Ticket Selling practices

Hi all,

I'm flying out to Cape Town on 17th Feb on VS603 and returning on the 604 on 26th in economy. I assume the flight is quite full as the seatmap is already blocked off.

Out of curiosity I've been checking the flight on the VS website each day for the past week or so (by doing dummy bookings), and some days it lets me buy a straightforward return in economy, other times the direct flight doesn't show and it just gives me the option to fly out on the 601 to JNB and connect with SA or vice versa.

Today it's giving me outbound on the 603 and return via JNB on the 602, where as yesterday the 603 wasn't available. How can they magically create seats?

Each day I've tried in the past 6 days it's given me different combinations, with the 603/4 being available some days but not others. What do you think is going on? Overbooking?

[Neil]

There are many possibilities, but with the flight being quite close now, and from what you have said potentially quite full, then it could be as simple as something like people are reserving seats (which you can do for 24/48 hours) and then not taking them up, so they then show availability that wasn't showing previously.

There are many possibilities, but with the flight being quite close now, and from what you have said potentially quite full, then it could be as simple as something like people are reserving seats (which you can do for 24/48 hours) and then not taking them up, so they then show availability that wasn't showing previously.

Thanks Neil - but would this result in Virgin putting more economy tickets on sale? Two days ago if you wanted to book in economy with VS to CPT on those days, the only option showing was to connect in JNB (it looked like 603/4 were fully booked), yet this morning the 603 is back on sale.

THe seat map is blocked off once the 60% limit of seat requests is reached. It does not automatically mean that the flight is full or overbooked. VS (like lots of other airlines) only allowes a certain number of seats for pre request with the rest being available at OLCI. It helps them allcate seats together for families and groups etc.

It could be a number of other factors

The mere fact that you did a dummy booking(s) blocks off past of the ticket allocations for a short time and that can then affect the next person who looks.

People can put a temporary hold for 24 hours on a ticket so that comes off the inventory and it then released back if the person then dosen't actually buy the ticket(s)

How can they magically create seats?

One thing that hasn't yet been mentioned is that people with flexible tickets could be switching to other days or cancelling. Or people may have upgraded, leaving more tickets available in Y.

Or VS may have looked at the flight and decided to oversell (more) seats.

Or reservations are not being booked.

Or as tonty says, if you enquire persistently you can affect what is offered, which can have a dramatic effect if the flight is very nearly full!

Thanks guys for the info.

I do find it crazy that VS would hold seats for an extended period of time for a dummy booking, especially considering they only give you 20 minutes to fill out the pax details.

I never thought about pax upgrading either, which is obviously a likely cause too. Today it seems that VS603/4 both have seats available in economy again.

I'm sure it's a combination of what you've said which explains why the flights are taken off sale then put back on sale again. Thanks!

A colleague of mine has just booked a trip to LAS, online showed no availability, calling revealed loads of availability - I'm not so sure that it's people moving about :w .

I do find it crazy that VS would hold seats for an extended period of time for a dummy booking, especially considering they only give you 20 minutes to fill out the pax details.

The VS IT system is a mystery to us all (and suspect it is to them as well) There could just be some latent stickyness in their system that holds the dummy booking for longer than the published 20 minutes.

And it might not just be one single dummy booking it could simply be a series of unconnected people looking at the same flight. Itg also depends on the time of day you look as well.