Virgin Upper from Manchester

[sophiepop]

Originally Posted by THOscar

They do but you can also just go into your VA account and do it through there. I did it on the bus on my phone. The options for food were up at least week or two before the flight.

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We booked through Virgin holidays, will I still be able to do it?

[THOscar]

Originally Posted by sophiepop

We booked through Virgin holidays, will I still be able to do it?

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Afraid I don't know the answer to that one. I presume if you get the ticket details for the flight from VH you can link the booking on the VA site/app but I don't know for definite, sorry.

[sophiepop]

Originally Posted by THOscar

Afraid I don't know the answer to that one. I presume if you get the ticket details for the flight from VH you can link the booking on the VA site/app but I don't know for definite, sorry.

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I think I will be able to do it as I have a reference now. Fingers crossed!

Thanks

[fraser301]

We are the same always try to book using miles this time it was less than 1K

[Guest]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

4- its always 5k each. I dont know about the points issue, lost 35k points a while back as could never use them. I get £500+ back on my Amex each year, no points though.

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Wow that is a lot. I paid cash for my Virgin flight in September, think it was a bit over £2k. I decided to switch carrier as there was all the BA strike nonsense going on.

We have got BA first class flights to New York in April and business class to Orlando in December. Both trips booked with companion vouchers and points. We have 123,000 points left in the household account but no companion vouchers at the moment, I won't need another until 2021 though so that is ok I am sure I will get another at some point this year.

[uktigg]

Originally Posted by THOscar

Afraid I don't know the answer to that one. I presume if you get the ticket details for the flight from VH you can link the booking on the VA site/app but I don't know for definite, sorry.

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If booking through VH you have to make sure that they sell you an upgradeable ticket.
We were asigned K class tickets in PE which are not upgradeable using miles, so had to pay to turn them into H Class tickets which ARE upgradeable. We then used miles to get UC reward seats.

[YorkshireT]

Can someone give me a quick lowdown on this as I am missing a trick here, and I am not usually one to miss getting deals. Sorry OP to hijack thread a bit but it's on topic.
Before I didn't go with Virgin much and had 30 odd thousand miles, maybe 40 odd thousand as I couldn't spend the bloody things in school hols and missed the expiry date.
Since TC went bust I am now booking with Virgin more. I booked with Tui in Summer so no good, but spent about 3.6k on cattle class flights at Xmas. I have spent same again next Xmas. I have booked a separate car hire as well.
Now all my points (and I definitely put my flying club into VH when booking) is showing is 3500 miles- this cannot be right can it? Can i get the miles for all the flights I paid for- the wife and kids? I just sent them an email asking them to take a look at it.
If yes, with circa £9000 on flights, and a £450 car hire and a £320 hotel booking how many points do you think I will have by next Xmas?
Then in layman's terms how do I get good flights and upgrade the ticket- what exactly do I have to do?
Sorry to be a pain, thanks all.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

Can someone give me a quick lowdown on this as I am missing a trick here, and I am not usually one to miss getting deals. Sorry OP to hijack thread a bit but it's on topic.
Before I didn't go with Virgin much and had 30 odd thousand miles, maybe 40 odd thousand as I couldn't spend the bloody things in school hols and missed the expiry date.
Since TC went bust I am now booking with Virgin more. I booked with Tui in Summer so no good, but spent about 3.6k on cattle class flights at Xmas. I have spent same again next Xmas. I have booked a separate car hire as well.
Now all my points (and I definitely put my flying club into VH when booking) is showing is 3500 miles- this cannot be right can it? Can i get the miles for all the flights I paid for- the wife and kids? I just sent them an email asking them to take a look at it.
If yes, with circa £9000 on flights, and a £450 car hire and a £320 hotel booking how many points do you think I will have by next Xmas?
Then in layman's terms how do I get good flights and upgrade the ticket- what exactly do I have to do?
Sorry to be a pain, thanks all.

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You don’t get points for flights you have paid for, you only get points for the flights you have personally flown. They won’t be credited until after you have flown too. Your wife needs to collect her own points in her own account. BA lets you pool your points into a household account, I am not sure if Virgin does that. I am also not sure what people do with children’s flights but hopefully someone else will know.

I collect points every way possible, BA Amex, Tesco club card points go to avios, we use the shopping gateway and then pay with BA Amex for double / triple / quadruple points. We buy business or first class flights every couple of years which keeps points balance topped up.

[SteveyJ]

Originally Posted by Claudette

You don’t get points for flights you have paid for, you only get points for the flights you have personally flown. They won’t be credited until after you have flown too. Your wife needs to collect her own points in her own account. BA lets you pool your points into a household account, I am not sure if Virgin does that. I am also not sure what people do with children’s flights but hopefully someone else will know.

I collect points every way possible, BA Amex, Tesco club card points go to avios, we use the shopping gateway and then pay with BA Amex for double / triple / quadruple points. We buy business or first class flights every couple of years which keeps points balance topped up.

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From the quick look I had the other week you can create a household account for Virgin but only at a higher tier level.

[eaglesrest]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

Can someone give me a quick lowdown on this as I am missing a trick here, and I am not usually one to miss getting deals.

Now all my points (and I definitely put my flying club into VH when booking) is showing is 3500 miles- this cannot be right can it? Can i get the miles for all the flights I paid for- the wife and kids? I just sent them an email asking them to take a look at it.

Then in layman's terms how do I get good flights and upgrade the ticket- what exactly do I have to do?

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As stated, points are only credited for flights flown and then to the specific flyer. Your wife and kids should have their own VA accounts to maximise this.

You can't transfer miles between accounts without paying a ridiculous fee so don't do that. When it comes to redemption some agents will let you take miles from multiple accounts but it's not officially allowed so needs some patience.

For flights flown/upcoming you can get miles boosters which tend to work out good value. They are even better value during a VA miles booster sale so watch out for them. You can get the booster anytime up to when the flight departs and up to 6 months after I believe, so it's all about buying at the best time. They won't be credited until after the flight is flown. Miles boosters can also be earned on reward flights which is really useful when you only ever fly on reward flights.

Amex platinum rewards is the best option for a miles bonus. Get the card, meet the spend criteria then cancel for a pro-rata refund of the fee. You then need to wait another 2 years to reapply and get the bonus, or 6 months if applying for a business credit card. Your wife could also apply once every 2 years.

Next, get the VA credit card+. Wait until the intro bonus is at a decent amount as they fluctuate throughout the year. Use this for all purchases, especially VA purchases which are 3 miles per pound spent.

The value of a mile varies depending on what you use it for - if you are getting a full reward seat redemption in UC it's worth more than if you did the same in Eco. Generally speaking I've worked it out at 1.5p per mile if redeemed in PE and 2-2.5 in UC, but varies depending on route and cash cost of the equivalent seat bought with real money.
In reality your AMEX cashback card wont beat the value of using the VA CC so you could dump that, although cash is always more flexible.

I have the costco tru earnings card which used to give 2% cashback for travel and 3% for restaurants, 1% everything else. That has just been cancelled by AMEX - too good to be true I guess, so now I'll use AMEX reward card if trying to get the intro bonus, and then VA for everything once AMEX bonus achieved.

Tesco clubcard points are another good option - just get fuel and some points will be transferred regularly. This also stops miles from expiring which would have saved your 35k points. Not really an issue if you have the VA CC though.

When it comes to spending that's a whole other topic. Your goal for maximum savings is to get full reward flights ideally in PE or above, and there are various strategies to do that. You can't just ad-hoc login and hope to bag a peak hols reward. It wont work and that's why people get discouraged and say they cant use the miles.

You can't upgrade Eco Light or PE K class tix but everything else is fair game. Best value use of points is full reward rather than upgrade, unless you can spy a really cheap cash tix and there is reward availability in the next class up.

I book rewards every other year, sometimes every year, for our family of 4 and an extended 'family' of 3, so 7 tix in total. We travel over easter, May half-term or Summer hols (late August) and have always managed to bag everyone a full reward seat from MAN. It was tougher than ever this year but we still managed it with a little flexibility.

The savings are well worth the effort, and with DVC encouraging frequent trips and VA racking up the cash fares, it almost becomes a necessity.