New options to upgrade with Virgin Australia & Velocity Frequent Flyer

[anat0l]

Re: Bidding for upgrades

Am I missing something?

Flexi ticket to ADL in 7 days - receive the error:

Your booking is ineligible for an upgrade. We encourage you to try again for future bookings.​

No UpgradeMe Premium Bid upgrades being offered for this flight?

 

[williamsf1]

Re: Bidding for upgrades

Am I missing something?

Flexi ticket to ADL in 7 days - receive the error:

Your booking is ineligible for an upgrade. We encourage you to try again for future bookings.​

was the ticket booked direct with VA ?

 

[QF WP]

Re: Bidding for upgrades

Am I missing something?
Flexi ticket to ADL in 7 days - receive the error:

Your booking is ineligible for an upgrade. We encourage you to try again for future bookings.​

No UpgradeMe Premium Bid upgrades being offered for this flight?

So why can't they say that (if it's the case - that the quota has already been exhausted), rather than the confusing statement they've used. Simple changes to avoid confusion - which will turn people off using it in the future

was the ticket booked direct with VA ?

That could be the ultimate question. If booked via a TA, then we know why it's ineligible

Personally, I think the idea is tacky.

I can see for most of us, it will have little use (as we chase SC and points on all base fare costs). However there will be those pax out there that don't chase SC's, or don't recognise that it won't earn points & SC's in the higher cabin, and/or who have the $$ and just want to try the othe side of the divider. If it can generate some additional revenue for VA in excess of the cost to produce the product, then they're on a winner.

I'm sure that the VA Twitter/Facebook/CS Centre will get a number of unhappy people who won't have read (or understood) the T&C's.

 

[jmphoto]

Re: Bidding for upgrades

was the ticket booked direct with VA ?

Yep, on the VA site. 6 J seats available for purchase.

 

[vicsta]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Do you get upgraded scs?

Still waiting for a reply to this comment!!
If, say, I buy a Saver, but upgrade to Business, would that give me business SCs or saver SCs??

 

[serfty]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

NO - the information published indicates points/SC's for the class originally bokked.

 

[J-G]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Still waiting for a reply to this comment!!
If, say, I buy a Saver, but upgrade to Business, would that give me business SCs or saver SCs??

You will get the SCs of the original fare. You don't even get the increased baggage allowance. See excerpt from T&Cs:

29. The fare rules of the original ticket purchased will remain in effect, applicable even if an Offer is selected as being successful and new ticket(s) issued reflecting the Upgrade. Fare rules include, but are not limited to, cancellation policies, change fees, baggage allowances and rules relating to the accrual of Velocity Points and Status Credits. Upgraded Guests are eligible to earn Velocity Points and Status Credits at the rate of their originally purchased tickets, not at the rate of their Upgraded fare.

 

[Travel Guru]

Re: Bidding for upgrades

That answer would almost certainly be spin. Even if the booking changed to a VA booking, most customers would accept this for the upgrade opportunity.

The more realistic reason would be it's to encourage you to book directly with VA.

Agreed, if QF and other airlines can manage it (ie. when an upgrade requests on QF for a TA booking it will 'HX' the existing sector out and 'HK' a sector in the upgrades class such as U).

The commission thing is a tricky question, on a points upgrade a TA receives nothing but if a client comes back and pays to upgrade their fare from Y to J then obviously commission is payable on the fare difference but when its a paid upgrade I can't see commission being expected nor payable.

I think you're spot on about their motive, VA are just looking for a way to incentivize Joe Public to book direct.

On another note, it's a bit of a dis-incentive for those who currently get FOC baggage (Silver, Gold, Plats etc) and can book onto saver-lite fares who then have to book saver fares and pay for baggage they didn't need to simply to enter an upgrade 'lottery'.

TG

 

[jmphoto]

Re: Bidding for upgrades

And the return leg in 7 days? 8 J seats for sale, but my Saver booking not eligible. Perhaps I'll revisit in a few months once the kinks are ironed out.

Yep, on the VA site. 6 J seats available for purchase.

 

[wiz]

There were a few people mentioning the idea of collating results of successful / unsuccessful bids, so I created a form to collect the data:

http://www.vacationkickbacks.com/destinations/upgrademe-premium-by-va/

Would welcome any feedback... I just need a few submissions so I can work on a structure to present the data. It will all be publicly accessible.

 

[jneufeld]

There were a few people mentioning the idea of collating results of successful / unsuccessful bids, so I created a form to collect the data:

UpgradeMe Premium by VA | Destination Booking Guides

Would welcome any feedback... I just need a few submissions so I can work on a structure to present the data. It will all be publicly accessible.

There is quite a bit of data on this thread http://www.australianfrequentflyer....city/upgrademe-pricing-and-success-54613.html

 

[Bigtones]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Amex complimentary flights are eligible , however $200-$400 for a bid on domestic is a bit steep considering a on departure upgrade J to the USA can go for $400 on some airlines like United.

 

[tonkytruck]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Just a quick note about earning SC's on the original fare class. I was booked in saver, upgraded to business MEL-CBR for $105 successful bid and ended up earning 20 SC instead of the 10 I should have received under the original fare rules. Someone else mentioned this previously just wanted to confirm it can end up slightly more generous than stated.

 

[grahamw]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

So, that's a thing now. Certainly one way to fill up the cabin, I assume it is just for the upgrade seats. Would make for a last minute upgrade just about impossible I imagine if it takes off, given they are given out 2 days in advance.

Apparently the UpgradeMe Premium Bid is also restricted to those who purchase directly through Virgin. If, like me, most of your travel is business related and booked through the company travel agency, then you are out of luck and cannot submit bids to upgrade your booking.

Total rubbish if you ask me. Why eliminate us from the option of paying out of our own pocket for a better seat on long flights if we feel it would be worth it!

 

[Plutonus]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Apparently the UpgradeMe Premium Bid is also restricted to those who purchase directly through Virgin. If, like me, most of your travel is business related and booked through the company travel agency, then you are out of luck and cannot submit bids to upgrade your booking.

Total rubbish if you ask me. Why eliminate us from the option of paying out of our own pocket for a better seat on long flights if we feel it would be worth it!

Oh? I've always been able to when booking through Amex. Maybe it's an agent by agent thing.

 

[Velocity Frequent Flyer]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Hi grahamw,

Just thought you might appreciate an update on this.
When UpgradeMe Premium Bid launched it was not possible to bid for an upgrade on a travel agency created reservation - a technical limitation!
However, earlier this year the functionality to do has been enabled and there should be no difference between any reservations, irrespective of booking channel.

Regards,
Velocity Team

Apparently the UpgradeMe Premium Bid is also restricted to those who purchase directly through Virgin. If, like me, most of your travel is business related and booked through the company travel agency, then you are out of luck and cannot submit bids to upgrade your booking.

Total rubbish if you ask me. Why eliminate us from the option of paying out of our own pocket for a better seat on long flights if we feel it would be worth it!

 

[eastwest101]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Hi grahamw,

Just thought you might appreciate an update on this.
When UpgradeMe Premium Bid launched it was not possible to bid for an upgrade on a travel agency created reservation - a technical limitation!
However, earlier this year the functionality to do has been enabled and there should be no difference between any reservations, irrespective of booking channel.

Regards,
Velocity Team

Hi VFF - Can you pass onto the IT people a request - to please get normal web based online seat selection back for flights booked by Corporate Travel agent bookings? The pre-2013 Virgin web site could do this, but we lost the ability to select seats in Jan 2013, and seem it seems to randomly work or not work despite all bookings having valid PNRs and are correctly linked via my VFF number.

I have had to ring up to select seats on nearly every flight since 2013.

Could you also ask the IT people why I have been seeing this for nearly 2 years when I select a valid booked and confirmed flight on the VA web site?

 

[PLANT]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Hi VFF, can you please let us know the conversion to Krisflyer and when we can access this option?

 

[Velocity Frequent Flyer]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

Hi EastWest101,

Thanks for the feedback, we have reached out to our IT team and they have asked if you could send through some more information. Would you mind sending me through a PM with your Velocity number and any bookings where you experienced this problem?

Thanks,

@ PLANT - All the details will be revealed next month, stay tuned!

 

[Reise]

Re: UpgradeMe? (Rebranding, bidding)

I was looking on the AFF site to try and answer a question but can’t see anything that quite gets me there.

The story goes like this:- Where available I have always bought Virgin saver (discount economy) tickets for my travel (and got to gold doing it). The discounted price is 60% to 75% of the Flexi (economy fare).

I’m inevitably given the option of buying an upgrade to Business on a sliding scale where it starts around the same price as the original fare rising to double the price of the discounted fare. However as others have observed, the price & class increase does not come with additional status credits etc.

What I want to find out is: in % terms, what is the price range for business upgrades from a Virgin Flexi fares relative to the price of the Flexi ticket that was originally bought? That will enable me to assess whether it is worth doing the buy upgrade thing and also how that relates to a points based upgrade (which of course is only available from the Flexi).