Fly Ahead - Virgin Australia - Hacks and experience

[HBAhome]

Interested to hear people's experiences with Fly Ahead on Virgin — specifically whether others have been using it as a money-saving strategy rather than just a convenience perk.

A few months ago I needed to move to an earlier same-day flight on HBA–MEL on a Choice fare. I called the call centre around 7am and was moved to VA1321 (10:35am), which surprised me — outside the golden triangle I expected them to only put me on the nearest flight to my original (VA1323 at 12:35pm). It was completely painless.

Since then I've deliberately booked the much cheaper late evening Choice fare (usually VA1335 at 8:20pm) and called on the morning to move to VA1321 or VA1323. The biggest price gap I've seen is $420 for VA1321 vs $150 for VA1335 — so a $270 saving just by taking a punt on availability and using the Platinum perk. Done it successfully three times now.

The one time it didn't work was MEL–HBA, where the only earlier flight was fully booked — so I just ended up with a longer stint in the VA MEL lounge

Has anyone else been doing this systematically? Have I just been lucky with availability on a thin route?

Next level consideration is a family trip I have coming up with wife & 2 kids - the savings go next level when its 4 fares but I'm obviously taking a bigger risk that 4 seats will be available on the earlier flights and not to mention that 4 seats are together.

 

[Happy Dude]

I used fly-ahead at check-in on a BNE-CBR reward ticket recently, moved from 2015 departure to 1640. I had luggage. No loss of economy X seat, eventually. Given a Row 20+ seat at checkin but changed to Row 5 at lounge, where they also said they'd have let me use a WP upgrade certificate too if I wasn't on a reward ticket. No idea if/what fare differences would have been.

I almost always have luggage and tend to book first/last flights (tight-a$$) but I wouldn't book cheap last flight fare and try to fly-ahead on a more expensive fare as a hack or habit though. Don't mind/care if others do though and I'm glad that the rules aren't always strictly applied.