Using Virgin Money Reward Voucher

Hi all,

I’m VS Gold and have hit the £10k spend target on the new VM Reward+ card and the voucher has posted to my FC account.

I called last night to make a booking using the voucher having found suitable flights and they confirmed there were 2 G’s available on outbound/inbound.

I said I’d like to use my Reward+ voucher but they seemed very confused by this and were expecting to still take 270,000 miles from me. They placed me on hold for 10 mins and still didn’t know what to do and asked what I was expecting the voucher to do and I explained I should be able to book a Reward flight and bring a companion for no additional miles, just pay the extra fees / taxes. They then proceeded to provisionally book the flights for me but didn’t take any payment details etc and said they’d call me sometime today to discuss.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has managed to use the Reward+ voucher to book a UC companion flight?

Thanks,
Jamie.

I wouldn't be surprised if you were the first!

I think to tackle this, you are going to need the T's&C's handy and emailable to whoever you are dealing with and a lot of patience.

Hopefully this gets easier with time... but for now - this is going to be the case until all the call centre staff are properly informed.

Turns out it wasn't too bad in the end. FC called me back as promised this evening and after a couple more times placed on hold as they worked through the process my return UC flights to LA for January are all booked for 2 of us for 135,000 miles. Very happy

Can I ask how long it took for your voucher to appear after you qualified for it. I've been waiting a couple of weeks and still no sign. Did it just appear in your Flying Club account?

Can I ask how long it took for your voucher to appear after you qualified for it. I've been waiting a couple of weeks and still no sign. Did it just appear in your Flying Club account?

It just took a few days after the last qualifying transaction appeared on my recent transactions list. Didn't get any notification from VM regarding it but it popped up in my Flying Club account.

I'd give VM a call if it's been a couple of weeks since you hit the £10k spend.

Rang them today to use my voucher which posted to my FC account on 10th July - they still don't seem to know what to do as they said it didn't show which reward I was entitle to??? I explained that as a Silver member I had a choice of three and that I wanted a companion ticket. Seems the companion tickets are the same as the old MBNA system and are based on the flexible fares - so in other words a waste of time especially if I can't use it for Upper class now. She informed me that I had a companion reward sitting in the system from MBNA which runs out tomorrow - I have never used them before and probably had a few that came and went ha ha.

Ended up taking some advice from another thread and used all my available FC miles to do miles and money.

Thinking of the best use of these so called rewards now - they have a two year life so might chop them in for 2 clubhouse tickets once the 2nd one lands in my FC account.

Ooh they do keep us on our toes don't they!

Diana

I think you have been given incorrect information by the contact centre, the new vouchers don't require a flexible fare, you can buy 2 PE (as you're silver) reward seats but only use the Miles for one. You need to pay the taxes for both but the miles for one. Alternatively as a solo traveller you can use it to upgrade a EC miles booking to PE and only pay the EC miles but paying the PE taxes.

The voucher was posted to my account a few days after reaching the spend required.

I called VS to book 2 G's [LHR-DEL] and the agent after confirming availability advised that I would need to buy a full fare, after several minutes of explaining that this wasn't the case she went off to her supervisor who confirmed the agent was correct so rather than continue arguing I ended the call and called back immediately.

With a new agent, I embarked on a new approach which basically got her to navigate to the website page where it was listed and she got the lightbulb moment and was able to make the booking after "checking" She apologised at the end of the call that it took so long as she wasn't aware of the voucher/reward

As mentioned earlier, it requires a little patience but well worth it..

I had the same problems trying to use my companion reward voucher on Friday.

The initial agent said I had to book a revenue ticket to use the companion voucher, and no amount of protestation on my part would change his mind. After asking for a supervisor/manager, the same conversations prompted the same answer...that the terms and conditions I was quoting were misleading and that I had to purchase a full fare ticket to get a companion voucher.

Eventually after getting a third representative on the call, and two hours later, we eventually agreed that I could indeed book a reward ticket and use a companion voucher. A third "more experienced" agent then called me back later that evening and, three hours after starting the process, I managed to book the tickets.

Looks like there is still a serious lack of training in the call centre for both agents and managers on these new reward vouchers. Very frustrating for the customer.

Regards

Neil

I think you have been given incorrect information by the contact centre, the new vouchers don't require a flexible fare, you can buy 2 PE (as you're silver) reward seats but only use the Miles for one. You need to pay the taxes for both but the miles for one. Alternatively as a solo traveller you can use it to upgrade a EC miles booking to PE and only pay the EC miles but paying the PE taxes.

My goodness, if your not already a "more experienced VS Representative" could you see if you could get your self a job there & let us have your personal extension number so that we have at least a chance of working this all out as not many there at the moment see to have a clue!

Does anyone know when a companion reward voucher posts to FC account whether it states the class I can use it in or is it just a generic one? i.e. Does it state Red FC member or Silver FC member or Gold FC member or just companion reward?
Also if I use part of it for a outbound flight just before the voucher expires can I still book the return part of my journey using the voucher even though the expiry would have passed?
thanks

I think Virgin really missed a trick here. The voucher is too restrictive, and not beneficial enough if you’re not a Gold. But the real miss is the restrictions make it too complex, compared to the BA 2-4-1. They did this with the old MBNA ones, not clear you’d achieved them, and way too complex to use for most people. I’m not sure as a no status flyer what value it would have to me.