading the availabilty isn't that difficult when you know which fares relate to which cabin, and you realise that some are a sub set of the other. So in the example above there are at least 7 seats available to buy in Upper on a full fare J, with 4 of those available on a D fare or an R fare. 7 is usually the highest figure you will see. These figures are not the same as the number of seats showing as "free" on seat maps.

Regards
R3dV

Don't forget though that VS oversells the UC cabin, so what EF says may not actually reflect the true number of seats booked. I'd be surprised though on a flight zeroed in Y and PE that this will happen ...