V-Flyer

Looking at booking flights to Philadelphia from Manchester next September with a combination of Virgin Atlantic and Delta.

So rang up today and quoted £740 per person, when I go on expedia I can find the same flights for £665 per person.

Is this common? Should I trust booking with expedia or is it better to book direct?

Would I still earn miles if I book with expedia?

If it makes a difference - the expedia search shows the fares as (N) for Virgin Atlantic and (X) for the delta leg.

Sorry for all the questions, but hoping you dedicated fliers can help me out.

Expedia is quite a common route for bookings with many vflyers doing the old ex EU trick so yes it can be trusted ,just remember to add your FF number to the booking to claim your miles etc

Just a word of advice if you book your flight and include a middle name. I recently booked flights via Expedia and then found I couldn't log into my booking on the Virgin website.

After a call to Virgin customer services, I discovered that Expedia process your booking with your first and middle names together. For example, MikeJames Lee instead of Mike James Lee.

So if you've used a middle name and go to log into the Virgin website, remember to type your first and middle names as one.

Apparently Expedia always do this, although it's totally acceptable and won't cause a problem with your booking.

griffinm7 wrote:For example, MikeJames Lee instead of Mike James Lee.

Apparently Expedia always do this, although it's totally acceptable and won't cause a problem with your booking.

It also messes with your FC account when posting miles and tier points. It's been on and off for me but the last few times I've had to ring up post flight and get someone at the call centre to post the miles and tier points to my account.

Have fun!

I normally use expedia as it can often be cheaper, very good if you want to book flight & hotel together. No charge for credit card and if you book using Quidco get 1% cashback on flights.

robinnelson wrote:No charge for credit card and if you book using Quidco get 1% cashback on flights.

saved quite a bit on credit card charges, didn't realise beforehand, but did get a separate £20 charge on my credit card from Expedia, not sure what for, but the Quidco earning offset that. But still less than VS would have charged for a LHR-SFO UC return. Annoying when VS charge you for using one of their cards on their airline when you book direct.

AlphaEcho wrote:

robinnelson wrote:No charge for credit card and if you book using Quidco get 1% cashback on flights.

saved quite a bit on credit card charges, didn't realise beforehand, but did get a separate £20 charge on my credit card from Expedia, not sure what for, but the Quidco earning offset that. But still less than VS would have charged for a LHR-SFO UC return. Annoying when VS charge you for using one of their cards on their airline when you book direct.

It seems Expedia put their own charge separately from the airline cost on the credit card, although the total (airline + Expedia) should still be what was shown on screen when you completed the booking. For my flights, the Expedia booking confirmation shows £1313.09 for each ticket, but the credit card shows £1303.09 to VS for each ticket, plus £20 to Expedia.

DoomWolf wrote:It seems Expedia put their own charge separately from the airline cost on the credit card, although the total (airline + Expedia) should still be what was shown on screen when you completed the booking. For my flights, the Expedia booking confirmation shows £1313.09 for each ticket, but the credit card shows £1303.09 to VS for each ticket, plus £20 to Expedia.

As you say the total amount I paid is what was quoted on the website, just when I checked my credit card it showed up with the separate £20 to Expedia.

Just another question in relation to this - the flights are coming up with a 1hr 27min layover in Atlanta, is that enough time to connect flights at Atlanta? Seems a bit risky?

Trusse - it should be. I had a 1h 30m connection at ATL this weekend, and despite the immigration and customs lines being huge (the worst it had ever been according to those around me) I still made it through. Just though, it did involve a bit of running...
If you're going out of the US I'd say it's even more likely that you should be okay.

On a side note - has anyone else encountered an error when trying to book via Expedia? I'm trying to book the following itinerary:

Outbound:
VS109 MAN-ATL 01/05/2015
VS4568 ATL-ORD 01/05/2015

Return:
VS4632 ORD-JFK 03/05/2015
VS10 JFK-LHR 03/05/2015

The option is available on Expedia at £1,024 for PE which seems like a solid deal to me as on VS it's coming up at around £1,205. However each time I try to proceed I get an unknown error...

When you book via Expedia do you get the flight booking reference so you can manage the booking via the VS website?

Yes you do.

I had a 45 minute connection for my VS flight back to LHR (via ATL) and i made it. Just.

So it is possible.