Prices in September/October

Why is it that if I don't sign in on the Virgin website the prices are lower than when i sign in? I'm not asking for the miles plus money offer.

[Nottingham Nick]

I have no idea, but it is slightly disconcerting
What sort of difference are we talking about?
Can you give some examples of routes and dates, please?

Nick

Spoke to the Virgin rep online and she couldn't understand it also.
MAN to MCO 27/09/13 to 18/10/13 £3688 not signed in and £4774.66 signed in. Weirdly the return journey was £200 cheaper in First class than PE ?
Im not using miles plus money, the only difference is I'm not signing in.

prices stay the same on my page whether signed in or not

Sometimes when you get to the final page on a reservation, you get the message "the fare quoted is no longer available" and it quotes you a different (usually higher) fare. I've seen this happen quite a few times with other airlines but can't recall it with VS.

Perhaps when you sign in, it is causing the system to check the final price? What price did the agent get when she ran the query over the phone?

I'm sure I was once told by VS Customer Services that if you search for a fare the system
will hold that fare for a while (20mins comes to mind?!). Therefore if you were to search for the same fare only a few minutes later it might not necessarily show as it's still holding the fare from the previous search. If there's only one price left it might go to the next level.

Whether that's happening in this case I do not know.

I'm sure I was once told by VS Customer Services that if you search for a fare the system
will hold that fare for a while (20mins comes to mind?!). Therefore if you were to search for the same fare only a few minutes later it might not necessarily show as it's still holding the fare from the previous search. If there's only one price left it might go to the next level.

Or then again it could be yet another VS IT cockup ii) .

I'm sure I was once told by VS Customer Services that if you search for a fare the system
will hold that fare for a while (20mins comes to mind?!). Therefore if you were to search for the same fare only a few minutes later it might not necessarily show as it's still holding the fare from the previous search. If there's only one price left it might go to the next level.

Whether that's happening in this case I do not know.

This is true but only if you go to the final page of the reservation where you put in your details. It is very important to remember this information when searching for reward availability. If you continue to the next page, the seats are held for 20mins. Even if you call up VS, they won't be able to see the seats until they are released again automatically.

I found this out when trying to book an upgrade. Checked there was G availability, went too far in the reservation so when I called up it showed as unavailable. On agents advice, waited 20 minutes and it reappeared. Called them straight back and booked. Phew! y)

Thanks for all your replies. Booked what I saw on the webpage. Upper class there and back for £560 cheaper than Miles plus money in PE. To be honest the PE prices were stupidly high but thats because I was booking for a flight in 2 weeks time. The seat sale made Upper class cheaper than PE. Love it !!!