Virgin, Seat booking page open at 91 days but fails to save.

I went in to manage my flght options today, 91 days from departure the 'view and amend seats' option was available. When i selected this option it would allow me to change seats but not save the change. Whilst i know seats are now released for booking only 90 days ahead i was surprised to see this option had changed on the website. When it failed to save the seats it said there was a failure but did not mention the 90 day rule. Seems strange that just ahead of the 90 days Virgins seat booking webpage changes from unavailable to available but then fails for 24 hours when you select anything.

Whilst this isn't the biggest issue in the world we did book 9 PE seats at some expense and Virgin seemt o be determined to be unhelpful and frankly just below average in recentyears as far as quality of service.

If anyone from Virgin bothers to read these forums may i suggest if something is open till 90 days before the flightt hen maybe the website should reflect that clearly.

Hi there

yeah its how it works now... the option becomes available at 90days + Xhours but even though you can select seats, it wont save.. a number of hours closer to the 90 days, the saving is "turned on" and it starts working.

I had the same thing with mine. I could view the map around 4am and tried for ages to select the seat but it wouldn't save. It actually started being able to save at 8am

Been speaking to the online customer help. Not that much help to be fair. I stated it should have a notice that states this button may show available but isn't until less than 90 but they just kept saying it's clear in the FAQ's. Why change the unavailable button if it still is unavailable?

They really are determined to be unclear from day one. For example when booking on VA it doesn't state that VH get priority on sitting upstairs. We would have bookd with them if we had known especially as forum feedback and others experiences seem to suggest PE upstairs is better than dwnstairs at least pre refit.

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Originally Posted by welshjim22

Been speaking to the online customer help. Not that much help to be fair. I stated it should have a notice that states this button may show available but isn't until less than 90 but they just kept saying it's clear in the FAQ's. Why change the unavailable button if it still is unavailable?

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agreed, it's daft!

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They really are determined to be unclear from day one. For example when booking on VA it doesn't state that VH get priority on sitting upstairs. We would have bookd with them if we had known especially as forum feedback and others experiences seem to suggest PE upstairs is better than dwnstairs at least pre refit.

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I'm not sure that's true? I tried to book PE upstairs at 90 days out on three flights recently and every time I did, it was completely empty each time. It didn't LOOK to me as if they'd blocked it out for VH (although sure, perhaps no VH people had booked it for those flights?)

Did they admit that was the case on the phone?

Same thing happened again today. The page was available to amend seat bookings at about 2am but it wouldn't save until 8am :/ crazy.

Interestingly, all but three rows of PE upstairs were already greyed out despite not being able to book them so either virgin prebooked them for someone, or the virgin holidays being able to book them first theory is indeed correct (which is awful if true!)

I might be wrong with this, but, I understand that only a small % of the seats are available for online booking, 90 days before. the rest are released on the day you fly.


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Originally Posted by lozzy

I might be wrong with this, but, I understand that only a small % of the seats are available for online booking, 90 days before. the rest are released on the day you fly.


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They did always used to say that and I tend to believe it in economy but everytime I've looked at PE/UC they've pretty much all been available. Until they changed to this new 90 day scheme with this dodgy "button live but doesnt save" thing and now there seems to be a variable amount of PE available. As much as I dont want to believe it, it looks much more like a VH priority thing than a "keep a certain amount back" thing.

Always impossible to tell of course unless they tell us exactly how it works:shrug1:

All seems a bit silly really. Especially when you can't use your frequent flyer miles to book flights or upgrades through VH. So they give priority to VH customers before their own airline customers.
Seems a bit backwards to me.:confused:

:wiggle:

Normally all the seats in PE and UC are showing except for a few that have been reserved by passengers. I hope our seats are available when I can reserve them.

It's a silly system they have now. If you book your flight early and pay for in in full then you should be able to reserve your seats straight away. Ok so passengers who are buying a package might have to wait longer, but not those who buy from VA direct.

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Originally Posted by Suebeattie

All seems a bit silly really. Especially when you can't use your frequent flyer miles to book flights or upgrades through VH. So they give priority to VH customers before their own airline customers.
Seems a bit backwards to me.:confused:

:wiggle:

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agreed :/ seems REALLY stupid.. I'm still hoping it's not true but it's looking more and more like it is