Virgin Red Select Vouchers (Advice please)

Hi,

Advice please.

My party of four people was voluntary denied boarding on a VS027 flight in March 2013. We were promised either $525 each or free return flights to anywhere in the world (except Australia) using red select vouchers so the better deal sounded like the free flights especially as the Virgin agent said it was easy to book as soon as the Virgin Atlantic flights were released at 11 months out.

I have spent all summer planning and waiting for the schedules to be released. On ringing the Virgin representative I find that the red select vouchers are in a different class to the normal seats and have not been released by the appropriate department to be able to be booked. The Virgin representative said they couldn't tell me when they would be released or even if they would be released at all, and they couldn't ring anyone to find out when / if they would be released. I was advised to ring every day to see if any had been released on an expensive 0844 number where Virgin take a cut of for every minute I am on the phone to them.

Surely there must be a better way or am I wasting my time trying to book to go the Florida in August 2014 if the appropriate class seats will never be released.

Thanks for any advice.

Mark

[Neil]

Hi and welcome to the site.

The red select vouchers, book in to the O economy class, which is the lowest economy fare code. What you are finding it that because you are looking to fly to MCO during one of the busiest periods, and looking as soon as the flights have just been released they haven't released any O class fares yet. Basically, Virgin will initially release just the higher (and more expensive) fares to popular destinations at peak times, see how demand goes and then release some of the lowest fare codes.

The agent is correct that they don't know if any O fares will be released, it is down to revenue management and they are looking at it on a daily basis so that is why they have advised you check back every day.

Providing you aren't tied to exact dates, then I would be very surprised if no O fares were released for any flight to MCO in August, I would wait a week or so once the flights have been released and then ring back. You could check yourself by making a dummy booking on the VS site and seeing what fare codes it is booking you in to on the price matrix screen (click the fare breakdown button under the price) and it will show you the fare code.

Thanks,
Neil

oh and look on saynoto0870 website for a non 0844 number for Virgin

You should be able to trade in your RS vouchers for miles, 40k. But the bonus with RS is you pay no tax. Downside is that you can hardly find availability and that you are in Economy.

Hmm, cautionary tale here about the restrictions associated with red select vouchers (and for that matter, taking VDB in general!). If these were sold to you as being easy to use, then that is a bit of a stretch, as you are now finding out.

That said, I have often managed to get Os in school hols - admittedly MCO isn't one of the routes I frequent - so hopefully something will come up in a sale - January is often a good bet for that in my experience.

So good luck, and welcome to V-Flyer

Also, consider MIA as a destination; it is around a 4 hour drive to Orlando, so obviously not as convenient, but sometimes has "different" availability...

It's similar to the Vegas game - sometimes it is "better" to fly into LAX or SFO if you are trying to get reward availability, but then you need to factor in the convience.

Try flying in to JFK and connecting on a Delta flight to MCO it may be easier this way as there are now 9 flights a day in to JFK. (Some operated by Delta)