Rip Off Britain

Looks like Virgin Frequent Flyer loyalty is gonna be featured on Rip off Britain this morning!

It's on now ...

[Pete]

She booked Miles + Money. Nuff said.

Interesting article about Miles plus Money, I have found this also on many times, that it is cheaper to just book normally and save the miles for another occasion

Hardly a rip off, more a tale of once booked, never look again as we say so often here.

Grandpa bought MPM tickets in PE to MIA for daughter, son in law and two grandchildren, cost £5,100 plus 30k miles.

Daughter looked days later and fares were cheaper (because of a sale) - they feel ripped off.

Strangely Grandpa says he was a very frequent VS flier but had only managed to tot up 30k miles ?|

Forgettable story.

Not really a forgettable story Slinky, I am a FF and fly LHR to EWR alot for the whole round trip I only ever get just over 3.000 miles! so I can see what he was saying

[Pete]

I've done the calculations many times over the years, and upgrades (in the majority of cases) tend to be the best use of miles. Miles + Money is the worst value for miles.

The Rip Off Britain case tried to claim 30,000 miles was a "lot". Hmmm... not when they're trying to spread it between a family of four it's not. They booked just before a sale, then the price went down. Bottom line is that they were happy with the deal they got at the time of booking; if a sale comes along afterwards it's unfortunate, but that doesn't change the price you accepted when you booked.

[Neil]

Total non story, they quite willingly bought tickets at the MPM prices, yet feel aggrieved because a subsequent sale meant they were cheaper. That's tough luck, not being ripped off.

Yes, for true value from miles, MPM are not the best, but as I've said before, for infrequent travellers looking to get the cheapest possible fare, and especially at peak times, they can offer a fairly decent saving.

Saw the item on todays programme, bit off topic but i have been looking at holidays to Egypt for Dec and March next year paricularly with Thomson group have been checking for months at the beg of Aug got all the prices and dates written down checked with hubby and family got dates went to book and all the dates right across the board had gone up by over £240 per person. They have never come down and in fact have gone up even more, still checking have managed to get a half decent price for Dec but only going for a week not two. Thats what I call a rip off.As always its buyer beware. Lin ):

Agree. Don't see any examples of fares as a rip-off. Unfair sometimes when they raise fares during the high demand period like school holidays but that's life.

However virgin and the other airlines are answerable to the biggest rip-off ever ....
the horrid Fuel Surcharge.

Total and utter rip-off on a regular basis v(

Not really a forgettable story Slinky, I am a FF and fly LHR to EWR alot for the whole round trip I only ever get just over 3.000 miles! so I can see what he was saying

How come you only get 1500 each way ?
Surely you get some ff bonus miles as well ?

Here is the link for anyone that missed it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n2qdr/Rip_Off_Britain_Series_4_Episode_18/ Around 11:30

[Darren Wheeler]

First few lines sounds just like a Daily Mail headline

It was unforunate what happened to the family, but as VS said, air ticket prices can move up and down. No one knows what they will be tomorrow. It can work in your favour or against you. But in my experience I've lost a lot of money over the years by waiting for lower prices, the cost nearly always goes against you.

It would have been more interesting if Rip off Britain/Watchdog did a report into APD and fuel surcharges as those two really do affect everyone.

[Darren Wheeler]

What I did notice (and the programme totally ignored) is that on Jan 9th he received 7000 miles from customer relations, probably as a goodwill gesture.

Not really a forgettable story Slinky, I am a FF and fly LHR to EWR alot for the whole round trip I only ever get just over 3.000 miles! so I can see what he was saying

How come you only get 1500 each way ?
Surely you get some ff bonus miles as well ?

Its always been that way, never had any FF bonus Miles. It's actually really annoying because if I book with BA (same price as VA) they give full actual flown miles! My next flight to EWR on VA is only giving me 3458 miles + 4 Tier points.

Not really a forgettable story Slinky, I am a FF and fly LHR to EWR alot for the whole round trip I only ever get just over 3.000 miles! so I can see what he was saying

How come you only get 1500 each way ?
Surely you get some ff bonus miles as well ?

Its always been that way, never had any FF bonus Miles. It's actually really annoying because if I book with BA (same price as VA) they give full actual flown miles! My next flight to EWR on VA is only giving me 3458 miles + 4 Tier points.

Which is the published rate for the lowest return economy fare. Surely if you're anything other than FF Red you should be getting bonus miles? Or is this possibly the result of some kind of company rate deal?

Just trawling though openings at VS here http://careersuk.virgin-atlantic.com/se ... earch.html and there is one for "Senior Executive - Global Loyalty Programme" (Job Ref 89290)

In the job responsibilities part there is the following:
"Make recommendations on seat strategy e.g. sales to support redemption objectives and fuel surcharge revenue objective."

There it is in black and white...

I was looking at prices earlier in the year and in some cases i found that using MPM made the fare MORE than if id just brought the ticket outright.

In the end though, i got the flights i was after (LHR-JFK-LHR) for £390 as opposed to around £500 by using 2000 miles. So i guess it just depends on when you look as to what deal you get.