A step back to the 80s

Just a moan from me but with a seious side to my future preferences. Being a loyal VA customer for around 20 years and having collected (and spent) the best part of a million air miles I felt I just needed to air my disappointment at the direction VA appear to be taking. I have 3 main gripes;

1. The value of using air miles for reward flights has reduced by a massive percentage over the past 5 or so years. This is due to VAs approach to pricing i.e. loading increases onto surcharges and extras rather than adding to the base price, which is all a reward flight covers. So we have to pay the fuel surcharges etc. and soon we'll have to pay for seat allocation. Which brings me onto number;

2. As we know, VA have decided to charge a MASSIVE £50 charge per round trip to book seats in advance. They have targetted economy passengers for this, you know, the ones who are more likely to shop around for the best deal. I would have paid a bit more to travel VA in the past but this makes the price way more expensive than the alternatives to most destinations.

So lets assume passengers, like me, decide not to book their seats in advance and take their chances at check in. Imagine the extra work the check-in staff will have to endure as we start questioning about the seats and how long the queues will get even for those who are just dropping off bags! It kinda reminds me of check-in during the 80s which, I thought was why airlines invented on-line check-in in the first place - it helps them too! but they've forgotten that. So VA who supposedly 'fly in the face or ordinary' and pitch the 'experience' as something that sets them apart from the rest are actually risking taking their passengers back in time!

3. Finally, VA have built brand new V-lounges in Manchester and Gatwick but they're not available to UC passengers, they have to make do with the standard airport shared lounges because the V-lounges are exclusive to Virgin Holidays. In other words revenue builders from economy passengers - are you building the picture here? I know they're effectively different companies but why can't they still do a commercial lounge share?

So disappointing but I've now used all my air miles and can't get excited about wanting to build them up again. Other reward plans are looking more appealing.

While I fully agree with your comments on reward bookings, in fact I take the surcharges as the airmiles are just a discount on a fare now. The only way to get any value is in UC. Pointless using them for anything else. Not sure on the fuel costs not compared to how they were when this "tax" was imposed but surely it would be better to latch this on the base cost.
Also with the seat booking costs, to me, just another way to make extra profit, they are a business, but I guess we can look forward to getting this from all airlines very soon.

With the V-lounges they are meant to be, from what I understand, I premium product for VH, VA have agreements with other for their lounges, also, I have been in V-Room and TBH, its not the environment I would choose to use the lounges as I do when traveling for business, I work in them, the background noise in the v-room when I was in there was far too much.

At Gatwick there is a VS Clubhouse as well as a V-Room so not sure what the problem is there? At Manchester yes it's a shared lounge but as shared lounges go Escape isn't bad.

Besides V-Rooms are aimed more at catering for families going on holiday - they're not supposed to be business class lounges which Escape is. Different markets.

As far as reward seats go, as LovingGold says the best use of miles outside reward sales is in UC, whether as a 100% reward or as an upgrade from Economy or PE. I agree Economy rewards are poor value, especially if you then have to pay for a seat request. BA's the same though, and at the end of the day VS lost £125m last year so whether we like it or not it has to increase its revenue to survive.

I don't buy the argument that introducing a fee to request seats will lead to "80s-style" queues at bag drop. BA have been doing it for years and they don't seem to have a problem. Passengers who don't want to pay will be able to select seats at T-24 when OLCI opens, so there's no reason why the number of people who wait until they get to the airport to be allocated seats should rise.

I'm pretty loyal to Virgin, and they remain my preference to fly. I do think 'flying in the face of ordinary' applies ever decreasingly however, which is sad. Can't blame them, perhaps, for seat charges, increased redemption fees, and worsened reward availability, particularly in comparison with others (BA...) but that's not exactly in-keeping with the slogan, and that's a shame. If BA improved the CW seat to offer direct aisle access, I'm not sure my motivation to choose Virgin would remain that high...

I do wish they would improve the reward availability US-UK. I could more easily forgive the fees, if I at least stood a vague chance of using miles on the route I want. Ex-west coast flights in UC are virtually non-existant!

Don't really agree about the V-Lounges, though, they're built by Virgin Holidays for a different purpose, as I understand.

The thing to remember is that the passengers are dictating all this.

We swallowed BA's seat charges and there was no benefit to VS at all from "flying in the face of ordinary."

Just look at our High Streets - we love ordinary. Different means taking a risk.

[Neil]

I really have to disagree on a couple of the main points in the OP.

I will just address the miles issue. I agree, It does seem it is getting harder to find reward availability and that the surcharges, especially on Y reward seats, make the value of them much less attractive and I really hope this is something VS will look at. I do however still think that for the casual leisure traveller there are some great savings to be had using miles and they still continue to make me abel to travel in premium cabins when I wouldn't usually be able to (I understand that for the more regular traveller this is much less attractive)

Seating: Any pax that doesn't want to pay the charge for selecting a seat will just select their seat at OLCI stage, so there won't be any extra queue time or seat allocation being done at the airport.

Lounges: The V-Lounges are for VH customers only and VH are run as a completely separate company to VS. Yes, the lounge for UC pax in MAN is pretty rubbish, but the LGW CH is by all reports excellent and pretty much on par with the LH CH (and all other VS run lounges).

I do not have a problem with the seat charge but do agree with the point that if using the tag "Flying in the face of ordinary" they do need to set a few areas where they are different from the Big carriers.

As to lounges I have sampled these around the world and am always amazed how poor some can be. To take the Virgin Lounge at LGW as a stand alone product it is excellent. The staff, food and facilities are all very good and it is always a pleasure to be there.

The problem however for me is when you compare it to LHR. I just love the Clubhouse there and rate it better than any other I have been in .... sure you can get a better Champagne somewhere else and perhaps catering and 1 or 2 others are a little higher.

But beating LHR Clubhouse in terms of all aspects, food, staff, services and ambience is a pretty tall order in my opinion. I am only a silver member and so cannot use the Clubhouse on all LHR flights I take. If I could I would however as nothing in my opinion comes close !

The LGW Clubhouse will never match the services offered in the LHR one for the simple reason that only about 7 flights a day depart from LGW, mainly on holiday routes where the proportion of premium passengers is very low. LHR, meanwhile, has upwards of 25 departures a day, largely on lucrative business routes.

Having said that, try sampling virtually any US airline's business lounges (or even BA's) for proof that the LGW Clubhouse is still streets ahead of most of VS's rivals - and it's particularly highly rated by many V-Flyers for the friendliness of its staff.

Thanks for all your feedback guys. Point taken re the V-lounges, they just look so much better on the promotional videos with bar staff and hot food versus snack food and self service in the Escape lounge at Manchester! and of course light years from LHR.

The feedback I have to disagree with is that check-in queues won't be affected because of the T-24 option - remember ALL seats are not available to choose yourself, a good number are kept back for operational purposes at check-in. If there are no attractive seats available at T-24 I'll be badgering the check-in staff! Maybe I'm a one off though lol, time will tell.

Not sure that much except emergency exit rows is held back at OLCI - although seats are prior to then.

Not sure badgering will get you very far these days at check in- what are you after.

[Neil]

Thanks for all your feedback guys. Point taken re the V-lounges, they just look so much better on the promotional videos with bar staff and hot food versus snack food and self service in the Escape lounge at Manchester! and of course light years from LHR.

The feedback I have to disagree with is that check-in queues won't be affected because of the T-24 option - remember ALL seats are not available to choose yourself, a good number are kept back for operational purposes at check-in. If there are no attractive seats available at T-24 I'll be badgering the check-in staff! Maybe I'm a one off though lol, time will tell.

The same % of seats that are held back now are still going to be held back, and it is only a very small amount. Of course there will always be some pax that have an issue but you will actually find that most of the seat changes at the airport happen at the gate once every pax has checked in rather than at the checkin desks.

Badgering the checkin staff really isn't going help your cause, if pax have already completed OLCI then they can't just boot somebody out of the seats to put you in. It requires a lot of moving around and usually with consent of the pax being moved.

If where you seat really is that important then the best option is to pay for it.

Have to agree with Neil, my own experience of booking reward flights has been great. Having only done it once it may be the exception, but I got three UC reward seats to the east coast over half term next year. Saved me over £5k on the best revenue fare I could find.

[preiffer]

"Virgin Atlantic - aspiring to be ordinary"...

I flew VS for the first time this year. I am not a business flyer but take about 3-4 trips, short and long haul, a year. Mostly with BA. NEVER with Ryanair

A summary of my first impressions are:

overall the staff are less formal but just as efficient (I like this)

the LHR Clubhouse is outstanding

customer service via the telephone is helpful and they do call back when they say they will

my first tentative booking using miles revealed multiple suitable dates for flying two people in UC to my planned destination (Tokyo in October). Though I have now postponed this until next Spring so hopefully availability willl be as good. The chap in the ticket office was very helpful

in-flight entertainment was good- too many films I wanted to watch in the time available!

food (on the flight) could be improved but was certainly edible

the website is horrendous and as the "window" to VS really deflects from the product and I can not understand why this is not urgently addressed. I am no IT guru but the website has an amateurish appearance, changing from old to new format with successive screen changes and is not user friendly. If I was on the Board this would be a priority for me. VS try to reflect that "flying in the face of ordinary" modern approach but the IT looks very out of date.

COI: my next two return flights are on BA. One because VS do not fly there and the other (LHR-BOS) because BA offer a better timing schedule for us (day flights).