V-Flyer

Hi All

Looking for some help from those who may have been in a similar position, or even experienced connections between DL & VS themselves.

We're looking at Florida for Xmas and our planned itinerary is below.
Outbound
LHR-JFK then 2 nights in NYC
NYC - TPA/SRQ

Inbound
SRQ/TPA -> BOS -> LHR

We would fund our VS long haul flights in Upper with miles, with DL flights cash purchase. The issue is that Virgin are telling us that if our inbound flight from Florida up to BOS is delayed for any reason, the fact that we have bought tickets with miles & cash constitutes a separate reservation and therefore we would have no protection in the event of any issues or delays which would cause us to miss our VS flight to London that night. However they did caveat that this would be at airport discretion with whatever the agent says on the day.

Clearly this isn't a palatable situation as stumping up for a new ticket just after new year would cost £££.

Does anyone have any experiences of connecting between DL & VS on cash / air miles tickets booked in this way? Have DL helped you get home if there are delays?

Thanks!

I have a fair bit of experience connecting between DL & VS, but it has always been on the same reservation and actually (touch wood) I've never missed a connection. I would personally never book connections on separate reservations for precisely this reason. It has stopped me making the exact type of purchase you're describing. I would only ever rely on what the actual terms and conditions of each reservation are. You cannot rely on any goodwill, even if others have experienced it imho.

There's nothing stopping you booking the whole itinerary using miles subject to availability and having enough miles to do so. Have you considered that?

The other option would be to book the reservation in economy (or premium if you prefer) and then upgrade the VS flights with miles. This is not the cheapest way to do it, but it does cover the connection and will grant some miles back as well as some tier points.

On separate tickets you are NOT connecting. That is a very imortant thing to recognise.

With separate tickets you have no protection or rights to automatic rebooking should you miss a flight. DL/VS staff on the day may try and help but their options may be limited. And I wouldn't want to rely on that on the day.

What I would do in this case is seriously consider flying to BOS the night before your VS flight to LHR as that would give you an extra time cushion and options to get to BOS incase of irrops

I just find it absurd that two airlines who are so commercially aligned are so unfriendly to customers just because of the mode of payment involved in the ticket.

I don’t have enough miles to buy the DL tickets in miles but I will explore the option to buy miles to see if this may give us some protection.

How do I go about searching DL domestic award flight availability with VS miles?

You can search them on the VS site.

clarkeysntfc wrote:I just find it absurd that two airlines who are so commercially aligned are so unfriendly to customers just because of the mode of payment involved in the ticket.

It would be exactly the same if, for example, you had a BA flight with a connection on Iberia. (These two airlines are even more aligned as they are part of the same group, i.e. IAG).

Ticket 1 is to get you from A to B, on one booking reference. Ticket 2 is to get you from B to C, on a separate booking reference. It's only when everything is booked under one booking reference that the systems talk to each other / you get protection in the case of missed connections / irrops.