You can now upgrade from Saver fare with points

[hydrabyss]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Would be nice if the Platinum upgrades could be used on something but flexi's...

Hardly worth paying the high price of flexis IMO when I could just buy outright with points for J.

My 4 upgrades went unused. Couldnt justify the expense for the flexis.Being a self funded holiday traveller I would rather wait for a special on J fares and earn the extra SCs.

 

[bullerdude]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Great to see VA implementing this but I didn't expect it to cost more points than Qantas. Until now, VA has always made their redemption's amounts just under or equal to those of Qantas.

You can see that row 3 has a massive 10,000 points difference and I agree that for many people these upgrade values will not be worthwhile. At least if you want to upgrade anything up to 1200 miles the values are comparative to Qantas - for instance upgrading a sale fare MEL-BNE for 17,500 is not the worth value, but its not great either.

Saver to Business Discount Economy to Business	Virgin	Qantas
1 to 600	10,000	10,000
601 to 1200	17,500	15,000
1201 to 2400	30,000	20,000
2401 to 3600	35,000	30,000

Also I note that the website does not say that savers can be upgraded to business at the lounge pre-departure; they can only be applied up to 3 hours before.

The new amendment and cancels fees are indeed cheeky but obviously driven to drive a little extra revenue from call-centre services. At least platinums have the flexibility to make changes for free up to 24 hours before departure.

It would be really positive to at least see the Upgrade Me product applied equally across Virgins flights to put it in a good positions against Qantas. That would be upgrades from Saver and Flexi any time up to departure and on domestic, short haul and long haul flights.

 

[kevrosmith]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Great news to hear Savers will be able to be upgraded. I'll stop buying Saver Lites now in case I want to upgrade.

Bit disappointed that upgrades (both points and Platinum) are forfeited if amendments need to be made within 24 hours. On a rare occasion, I have taken the upgrade and then had to shift flights at the last minute for work.

I wonder how it works in combination with Fly Ahead as well. I've previously been able to Fly Ahead and remain in Business on an upgraded Flexi Fare. Can't remember if the upgrade fare class was available on the flight I moved to or not. Would using Fly Ahead be classed as an amendment in the less-than-24-hour window?

P.s. I hope the word doesn't get out too quickly about Savers eligible for upgrades. It'll increase competition for upgrades on my favourite (and easy to get upgrades) route.

 

[Intra]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

P.s. I hope the word doesn't get out too quickly about Savers eligible for upgrades. It'll increase competition for upgrades on my favourite (and easy to get upgrades) route.

Too late - The email announcing Saver Upgrades & Upgrade Change Fees has arrived in my, and I assume everyone else's, inbox....

"The AFF - Knowing the news before it becomes news"

 

[TomVexille]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Too late - The email announcing Saver Upgrades & Upgrade Change Fees has arrived in my, and I assume everyone else's, inbox....

"The AFF - Knowing the news before it becomes news"

Well it hasn't hit mine yet. But I assume that's because you're a SG and I'm a nobody.

 

[serfty]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Well it hasn't hit mine yet. But I assume that's because you're a SG and I'm a nobody.

I'm a WP and still just the OP's notification.

 

[TomVexille]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

I'm a WP and still just the OP's notification.

Makes me wonder how they order these emails then.

 

[Intra]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Well it hasn't hit mine yet. But I assume that's because you're a SG and I'm a nobody.

We must also realise they have to send some 4mil~ emails, which if the website is anything to go off (Not the greatest in the world), it probably does take awhile.....

 

[TomVexille]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

We must also realise they have to send some 4mil~ emails, which if the website is anything to go off (Not the greatest in the world), it probably does take awhile.....

We do realize that. I would have thought the it would be processed in batches, with the WP's first, then SG's and so on, but that's apparently not true.

 

[Intra]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

We do realize that. I would have thought the it would be processed in batches, with the WP's first, then SG's and so on, but that's apparently not true.

And your surprised by this though

 

[TomVexille]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

And your surprised by this though

lol, not surprised at all, just optimistic that VA could do something in order

 

[VRC]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

I thought you could do this in the lounge currently ? But that may have been a trial ?

If you read the link to the velocity site upgrades from flexi still available at The Lounge up to 40 minutes before departure

 

[bullerdude]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Well it hasn't hit mine yet. But I assume that's because you're a SG and I'm a nobody.

Also WP and no email - in fact all VA news tends to be posted here before i see any emails about it from VA...

 

[DSFlyer]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

WP and got my email 15 minutes ago

 

[smit0847]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

I've been hoping to uogrades from Savers for years - I just didnt realise how poor value it would be!

I guess 8 J seats in a 737 is just too many to fill up - there are now 473 ways to fly J without paying full price.

 

[IainF]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

I sent an email to VA last night asking some questions about the cancellation policy and got this reply....

"Dear Mr IainF

Thank you for your email to Neil Thompson.

The new upgrade cancellation and amendment policy only relates to the upgrade. The fare conditions of your Flexi or Saver fare originally purchased will continue to apply to the reservation should you make a change to a flight that has already been upgraded.

To use your example below, L class is one of our Flexi fares. That means that should you need to change an upgraded reservation within 24 hours of departure, per the conditions of a Flexi fare, the flight can be changed to the new time required - subject to availability of course - but the Velocity Points or Complimentary Upgrade used for the upgrade are forfeited. If you wish to upgrade on your new flight, you will need torequest and pay for the upgrade again.

If you are able to change the booking more than 24 hours prior to departure, the same change can be made for a 4500 point or $35 service fee.

For clarity I should mention that If the originally purchased flight was a Saver fare (T,Q,V,N,E classes), then because no changes are permitted on Saver fares within 24 hours of departure, both the upgrade and the original fare would be forfeited.

I am pleased to confirm that the Fly-Ahead benefit is still available to our most valued Platinum and Gold members under the normal Fly-Ahead rules.

To provide context, we have introduced the Upgrade Cancellation & Amendment policy to optimise seat availability, allowing us to also announce yesterday that we have expanded the UpgradeMe programme to include Saver fares. This is an exciting development for Velocity and responds to real demand from our members .

Kind Regards – Andy"

 

[Ewing]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Just shows that they are still having trouble filling their business class cabin!

All of my recent flights in the past few months have had full J cabins. The only exception was one flight with a last minute change from a E190 to a 738 which had 6 in J (vs 8).

 

[smit0847]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

Im WP but havent got the email yet - whats the process for upgrading? Have to call? Heading MEL-ADL tomorrow night for my partners birthday so might splurge...

 

[R36snowbound]

Re: Upgrades from Saver

All of my recent flights in the past few months have had full J cabins. The only exception was one flight with a last minute change from a E190 to a 738 which had 6 in J (vs 8).

Ewing,

Most of my travel is SYD-MEL or SYD BNE and out of my last 40 flights, I have only seen business class full on approx 5 occasions.

Most of the time, there is only one or two people in J on the morning flights and them three or four on th evening flights. I have aslo been around 5 flights where the business class cabin is empty... once the cabin supervisor announced that the front toilet was reserved for business class passengers only when the J cabin was empty... there were a few chuckles from rows 3 & 4

My take on this is that VA has been under pressure to include upgrades from savers, as it is something that QF did and VA did not up until now. I guess there is a difference between offering a service to guests and enticing them to use it.

 

[wiz]

Received this email a moment ago:

We are pleased to announce that in response to member feedback, you can now use Velocity Points to upgrade
from a Saver fare to the luxury of Business Class on domestic Virgin Australia flights*.

One way miles flown		Points required
0 - 600		10,000
601 - 1,200		17,500
1,201 - 2,400		30,000
2,401 - 3,600		35,000

It seems a bit ludicrous, at least for me. Regular business award seat for PER to SYD is 33,800, only a bit more than the point upgrade cost!

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