A tale of two IT systems

so woke up this morning with the urge to burn some miles. First off onto BA log in reward flight finder LHR LAX in First March 2 seats. Graph opens up 16th available select 150,000 mile £760 job done.

Next VS log in two flight in UPPER 4th July back 11th July mikes. Enter. Now up comes the next page showing dates and flights available. Now when you click on the dates it shows no upper glass but EC AND PE. you then have to keep changing the dates and messing around. Gave up and tried MIA. same thing. Why keep showing me EC AND PE. I quite clearly want UC as per the form submission. Given up completely, no wonder I've got over 300,000 VS miles. You can never find flights unless you want to go to New York. Why can't they just show the dates that gave UC availability, they used to before they enhanced this page on the web site. I just don't have hours to spend flicking through changing dates

[Neil]

From the calendar you can clearly see which dates have availability in any cabin. The colour under the date if the indicator, so Red is Y, white PE and Purple UC.

Also, in fairness you are looking to travel over one of the busiest travel periods to the US, so loads are always going to be very high and reward seats less available unless booking as soon as flights are released.

Try looking at them as separate legs too. Found availability sometimes appears.

What used to happen is that if you selected e.g. UC and there weren't any seats available it would throw up an error.

Now it shows if anything is available in Y and PE thus giving people the choice of selecting those rather than just throwing a fit at VS and 'nothing ever available' .

From the calendar you can clearly see which dates have availability in any cabin. The colour under the date if the indicator, so Red is Y, white PE and Purple UC.

Also, in fairness you are looking to travel over one of the busiest travel periods to the US, so loads are always going to be very high and reward seats less available unless booking as soon as flights are released.

I got the impression he was saying that the calendar was saying Upper availability, but clicking through its gone...

It works for me in that I can see across the dates I have selected the specific dates on which there is availability in UC, through the colour flagging that Neil refers to (which is further explained if you hover over the date). Each date UC is shown as available in this way is also available when I drill through.

The presentation is the same whether you make an initial selection of UC / PE or Economy. In this way, I guess, it's as Tonty says, you don't have to go through the process again if you opt to change the class in which you want to travel.

I actually like the new system - finally another page of the VS website in the "new" format (it's only taken a few years!)

I can see the OP's point of view too though - it you are only interested in Upper Class rewards, it is slightly less clear than the old system (at a quick glance). On balance the new system is better though IMO, as you can at least see if there is PE available on your selected dates, nab those and then hold on for the elusive G's.

Also, given the size of BA's route network compared to Virgins' I guess reward availability will be better in general on BA. That said, if you're after 4 tickets in Upper Class / Club World to take the children to see Mickey in Orlando in August, I think it will be a no-no on both airlines. Those tickets are worth serious money.