Virgin Companion Flights

[Katys Grandad]

Given that these are award flights, having to pay almost £200 for taxes on an economy ticket doesn't look great value to me but I suppose it's becoming more so because flight prices are so high these days.

The most annoying aspect of these charges is the difference in what we in the UK have to pay in taxes and charges on the outbound and inbound flights. I just checked for 2 First Class awards on American in May. The taxes and charges for 2 passengers for the return ex US flights come to just £3.20 while for the outbound flights ex UK they are £323.70 - over 100 times more.[msnmad]

[Andrena]

I agree that the taxes in the UK are horrendous. We used Delta Points to fly from Orlando to Las Vegas in December and we paid 25,000 points and $10 taxes for a return flight. Try using BA Miles to fly to Europe for instance and you are cheaper to buy a cheap flight than to pay the taxes.

Andrena

[Tonish]

Virgin airmiles are as about as useful as a hole in a bucket. Try using them at school holiday time, or at any time they might actually be a real help and you will find yourself in a mire of knee high smelly stuff.

I've got goodness knows how many tens thousands of them and I've managed to use them once, when I upgraded my father-in-law from full fare economy (he'd paid about £1000) to upper class one way. They took some ridiculous amount off me for it, can't remember whether it was 30,000 or 60,000. Whatever it was, it got rid of a heck of a chunk of them anyway.

Sadly, he didn't really enjoy it, moaned all the time about the guy beside him.