Virgin Atlantic has confirmed what we all knew…the recent Bloomberg story on upgrades was #FakeNews.
Gilbert from God Save the Points has done an excellent job in covering this story, going so far as to record a phone call with Virgin Atlantic, clearly exposing the “revenue management” upgrade tip as a bald-faced lie.
Now Virgin Atlantic has also gone on the record to refute the faulty upgrade advice:
We’ve heard some pretty tall tales from people trying to get a sneaky upgrade over the years – and this is certainly one of the most creative! As helpful as our lovely revenue management team are – they don’t handle upgrades, and customers can check the latest availability of our reward seats by calling our contact centre or via our website.
For “us” frequent flyers who focus on miles and points, this is like Virgin Atlantic saying the sun sets in the west. But it was a necessary statement. Since Bloomberg published this story, media outlets around the world have run with it. I won’t even link to them, but two additional British dailies covered this story yesterday…and never questioned the advice.
That’s horrible journalism. As far as I am concerned, though, Bloomberg is most at fault for this mess. When legitimate news sources make errors, they issue corrections. As of now, Bloomberg has failed to correct its error. All we’ve heard is that the editor was “promised” by Tilly Bagshawe that her upgrade advice was true. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell that editor…
CONCLUSION
Here at Live and Let’s Fly we don’t promise unbiased analysis, but we do guarantee real news. I make mistakes and when I do, I correct them immediately. The fake news story was bad enough, but Bloomberg’s failure to correct it truly evaporates any credibility that news outlet has, as far as I am concerned.
> Read More: Questionable Upgrade Advice on Virgin Atlantic
I don’t know that I’d lose all credibility for everything they publish, but I will definitely say they aren’t a legitimate site for travel info unless they correct that story.
Obviously it’s fake news. To get an upgrade on Virgin Atlantic you have to call and have them connect you to their internal Richard Branson Authority of secret upgradeacery
Who cares… blogs like yours are great and for the more advanced user. I think the more people who don’t know how to actually do this stuff, the better.
The public as a whole knows mainstream media outlets don’t really care about journalistic standards… it’s all advertisement now… so just take it loosely and move on.
That should be your goal too, since your booking service relies on people not being able to do it themselves.