10th of March I grabbed a right bargain, £1300 Upper to Seattle for my birthday at the end of September. Out via LA on the 35K and a DL Connection and back direct. I booked it in seconds (I love the 35K and there's always something special about flying into LA for me!). In a handful of WhatsApp messages convinced my best mate to come with me and using my miles for his ticket we were all set, just let Coronavirus blow over and surely by September it would all be over and we would be sitting with a day in the Clubhouse (We were booked on the 23) sipping Red Heads and planning our trip to the Boeing factory!
Flash forward a few months, and the US Coronavirus numbers are awful and getting worse, and a family health issue (nothing to do with Coronavirus, but an awful time for it to happen) for my best mate means he can't go and I don't really want to do the trip on my own as we had planed it out in great detail and would seem wrong.
I spent best part of an hour trying to get through to VS yesterday, but when I eventually did, it was to a lovely lady working from home.
For my best mates ticket which was now totally redundant, that was cancelled in a few clicks and miles refunded. I then had the choice, either take the refund for the taxes which was quoted as "up to" 120 days. Or I was offered 83,000miles and 200Tps. I took the miles and TPs as to buy 83000 was about £1200! I thought it was a good deal and gives me about a quarter of a million to play with.
For my ticket as a revenue booking I could have taken an open ticket, rebook without fare difference up to November for Seattle or rebook to another destination. Well its my 35th, which I class as a semi-big birthday, so I really did want to go away in September, so I got her to look at Barbados for me. There was a £200ish fare difference for BGI, but I had no idea what the hotels were priced as. My lovely angel of an advisor put it all on hold for me and told me to go away and check the hotels and she would call me back at 3pm.
Almost on the dot she rang me back at 3 and after finding the Barbados Hilton for a decent price (I'm HH Diamond and I've been there before) the flights were rebooked and tickets reissued in minutes, for 26th September to the 3rd October, which means I get a week out there excitingly instead of the 5 days we would have done Seattle in.
The advisor was so bubbly, friendly, and enthusiastic to help, empathetic when I told her the story of what was going on, and was a really great ambassador for VS. I've got friends who work for VS and have been so fundamentally affected by these awful times, and although it was only two phone calls, it was reassuring to see that even in these awful times, the spark that makes VS what it is was still there!
Flash forward a few months, and the US Coronavirus numbers are awful and getting worse, and a family health issue (nothing to do with Coronavirus, but an awful time for it to happen) for my best mate means he can't go and I don't really want to do the trip on my own as we had planed it out in great detail and would seem wrong.
I spent best part of an hour trying to get through to VS yesterday, but when I eventually did, it was to a lovely lady working from home.
For my best mates ticket which was now totally redundant, that was cancelled in a few clicks and miles refunded. I then had the choice, either take the refund for the taxes which was quoted as "up to" 120 days. Or I was offered 83,000miles and 200Tps. I took the miles and TPs as to buy 83000 was about £1200! I thought it was a good deal and gives me about a quarter of a million to play with.
For my ticket as a revenue booking I could have taken an open ticket, rebook without fare difference up to November for Seattle or rebook to another destination. Well its my 35th, which I class as a semi-big birthday, so I really did want to go away in September, so I got her to look at Barbados for me. There was a £200ish fare difference for BGI, but I had no idea what the hotels were priced as. My lovely angel of an advisor put it all on hold for me and told me to go away and check the hotels and she would call me back at 3pm.
Almost on the dot she rang me back at 3 and after finding the Barbados Hilton for a decent price (I'm HH Diamond and I've been there before) the flights were rebooked and tickets reissued in minutes, for 26th September to the 3rd October, which means I get a week out there excitingly instead of the 5 days we would have done Seattle in.
The advisor was so bubbly, friendly, and enthusiastic to help, empathetic when I told her the story of what was going on, and was a really great ambassador for VS. I've got friends who work for VS and have been so fundamentally affected by these awful times, and although it was only two phone calls, it was reassuring to see that even in these awful times, the spark that makes VS what it is was still there!
Luxury & Boutique | Miles & Points Usage | Long Haul
TravelLessOrdinary | [email protected]
TravelLessOrdinary | [email protected]
