[backs999]

I’ve also booked a fair few reward flights in Delta for domestic travel through Virgin

One thing to note, at least in my case, was that you can’t waitlist for an earlier flight etc and have to wait for the exact one.

[backs999]

Morning,

I’ve just landed at Heathrow and thought the chat had been deleted but can see it’s sticky.

Anyway, I went through chat so they will have a log of what was discussed.

We were originating on a different ticket in Dubai on Saudia but not linked so had try to discuss cutting out the flying to Riyadh to then fly back to Dubai to then get back home.

The flight had been changed once before which I had seen as the time had been pushed back by a few hours. The change of date I never saw and I did not accept the change of date as I never knew about it until I went to check in

I’ll raise with them and see what they have to say also.

[backs999]

Went with SkyTeam as had hoped it would be easier as part of the same alliance.

AwardWallet informed me a few hours ago to go board my flight so pretty sure nothing landed in my inbox as it’s nornally pretty good in picking changes out.

While I couldnt get them to change it we are in a hotel tonight and I made the most of the inconvenience and headed out to Six Flags to ride Falcons Flight which I have to admit is pretty dam good.

I’ll take it up with Virgin when I get back as feel they haven’t really given 2 hoots on the situation.

Will report back

JDB wrote:

@backs999 – at this stage, there’s probably little you can realistically do, although Virgin should be rerouting you on aflight tomorrow (23rd) if that’s what you want and that should be with any airline directly or with a connection – it doesn’t need to be SkyTeam.

Virgin should be liable for your hotel and food costs until your eventual departure, but that may depend on whether they actually did notify you of the cancellation in November and what alternative flight(s) they proposed at that time. I hope you get this sorted out and please let us know the outcome.

[backs999]

Mart wrote:

backs999 wrote:

is 44-50k and £670 for 2 people if using a voucher, on several dates, and is good value.

If you are stuck with only 20k points

Do you need a transit visa ? To do this itinerary?

Saudi requires a tourist visa unless you are connecting with Saudia or another airline who provide a specific transit visa, or this is how I understood it

[backs999]

Erico1875 wrote:

You could get better redemption value flying to Riyadh and then get a cash ticket Riyadh to Dubai

Must admit I did just this, flight times are pretty crappy tho so we will see if it’s worth it or not

[backs999]

RUH, BLR have lots of availability for 23,000 in upper

MIA, TPA, JFK, IAD, BOS, YYZ also have some for 29,000

LOS have 35,000

In fact there are lots and lots currently that you could probably book into.

Ive actually found good value recently for upper class but key is flexibility on dates and route

[backs999]

I found Oct half term in Orlando really pleasent compared to other times I’ve been there.

I’ve tracked reward flight prices since August and the trend for South Africa seems to be that a month or so before departure is when points are the cheapest.

Check out https://rewardo.travel if you want to check yourself

[backs999]

https://www.bidvestlounge.co.za/

Is the lounge at Cape Town

[backs999]

I can see the price was 35000 points for the outbound for those dates and 36000 which then jumped to 51000 on the 3rd for the return portion.

I unfortunately can’t see the individual flights for the day so it may be of now help for you.

[backs999]

revatron wrote:

Hi, that would be helpful information, thanks. I booked LHR-BOS-LHR on 3/10/25 for dates of 27 July 26 returning 4 Aug 26. 2A2C.

Give me a couple of days as just away and not with my laptop

[backs999]

AndrewT wrote:

I think you’ve got zero chance on that. Given their pseudo randomly variable dynamic prices is it possible to prove the price difference at a given point in time anyway, unless you cleverly pre-empted this sort of scenario and saved some suitable screenshots at the time of booking.

My site holds all the historic points prices up to date to the nearest 30 mins so you could in theory finding the timestamp of when you booked it and get both the points prices at that time and try.

If you give me the date you booked I can check as well for you.

[backs999]

Skgwho wrote:

This is odd, and i don’t understand the rationale. Anyone care to explain?

I’m looking a one way London to Delhi for an elderly relative. It’s peak season so I expected cash flight to be cheaper than points one under the new b system. However virgin have released seats via KLM at a quarter of the value stated direct (and the taxes are lower too) at 39100 miles and 386 eur taxes vs virgin 160000 miles and 410£ taxes. Looking on a couple of sites for the history, it seems the seat via virgin had never been under 52000.

We can transfer from Amex to KLM but it isn’t a same day transfer so just waiting for it to go through. While i do, I’m wondering why they do this, and if it pretty much destroys any benefit of buying or transferring miles to Virgin FF?

Can I ask what site you used please?

[backs999]

I personally use my own site to figure out where the pricing is going as it tracks the prices changes within a few minutes of them changing. If you find the route and then look at the stats or history section you can see the movements. This could help you roughly find out where the pricing could head but it totally dynamic and moves all the time. (It works better in a desktop as more space)

My site is https://rewardo.travel/find-me-a-flight/virgin-atlantic

There is also vseats.io which is also made by someone on the forum

[backs999]

NorthernLass wrote:

When I hopefully get my gold status match I must try out the Clubhouse! VS has so many more routes from LHR than MAN that it’ll probably be easy enough to justify. May try for some mythical MLE seats …

I got 2 of those just before the dynamic pricing hit plus 2 extra on the bidding platform, it’s an amazing location!

[backs999]

I’ve found that I now prefer Tampa for trips to Disney, there isn’t much in it when it comes to airport to resort compared to Orlando to resort when you take into account immigration at Orlando and I have often found cheaper reward fares there also.

I will always take a trip out of Heathrow where possible because it has the best lounge and is always a good way to start a holiday, staying anywhere on the Lizzie line makes me a stress free trip into Heathrow as well.

[backs999]

PeteBee1959 wrote:

Hi all, I cannot seem to find Canada in the Virgin Rewards Chart? Is it the same as US Northeast or Midwest?
Thanks to anyone who can assist.

You can use

https://rewardo.travel/find-me-a-flight/virgin-atlantic

Or

https://vseats.io

As a way of searching for availability and points cost.

[backs999]

johnnylee wrote:

Hello, I have a virgin reward voucher that expires Oct 2026. I’m looking for a friend who might be interested in taking it off my hands. Unfortunately I wont be able to use it before its expiry. Thanks

Happy to if you want. Send me a message and we can sort out. Thanks

[backs999]

NorthernLass wrote:

This looks very straightforward to use and easy to understand. Does it update as many times per day as Virgin changes the pricing?!

Points will be at most 30 mins delayed at the moment.

If you check the price changes page you can see them coming in as we find them

[backs999]

Wiseoldman wrote:

@backs999 good start. Useful info and will be even better when all the “coming soon” come. Could work on some formatting and display issues and possibly allow filtering by max points etc but I am sure all of this is in hand. Best of Luck

Thanks, plenty of work to do and big plans for it! I struggle with free time but will try my best to improve based in the suggestions that come in

[backs999]

You need to be silver
You need to be flexible on dates
You need to be flexible on destination
You need to be willing to connect
You need to be accepting of high fees
You need to be travelling alone.

Then you can get some value.

Finding value as a family of 4 is possible but a lot harder, I’ve booked half term next year at reasonable points rates.

I use my own website which alerts me on movements on point changes on a route I want but yes prices can change lots of times a day so you have to be quick.

My tact is lock in at decent rate then monitor and pay the £70 if something better crops up.

[backs999]

Squirrel is right, Tesco are a big AWS shop so could be back soon

[backs999]

There are just as many badly behaved adults as there are children in my opinion and adults should theoretically know better.

Book upper, have a great time in Orlando, enjoy Disney, I know my kids did.

I’d recommend going via Tampa (esp if you are in a Disney property) if the pricing allows, we actually got through immigration and into our hotel roughly the same time it took to get through MCO and taxi (Uber) was roughly $120 for a family of 4.

[backs999]

Morning,

I’m also booked a RUH flight and the change in departure time made me shudder. I suspect the service will be dinner and breakfast, both of which we will be rejecting as sleep is the most important thing I think.

Also dreading the visa application but I do need to research what I need as only transmitting through the airport.

[backs999]

Have a great time! It will be hard to not want to travel Upper after this trip.

We as a family have always arrived early and never had to queue or been told to come back later. We have been there anywhere between 2 and 6 hours before a flight.

Make sure you take in all the areas of the lounges, my fav is the roof top and seeing the operations of the airport, you get some pretty cool views of the airport. I always have flight radar as well so know what’s coming in and out as well.

That bubble chair is not meant for sitting in for any amount of time but we have taken a picture of our kids in there every year for the past 7 years now so it’s become a bit of a tradition!

I wouldn’t personally now take the wing unless we were already arriving by car but when we first started travelling Upper we did book taxis for this purpose. If you don’t plan on travelling often this way then I would do it, you might as well experience it for a cheap £20 odd taxi.

If you don’t do the private wing then make sure you take the special lift for Upper class next to the check in desks which gives you the private security lane anyway.

The lounge in the way back won’t be as impressive as a Clubhouse but will still provide snacks, maybe buffet food and some drinks. I personally value sleep on that leg of the journey so complete all the bedtime rituals as early as possible prior to getting on the plane. The only thing left is to get in the PJs, fill in my breakfast order (as late as possible) all of which I do upon boarding and then get to sleep. It’s a very quick flight!

You could pass on breakfast and head to the arrivals lounge at Heathrow instead.

Enjoy the trip and hope your daughter has a great 8th bday, my eldest is 7th and she loves being able to use the entertainment system and feel grown up, they treat the kids really well as well.

Hope that helps

[backs999]

charlie wrote:

I’ve been keeping a track on how often Virgin makes updates to points/seats. I’ve seen 29 changes in a single day just for one route. It’s likely you’re seeing stale data.

The site I created tracks the real time changes, I haven’t had time to do anything on it for ages but you can watch the seats change in real time.

https://rewardo.travel/price-changes/airlines

You can also see the routes that change most often

Maybe I will find time to make it better 🙂