VA upgrade redemption policy - there has to be a better way

[Ribbo83]

Hi all,

Sorry for the long post.

I thought I would share an experience I had recently with regard to upgrades and my frustration to VAs process on how / if they redeem upgrade redemptions.

In September I booked return flights HBA - BNE on a freedom fare for my wife and I to visit family over christmas, I immediately requested a points upgrade and patiently waited.

A week out I noticed the return leg had J upgrades and I had 2 complimentary J upgrades still available and they would expire in Feb so decided to use them.

From early December I checked daily for upgrades on the outbound sector, right up until the morning of the flight there were 3 seats still available to purchase.

When we arrived at the airport the couple in front of us in the priority line had “silver” tags on their bags (in the priority line) which I thought was strange. To cut the storey short, they were on our flight and requested to be upgraded, we weren’t to worried, we were in row 3 with a those seat in the middle and it meant we kept some points for OS flights later this year.

My frustration is, despite being WP and on the wait list for 3 months and seats being available at T48 hours VA didn’t make the seats available, then to be piped at the post by someone who shouldn’t have been in the priority line to begin with is a bit of a slap in the face for VA. As it turned out, the couple didn’t event take the upgrade, they must not have known how many points it was to upgrade and turned it down.


My question is, has anyone else had a similar experience and is there some way we could petition VA to review their upgrade redemption policy.

 

[danielt25]

Hi all,

Sorry for the long post.

I thought I would share an experience I had recently with regard to upgrades and my frustration to VAs process on how / if they redeem upgrade redemptions.

In September I booked return flights HBA - BNE on a freedom fare for my wife and I to visit family over christmas, I immediately requested a points upgrade and patiently waited.

A week out I noticed the return leg had J upgrades and I had 2 complimentary J upgrades still available and they would expire in Feb so decided to use them.

From early December I checked daily for upgrades on the outbound sector, right up until the morning of the flight there were 3 seats still available to purchase.

When we arrived at the airport the couple in front of us in the priority line had “silver” tags on their bags (in the priority line) which I thought was strange. To cut the storey short, they were on our flight and requested to be upgraded, we weren’t to worried, we were in row 3 with a those seat in the middle and it meant we kept some points for OS flights later this year.

My frustration is, despite being WP and on the wait list for 3 months and seats being available at T48 hours VA didn’t make the seats available, then to be piped at the post by someone who shouldn’t have been in the priority line to begin with is a bit of a slap in the face for VA. As it turned out, the couple didn’t event take the upgrade, they must not have known how many points it was to upgrade and turned it down.


My question is, has anyone else had a similar experience and is there some way we could petition VA to review their upgrade redemption policy.

I've noticed that virgin may have numerous J seats for sale (up to 6 on a recent flight at their normal domestic J price) - yet won't release these as last minute point upgrade flights.

When this happened I was told to go to lounge and request an on departure upgrade as my best chance of an upgrade. The virgin phone agents don't seem to have authority to release these seats. (Unlike Qantas where you can request release of upgrade seats as a Platinum)

 

[Denali]

I dont get what the problem is (other than more reward seats released would be great).

If they were not reward seats, then you wouldnt have been able to use the complimentary upgrades anyway and If the couple in front didnt upgrade, then you could have used points to upgrade but chose not to.

Dont get riled up about their tags, they might have been gold or WP but new tags not in yet or they choose not to use them.

 

[henleybeach]

Dont get riled up about their tags, they might have been gold or WP but new tags not in yet or they choose not to use them.[/QUOTE]

Here here ! My finance is WP and flying to her means nothing because it through work and she still has her silver tag on her bag. I only noticed it the other day and said change it but she didn’t care and said both tags have my name on it it’s just a different colour !

 

[CPMaverick]

I just wish you could waitlist certs like points.

Frustrating to think that lower status members with points are snagging upgrades due to the waitlist when you can't.

Recently I flew PER-MEL and >9 seats still for sale the day before, yet no upgrade space. I was able to get it done at the lounge, but the flight was half empty in J. Happy in the end, but yes they could do better, just let us waitlist please.

 

[danielt25]

I wonder what the logic is behind them having a flight depart with many spare J seats, when it's clear there's not going to a be a last minute rush on unsold J seats; why not release them as reward flights/upgrades?

 

[Denali]

Catering isnt guaranteed? Last week, they ran out of chicken option in J, they only loaded 2 x chicken and there was 6 pax.

 

[Jurahn]

We travelled PER-HBA return a few days ago - the flights were booked about a week in advance (I don't normally book last minute trips!) and we waitlisted for upgrades on the PER-MEL and MEL-PER sectors. Upgrades didn't come through for either flight, which was disappointing as it's probably going to be the last bit of flying we do for a while.

When we arrived from HBA late Monday afternoon, we had about an hour before the flight to PER, so decided to ask at the lounge whether there were any points upgrades available, although as our waitlist request hadn't cleared, I assumed we were out of luck. To my surprise, the very helpful woman at the Lounge desk said that there were J revenue seats available and if they weren't sold, they would be released for upgrade about 40 minutes before the flight so she held on to our boarding passes and waitlisted us. To my delight, our upgrades went through and it made the trip home oh so nice .

From what I've read on the Velocity website, it appears if you waitlist when you book, that waitlist will only be cleared up to 3 hours before the flight, so does the waitlist request then drop off the system? I assumed this was the case as we didn't appear to still be waitlisted when the Lounge angel checked - I didn't realise we would have to ask to be waitlisted again once inside the 3-hour window.

 

[liamsal]

Slightly OT but there's three of us travelling VA OOL - PER via MEL. Purchased Freedom fares and used a combination of WP vouchers and points to upgrade all legs for all passengers to J. We then noticed flights with better timings via SYD which are also on the A330. Contacted Plat line as I could see no reward J fares online for the desired flights and they confirmed this. However she recommended calling a week prior to travel and requesting additional release of reward seats. I said I didn't know this was something I could do and she said as a WP they would accomodate it (whether or not that actually means they would do it who knows)

FWIW other pax are silver and red, all under the same PNR.

Anyone ever experienced this? Not keeping my hopes up but willing to give it a shot.

 

[liamsal]

So called up this morning as flight is in one week - still absolutely zero J reward availability but one flight (OOL - SYD - PER) had 6 full J revenue seats available on the A330. She noticed the availability straight away and offered to put us on that flight which has a shorter layover and arrives in the afternoon instead of at night which was perfect.

Pushing my luck, I asked if she could refund the entire booking and recharge it to my credit card to qualify for the triple points offer. She thought that was so thrifty and was more than happy to do it. Ended up costing a whopping $3 more per person for the fare difference but absolutely wrapped with the result and awesome service.

 

[debgow]

That was awesome customer service