Bargain upgrade on the VS website.... not!

[Nottingham Nick]

Just checked my BOS flights in a couple of weeks time on the VS website. I wanted to make sure we still have a 747 scheduled.

I was told there that I could upgrade the trip from PE to UC for .. £5155 per person :0 :0

I know it is too late to pick up a Z fare for that flight, but it is wide open and there are D buckets at £3639.

What is the rationale behind such a stupid upgrade price on a wide open flight? Am I missing something?


Nick

[Bazz]

Maybe it's as simple as someone made a mistake, otherwise it makes no sense at all.

If you actually go through to the next screen you may find it is considerably less.
The website has been doing that for some time.

Someone obviously wishes to put people off ):

[Nottingham Nick]

Thanks for that, Bill.

The problem is that the button to get to the next screen is simply "Upgrade". I certainly wouldn't click on it for fear of committing myself to a ridiculously expensive UC suite. This would be made worse by the fact that there are three of us on the booking and the credit card would be hit for a mere £15,465!! xx(

VS really must sort their website and phone reservations systems out, if they want to stay in business.

Nick

Thanks for that, Bill.

The problem is that the button to get to the next screen is simply "Upgrade". I certainly wouldn't click on it for fear of committing myself to a ridiculously expensive UC suite. This would be made worse by the fact that there are three of us on the booking and the credit card would be hit for a mere £15,465!! xx(

VS really must sort their website and phone reservations systems out, if they want to stay in business.

Nick

When I click on the Upgrade button I then get another screen giving options - pickup etc. You can then abort back to your booking. They have to give you payment options anyway...and ask if you have authority to act for the others in your party.

When I have just checked, my upgrade cost now does not change although they still say the particular upgrade is unavailable - so maybe they have fixed the original disparity.

Hi folks

Looks like there is a website or pricing error here. Thanks for identifying it. As you may know we have changed our fares "cache" (we now use the ITA fares engine, which is being acquired by Google) so the pricing can change between booking screens if our GDS (Shares) has a more up to date fare than our cache. Normally the difference is only a few £ though. We can't currently replicate this problem but will keep trying to track the issue down.

Nick - don't share yr PNR/booking ref here but can you direct message me with yr PNR details plse or email Pete (Edinburgh Fringe) Shaw if you don't have my email and we will see if we can track the problem down. Or just share the dates and class that you are booked on here which will be a start.

rgds

Fergus (Virgin Atlantic eBusiness)

[Nottingham Nick]

Thanks Fergus - I think I have your email address - if not I will certainly PM you the details on here.

Thanks for your input.

Nick

Hi Nick

Thanks for the extra info you sent by direct email.

Yes, there is definitely a problem with the web quote which has been logged with our IT colleagues. In the meantime our Fares guys have updated yr booking with the correct upgrade price.

Hope this helps and thanks for helping to identify the problem.

rgds
F

It does seem to be a systemic problem.
Nowhere near Nick's cost difference now but my upgrade cost pp per sector is showing £787 on the first screen then drops to £536 on the second.

Still too high for my interest - with only 4 seats booked in UC (similar on the parallel flight) and almost full PE & Y, I'm waiting to see what's offered at the gate as miles upg.

Silly for VS not to try to attract the extra revenue.

I must admit that I am impressed by Fergus posting on here.
I know that VS have been recruiting social media peeps to monitor FB, Twitter and also smaller specialist sites (such as this one!).
I am trying to find the job description that they had up but it is basically making VS look better through all the different types of digital media and social networking and in this case Fergus has done a bang up job. Quick, efficient and extremely polite!

Ed

[Decker]

Ed

Fergus is somewhat more senior than that but I agree it's nice to see him here .

That's even better then! Will have to get the office to upgrade the computers so that I can open more than one v-flyer windown without a freeze and I'll be PMing all the time!

I wasn't saying that Fergus was one of them, they only closed applications a few weeks ago, it just seems VS seem to slowly make one or two changes for the better... and I like it!

[Decker]

Virgin's attitude to Social Media is refreshing to say the least. They seem willing to embrace new social media and don't mind making mistakes along the way as long as they ultimately improve the end user experience.

Hah - I see your £5155 per person to upgrade to BOS, and raise you £7,523 per person to upgrade PE ro UC, to San Francisco next wednesday!

And I raise you Economy to UC £8500 each to Vegas leaving Monday!

[Darren Wheeler]

The cheapest UC LAS flight on Monday is £8603

Are they tracking BA again?
opodo:

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