Book flights direct with Virgin or netflights.com

[SimplyDisney]

Hi, I need to book flights for May 2018. I have checked Virgin Direct and the cost is about £50 per ticket more than netflights.com. The saving isn't huge but I guess still worthwhile. I have no experience with netflights.com - does anyone have any opinions or advice? Are there any benefits booking direct with Virgin?

[Moorlandman]

Use Netflights. I have used them and have had no problems. UK call centre as well.

They will send you the Virgin Atlantic booking reference on receipt of payment and then you can login to VA and book your seats and meals

[SimplyDisney]

Thanks - my concern is I require a skycot and need to make sure that request is handled properly. I wonder if Virgin direct would pricematch them?

[hipthehippo]

Hi! I booked through netflights this year for 8 of us. No problems with booking - they were really helpful - but, make sure you check the final price - I think ours had gone up by about £60pp (for PE both ways) by the time we actually got through to the final booking. We were happy with this as the difference between VA and netflights was still too good not to go with netflights. We got hung up on the fact that I was at work and couldn't sit on the phone to go through all the passenger details and had to e-mail them and then wait for it to be processed.

After that, there was the possibility that one of our party would have to cut his holiday short and netflights were really helpful in working out how much it might cost us and what we needed to do. Fortunately, he's OK and we didn't have to change anything.

HTH

[SimplyDisney]

Thanks - is there anywhere else you recommend for flights? I notice Topcashback offer 1.05% for netflights too.

[skalexander]

I searched via Skyscanner and went with the cheapest company - which was Travelup. We got their confirmation immediately and the Virgin confirmation shortly thereafter so we could book seats etc. So far, so good.

[Mickeymac]

Booking via agent, e.g. Netflights can be a good cost saver, however it is worth noting these may be seats which are not upgradeable via Virgin to premium etc.

Another option may be worth looking at Delta for Virgin seats, I know of one person who got very good prices (premium less than economy). I have spotted this a few times. Another option is just over 14 days (16 this year), brought our prices down also.

With our Netflights booking, we booked our seats within 30 minutes of the booking the flight (on Virgin website at usual seat costs ~£40)

[macadoo]

Used netflights for virgin/delta flights (we asked virgin if they could price match and they couldn't) and we had no issues. Netflights were excellent, we had no issues changing one of our flights when delta decided to change the times by a couple of hours and we had the same service as if we had booked through Virgin, we could choose any other connecting flight that day that we preferred. Would definitely use them again.

[SimplyDisney]

Originally Posted by Mickeymac

Booking via agent, e.g. Netflights can be a good cost saver, however it is worth noting these may be seats which are not upgradeable via Virgin to premium etc.

Another option may be worth looking at Delta for Virgin seats, I know of one person who got very good prices (premium less than economy). I have spotted this a few times. Another option is just over 14 days (16 this year), brought our prices down also.

With our Netflights booking, we booked our seats within 30 minutes of the booking the flight (on Virgin website at usual seat costs ~£40)

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Thanks - do you mean, it may prevent a complimentary upgrade or a paid upgrade (or both!)

[skalexander]

Originally Posted by SimplyDisney

Thanks - do you mean, it may prevent a complimentary upgrade or a paid upgrade (or both!)

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Complimentary upgrades are obviously few and far between, and I have no idea what their criteria are for those.

A low value ticket code may restrict, or entirely remove, your ability to do an upgrade for cash or miles though. We booked PE via Travelup for November, and we asked about a one way miles upgrade, and only the outbound leg is upgrade-able - as it happens, UC is virtually sold out both ways, so it's unlikely miles seats will come up anyway.

It's not enough of a negative for me to not book at a good price though.