Virgin Atlantic vs Virgin Holidays

Hi All,
Considering booking a holiday with Virgin Holidays. Never done this before, have always booked separately with Virgin Atlantic, then bookeda hotel with Expedia etc. I'm interestred in more the "package holiday" aspect this time.

Is there any scope for upgrading the Economy seats using Miles? I have 200000+ miles, and would happyily use them to upgrade to Premium. If not, does anyone have a rough idea on upgrade to Economy Delight?

Thank you all,

When (if) you book with VH, you should see an option to pay to upgrade the flight offered.

[mitchja]

Upgrading V Hols booked VS flights using miles is do'able though it is a bit of a faff as you can only upgrade the flights using miles if V Hols have booked your flights in the right fare class and then only once V Hols have ticketed your VS flights which normally doesn't normally happen until about 4 weeks before departure.

You can get V Hols to ticket your flights before that but you first must have paid your full remaining holiday balance.

I posted a while ago about doing this here

I've never found VS Holidays to be cheap. I even booked a flight with VS and a hotel only with VH and it was about £2k cheaper than doing it as a package.

You may want to investigate the Flight + Hotel booking engine, it's very similar to Virgin Holidays but I have found on a few occasions that it is cheaper than booking a VH package.

I too have found Virgin Holidays generally not to be cheap for package holidays - I almost always book DIY packages now and save a fair bit.

As above, use the Flight + Hotel search on the VS website - but also do the same on Expedia / Ebookers. I've had instances where the latter would sell me a Z fare in Upper Class but when trying immediately before / afterwards on the VS website, only a full fare J was available (no points for guessing which website got the business... and it ain't VS).

If you are travelling to the USA & a city where Uber / Lyft are big, then give serious consideration to not hiring a car. You can get around quite easily using these two options - sure you don't have the pure convenience of a car, but neither do you have parking problems / have to worry about drinking alcohol. In Orlando, we found Uber to be over 50% cheaper than the cabs the hotel front desk would book for us & no tip expected on Uber either. (As an example, the under 2.5mile journey from where we stay to Discovery Cove was $20 if the hotel booked a cab & tip expected. Uber was $7.50 & no tip expected - I actually think $7.50 is the minimum Uber fare, so we could probably have gone a fair bit further as Universal Orlando from our hotel was only about $13).

In defence of Virgin Holidays, I've had a few good accommodation-only deals from them over the years. Ditto with BA Holidays - got a cracking deal with them in Orlando, buy 5 nights, get 2 free on accommodation which made us a nice saving.

[mitchja]

I've stopped using V Hols for pretty much everything as well here. As already mentioned they are way too expensive now.

The only thing I generally book with V Hols now is car hire as I still like their Alamo online check-in system.

This year for New Years, I'm flying on a Z fare direct with VS & DL to FLL for about £100 less than V Hols wanted for Fly Drive package with just VS Premium flights!

I know this can happen with anyone, but I've also had 2 instances with V Hols hotel bookings (be it separately or part of a package) where they failed to actually book the hotels I'd booked with them.

Once as part of a full holiday package and once as a hotel only booking. I tuned up at the hotel and handed over the voucher only to be told 'Sorry sir, we don't seem to have any booking for you?'

One of the hotels in Florida a few years ago was actually full so they had to send me to a different hotel for the first night as well

In defence of Virgin Holidays, I've had a few good accommodation-only deals from them over the years. Ditto with BA Holidays - got a cracking deal with them in Orlando, buy 5 nights, get 2 free on accommodation which made us a nice saving.

Indeed, when we last went to Florida 2 years ago we used them to book 2 of our accommodations (the third was a private rental), simply because they were cheaper at the time than booking direct with the accommodations we wanted to stay in, included things such as resort fees and the ability to spread payments was also an added attraction. Booking via Virgin Holidays proved to be a masterstroke as the collapse of the pound post-referendum about 10 weeks prior to our trip meant that had we booked direct at a rate where you paid on arrival/departure, it would have been even more expensive.

At the end of the day, it pays to check all the options and I'm sure most savvy customers would do just that. If it's cheaper elsewhere, so be it.

I know this can happen with anyone, but I've also had 2 instances with V Hols hotel bookings (be it separately or part of a package) where they failed to actually book the hotels I'd booked with them.

Once as part of a full holiday package and once as a hotel only booking. I tuned up at the hotel and handed over the voucher only to be told 'Sorry sir, we don't seem to have any booking for you?'

One of the hotels in Florida a few years ago was actually full so they had to send me to a different hotel for the first night as well

This happened to us the first time we used Virgin Holidays in 2002 when we turned up at our hotel in Clearwater Beach (the since-demolished Adam's Mark) and they had no record of our reservation. They gave us a room when we showed them all the paperwork as luckily they had availability, but what made it worse at the time was straight after the fiasco we went to the local Virgin Holidays office to complain about what had happened only to find it closed. Great customer service!

Needless to say, it put my family off using Virgin Holidays for a long time until a few years ago. Even though we got lucky on the day, it was a poor show and I'm sure there would have been a riot had we suffered the same as you did James and it was full.

Just to add a contrasting opinion - I've had two experiences with VH and both of them were great. Had a lovely stay in Dubai and the on-site rep was very helpful.

Sometimes VH will be cheaper as a package, sometimes it will not be. I think just some research is needed for you to draw your own conclusions, but I've no issue with VH and would recommend them if the price was right for you.

People sometimes forget VH is just a travel agent, yes Virgin branded, but a travel agent nonetheless.

I had a great experience with them when I booked my holiday. Price was roughly the same as booking direct and I benefited from additional miles and some extra discount courtesy of being Gold.

So it's swings & roundabouts really.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. I’ll investigate some more and see what works out the best

Such a shame that you can’t easily use your miles.

Please don't get me wrong, my bad experience was a long time ago and for me time has healed all wounds, particularly considering I have since used VH without issue. I just thought I'd share it as it seems our experience all those years ago wasn't a one-off after all. I accept that the brown stuff happens, but it's certainly not a pleasant thing to go through, particularly after a long day travelling or if it's for a special occasion.

Like I said, it's worth checking out all the options and I'd go with whatever works best for your criteria (i.e. cost, hotel, itinerary).

Just to add to the debate. I have found VH good for car hire on a couple of occasions recently for Florida. For instance in a couple of weeks have got a Luxury with Alamo for two weeks for £550. All the other usual suspects, Including the normal brokers, were around double this price. And with VH you get a direct link to skip the counter with Alamo and get to go straight to the garage and pick from the appropriate row. Had similar experience couple of years back too. So it is normal rules apply- shop around and assume nothing.