Virgin reward seats availability

[mike4scuba]

The reward seat availablabity seem to fluctuate
Kept an eye out for newly released 10:30am flights in premium but nothing listed. Go back half an our later and they are sold out. Yet you can buy them as retail flights.
They are £1700 single though.

Is this done so they can maximize income by prioritising retail over reward flights.

May have to plump for the 1pm flights as they are available

[Dr.JumbaJookiba]

If there was nothing listed how do you tell if they've then sold out?

Reward and revenue fares have always been separate, and yes, they will always prefer to sell a seat for cash rather than miles but they have to balance out the 'pool' of miles customers are holding by offering a certain number at any time. Are you looking right at the 11 month window?, it always take a few days for the fare buckets to settle down while demand is assessed.

[stanleycamel]

A single fare is fully flexible and refundable - the most expensive fare available and is not a fair comparison with the lower level return fares which have completely different rules so you can't really use this to compare to a normal return fare.

As Dr.JumbaJookiba said Virgin's revenue managment department keep the reward seats completely separate from revenue producing fares. BA do guarantee a minimum of 4 World Traveller and 2 Club World on each flight, the latter go very quickly and BA Rev Man do release extras at times but Virgin don't advertise if they have this so it is a bit pot luck especially now during CV.

[skstorm]

I've just booked our reward seats - albeit in economy - however I have been watching every day for them and been on seat spy too. I thought they had been releasing fairly consistently for the last week at least. They are currently up to 2nd September for released flights but seatspy are showing 7 in upper 4 in premium and 9 in economy. They have definitely been releasing 9 in economy on a daily basis with the exception of I think last friday & saturday.

[skstorm]

probably worth noting I rang up around 7.30am to get mine and had about an hours wait. I was told the best time to ring was 7.00am

[stanleycamel]

Originally Posted by skstorm

I've just booked our reward seats - albeit in economy - however I have been watching every day for them and been on seat spy too. I thought they had been releasing fairly consistently for the last week at least. They are currently up to 2nd September for released flights but seatspy are showing 7 in upper 4 in premium and 9 in economy. They have definitely been releasing 9 in economy on a daily basis with the exception of I think last friday & saturday.

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I am not surprised Virgin are releasing more redemption seats (BA are doing the same) as their load factors are way down due to the continuing travel restrictions and passengers reticence to commit.