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Hi
I hope everyone’s well.
I wondered if anyone has either experienced this before, or knew much about it.
Reward seats for MCO-MAN have been released on a daily basis at 331 days, however that seems to have stopped with flights from Saturday 23rd August onwards.
24th (which is the date I want) released 2 upper class, and that was it. 25th I’m unsure of the specifics, but minimal. 26th 1 economy, 2 upper. 27th 2 economy, 2 upper.
Any ideas why they aren’t releasing the usual 12 seats?
I’ve rang the Flying Club on a couple of occasions and the staff are nice enough, but have no idea why and when they could be released.
Thanks
To follow up, it’s not just that I’m being slow off the mark – I have alerts set up for the flights being released, refreshing Virgin’s site pretty much constantly throughout the day etc.
What time are you searching? I thought they appeared at 5am?
I’ve been looking at early as 5am some days, as late as midnight others, but as I mentioned I’ve got alerts set up (via SeatSpy) and no emails, no WhatsApp’s etc, so the seats just don’t seem to be coming out.
If they go quickly then SeatSpy won’t even see them.
My guess is that you are competing with people rushing back for school starting and they are calling Virgin at 5am to get them.
Edited to add – I think you’ve missed the boat. They will have been and gone much like BA’s famous Tokyo flights at Easter.
If you need to fly Sunday and are happy in economy then Tampa is not so far from Orlando.
Otherwise you need a plan B.
Interesting to know, thank you.
It’s strange as on Friday (the day the 24th should come out), the cash seats didn’t start appearing until well into the UK afternoon and then they came out in dribs and drabs (light and delight not released until well into Friday evening).
It doesn’t seem like it’s just a switch that flicks everything on at the minute!
VS doesn’t fly TPA-MAN.
There are 6 economy seats and 2 UC still showing MCO-LHR on August 25th so it’s very odd that all the MAN ones should have gone.
I have a vague memory of a bank of VS seats not appearing then being released in one go.
Otherwise, more bad news for MAN coming 😬?
Oh I’m an idiot. I read that as Heathrow rather than Manchester somehow.
Maybe something weird is happening.
But there is full availability flying MAN-MCO on these dates so it may well be the holidayz.
I hope they don’t pull any more routes, but Virgin’s commitment to MAN has seemed rather precarious since they pulled the plug on the Clubhouse plans.
I also recall that just before they announced they were stopping the St Lucia route from LHR. inbound availability suddenly dried up.
If absolutely needing to use VS points, LHR would be my back up plan, then connect on BA to MAN.
Otherwise it may be possible to get award seats with avios on EI direct, or via LHR on BA.
EDI might also be an option being potentially a shorter journey home than London (depending on where OP lives), though that’s only showing up to August 23rd as well …
I was speaking to a friend who flies the A330 for them last week and he said the talk internally is that MAN will become an A333 base (only) until they’re phased out.
The A350’s are scheduled for next year currently, but wouldn’t be the first time Virgin do a major schedule change I guess.
@Sam777 – I don’t know how your friend finds Virgin, but I was quite surprised recently to meet a DHL pilot who like many of his colleagues is busy clocking up hours/seniority but would ultimately like to move to a passenger airline so pleased BA is recruiting again and ME options but none of them seem to have any interest in VS – lots re pay/conditions and whether it will continue to exist. I was quite surprised to hear such strong views from that quarter.
VS are taking on easyJet staff to resolve the imminent pilot crewing issues, from memory.
He’s enjoying Virgin (having come from short haul), but said they’re really struggling to hire on the packages Virgin are offering (as AL mentions).
Hi
I hope everyone’s well.
I wondered if anyone has either experienced this before, or knew much about it.
Reward seats for MCO-MAN have been released on a daily basis at 331 days, however that seems to have stopped with flights from Saturday 23rd August onwards.
24th (which is the date I want) released 2 upper class, and that was it. 25th I’m unsure of the specifics, but minimal. 26th 1 economy, 2 upper. 27th 2 economy, 2 upper.
Any ideas why they aren’t releasing the usual 12 seats?
I’ve rang the Flying Club on a couple of occasions and the staff are nice enough, but have no idea why and when they could be released.
Thanks
Perhaps its related to this?
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/09/30/virgin-atlantic-flying-club-changes/
I think MAN-MCO is very popular, especially school hols. I have first hand experience of missing out at 530am on reward seats in Y. So whilst we don’t know for sure, that could well be it.
Forget SeatSpy when they go so quickly…
They are changing various things relating to flying club on 30th Oct so they are probably preparing for that. After 30th Oct you can use reward seats for any seat on any flight, ie, if there’s a seat free you can pay with points!! and the the cost in points will fluctuate depending on demand, some will be cheaper than the current costs, some more expensive. I got an email about it, if ur in flying club which I assume u r then you should get an email telling u about it.
This is being discussed in the articles yesterday and this morning, which might interest you.
If the changes were going to affect the current release of award seats, it would surely apply to all departures and not just MAN. And they’re still releasing outbound seats.
Following posts on thedibb forums people are snapping up the rewards seats MCO to Man for the last week in August as soon as they are released at 5am and there are only 12 seats. I’ve had to book Atl to Man as a backup plan and will wait to see what happens with the changes on 30th Oct. Could do with avoiding the 7 hour drive and one way rental fees if possible.
I’ve just booked ATL-FLL (not heading to Disney though!) on Delta with Virgin points for 11k points plus $6 each, much better than driving! I’m sure they fly to/from MCO as well.
If you call Virgin they might even be able to add it to your booking, or make another one from scratch.
Just checked and DL have multiple departures per day MCO-ATL for 7,500 points plus $6 pp. FLL must just fall into the next pricing zone 😫
Thanks Northern Lass I’ll look into that.
Good luck, Im having no joy ATL-MCO
TPA is another option and seems to be more availability.What date are you looking for?
@northernlass – 3 / 4 April.
Also tried on FlyingBlue with no joy. Annoying considering they have pretty much a flight every hour.
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