Has my recent "G" luck run out?

Morning

Recently I have had a luck with obtaining G upgrades, managing both ways on a flights to Vegas one of which was obtained at the airport on the day and also for an upcoming outbound flight to Barbados.

On the return flight we have booked Economy reward tickets, in the bubble but have been checking for those G on the way back. Now here is my query, when I check on-line (and have tried different combos from 2 Adults/1 Child to a sole adult) it shows that their is plenty of availability and I have even taken it through too booking stage. However when I phone to book (as I need to refund the 22,500 X3 cost of the economy return so that I have the required 150,000 miles) I am told that there is no availability at this stage, have been told that so far 9 seats are sold so there are 5 unsold (747). Have thought about cancelling the return fights and trying to book online but have a feeling it still might not work as have noticed a message on the Virgin site saying there are problems with booking flights to the Cariabean online? Any suggestions.

Have you tried calling again and speaking to another agent? Unfortunately the level of knowledge and service does vary from agent to agent. Be mildly assertive and you could try and offer to send a screenshot of the availability you're seeing.

I have certainly read on here that calling the Flying Club can unearth reward seats that may not be visible on the website to our eyes, but never vice versa.

My recent calls to the FC for booking G fares (to USA) demonstrated that they had the same availability on their screens that I was seeing on the website.

We all know though that avaialbility for reward seats is very fluid and can change minute to minute, even during the telephone call itself! So I second calling them again (and again and again if needs be!) as something may crop up. Good luck.

Just a thought... If you a dummy-booking the itinerary I believe the seats will become unavailable to anyone else for 20 mins whilst you complete the booking. If you consequently call FC to book over the phone then your prospective seats may not show as available until 20 minutes later.

Have tried about 4 different agents now and they still say no G's are showing. I waited till after speaking to them and made another dummy booking and got right through to the payment stage and it is still letting me book at least one G (unless it is going to go wrong when you enter the credit card details), seems strange, will have to keep trying!

[Neil]

I've had a similar experience. Doing a dummy online miles booking shows availability, yet when calling FC there is nothing showing at all. Every time they have checked with a supervisor and even looked online themselves, and can only offer the explanation that it is an error on the website and they will let the relevant team know so it can be fixed. 6 months on, it's still the same and the answer when I call FC, is the same.

An update on this, wasn't sure whether I should have started a new thread as I believe this is interesting. Have been phoning every 2 days as I believe G's were showing online, each time I was told that no G was available and that Virgins website was incorrect.
However I decided to try and book online and then surprisingly I was able to book a one way Upper Class ticket, very strange. I then phoned again as of course I was needed to cancel the Economy and receive 22,500 miles. I asked why as G,s were still not showing and it was confirmed that these G's were only available to passengers from either the USA or Caribean but not to British passengers, this seems a little strange to me. I was able to cancel another E return so we have 2 Upper Class tickets and one ticket in Economy (for our child as you can't book a single ticket for a child). Have been advised that at the airport one of us will be advised to swap seats or even swap at the door (which of course we will do!). Hoping for one last G for the year. Has anyone experienced this?

What you were told is correct - reward availability can differ from territory to territory which explains why, sometimes, a US-UK flight can show as having G availability when you search for a one-way trip but none when you look for the return leg of a return trip.

Why? VS wants to ensure that the US customers it's desperate to attract get their share of reward availability to London which means preventing it all being snapped up by UK passengers. So it restricts what UK customers can see online but those Gs are actually available to anyone hence why it always pays to search for one-way trips rather than returns.

What you were told is correct - reward availability can differ from territory to territory which explains why, sometimes, a US-UK flight can show as having G availability when you search for a one-way trip but none when you look for the return leg of a return trip.

Why? VS wants to ensure that the US customers it's desperate to attract get their share of reward availability to London which means preventing it all being snapped up by UK passengers. So it restricts what UK customers can see online but those Gs are actually available to anyone hence why it always pays to search for one-way trips rather than returns.

When I came across this situation recently and experimented with two one way bookings I noticed that the EWR-- LHR leg fees and taxes were priced in USD. Having previously been rebuffed by VS when trying to book the return - "the website is wrong / out of date" - in my case when I rang VS and explained that I could see two one ways they happily made the booking for me.

What you were told is correct - reward availability can differ from territory to territory which explains why, sometimes, a US-UK flight can show as having G availability when you search for a one-way trip but none when you look for the return leg of a return trip.

Why? VS wants to ensure that the US customers it's desperate to attract get their share of reward availability to London which means preventing it all being snapped up by UK passengers. So it restricts what UK customers can see online but those Gs are actually available to anyone hence why it always pays to search for one-way trips rather than returns.

It apparently cuts both ways. As a US-based Gold member, I've also had trouble booking G reservations that appear as available on the calendar, but can't be booked on-line or over the phone. The explanation that I was given is that some UK->US seats showing as available are bookable only as the outbound leg of a trip originating in the UK, presumably for the opposite reason to that which you describe above.

At the time, I was trying to change my return flight LHR->SFO to a later date, so it was I thought logical for me to check the one-way. But no, I was told that I must go through the motions of booking a US-originated return trip (with a random outbound date in my case and desired return), then take the booking to the point of selecting flights, in order to see if the G fare was really available for me!

Well another update, the final G that I needed at lunchtime became available so a call to bookings at lunchtime and spoke to another agent. ( I have spoken to Virgin at least 10 times over the last 2 weeks to try and secure and it was only on the last 3 calls that thinks got easier and easier for some reason). This time rather than me having to book online she did it all for me on the phone, refunding mileage, allocating seats, refunded exit row money and took payment, she did acknowledge that these seats were for pax flying from "Barbados" and I even didn't have to pay the credit card fee! So all in all happy and shouldn't grumble BUT
1) Why do we have to pay a Credit Card via just because we line in England
2) Different agents seem to be able to do different things (although part of that is probably down to me giving clear instructions on what they need to do rather than asking if they have G's and accepting that the website is wrong
3) The website, is it wrong or do you just live in the wrong country!
4) Checked this morning (for other members of the party) and there are still 2 G's fee, this being a 14 seat cabin, so all in all at least five G's were free available to PAX from the other side of the pond but not 1 to the UK, seems unfair. What would happen if say Tesco advertised an excellent club card bonus but only if you were from a certain country, think there would be uproar.

Just find it strange overall but glad I have the knowledge (thanks to here mostly!!!!!) to be able to work round it and get it done AND have to say that the service on my recent flights has been getting better and better as well as the booking centre staff who have all been friendly and helpful with a little help from my self.

Now lets see if I can those last 2 G's and I am now thinking of cancelling credit cards and moving to the dark side for the next 2 or 3 years then back to Virgin again (reapply for all the different cards/bonus etc)