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What is V-Flyer?
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First and foremost, V-Flyer is not controlled by the Virgin Group, it has been created and is maintained by regular customers of the various Virgin travel companies.
The aim of V-Flyer is to provide information on all aspects of travelling with Virgin. As your peers, we see things from a customer perspective, so our approach leaves the glossy marketing descriptions aside. When we talk about seats, we don't talk about soft luxurious leather and mood lighting; we want to know whether you're going to crush your kneecaps and can you smell the lavs from the row you're sitting in.
The regulars on V-Flyer are here because we fly with Virgin out of choice, but we're not fanboys. If something is wrong, you'll probably find that V-Flyers are the first to get vocal about it. Equally, we're not here as a whipping post when your expectations of the product are unreasonable. If your intent is to use V-Flyer to vent your frustration at not getting a free upgrade, then don't be surprised if your peers show little sympathy!
That said, we are happy, willing and even eager to help fellow passengers get the absolute most out of travelling with Virgin. There's no such thing as a stupid question, but we do encourage you to do a little digging on the site before asking a question that may have been asked several times before, or are dealt with using one of the many site tools.
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Do I need to pay to use the site?
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Most of what you see here is free. All of the site tools, including the seat maps, aircraft databases and flight tools are open access. You can also read the majority of the posts in the forum without charge and with our compliments.
You can also register and post in our General Discussion forum for free. However, if you'd like to chip into the costs of running the site, purchase a subscription and you'll be able to post in any of the forums. One month starts at just £2.99, and as part of your membership you'll also get access to a couple of hidden forums (just for members), plus free queries and discount on our partner site, ExpertFlyer.com. If you sign up as a member, we'll also turn off the banner ads too.
If you are Virgin staff, then we offer complimentary membership of the site. Contact moderators@v-flyer.com if you'd like more details about staff membership.
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Do I need to be a member of Virgin's Flying Club
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Not at all, but you'll find it a very rewarding experience if you are. Think of it as a 'cash-back' from Virgin for every flight you take, which you can trade in for future flights or upgrades. And here on V-Flyer, one of the main things we talk about is maximising your miles earning, and also making the miles you've earnt go as far as possible.
Let's start off your bonus earning with Miles More Friends - Virgin's find-a-friend programme which means not only does the referrer get a nice bonus, the new member also gets a bunch of miles they wouldn't normally have had on their first flight. It's currently 1,000 miles for Economy, 2,000 miles for Premium or 3,000 miles if your first flight is in Upper. You'll just need to get an existing Flying Club memberto refer you via Miles More Friends - and if you don't have an existing member to hand, drop me an email at pete@v-flyer.com and I'll happily do the honours. It's a win-win situation for us both ;-)
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The Moderating Team
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Moderators are a group of volunteers drawn from the general membership of the site who have been chosen to help keep the forums running smoothly. They’re the people who’ll try to ensure that your browsing experience is kept as trouble free as possible by ensuring that you’ll find what you’re looking for in the right place and by ensuring that discussion threads don’t diverge into irrelevant ramblings. Along the way they’ll also try to ensure that the community remains welcoming and polite. To this end they’re granted a few more powers than the average user. They can make changes to your posts, move them and even delete them.
As with any community, V-Flyer's future will be brightest if the forum is run in a polite and informative way.
The site rules are based on respect and good manners. V-Flyer is a moderated board. That means you can’t just post what you want. Posts that don't comply with the rules will be removed, and members who violate the rules may be suspended or have their memberships revoked. A dash of common sense mixed with an eye to the rules should ensure that you won’t have any problems.
We want everyone to get the most from V-Flyer. Whilst the moderators make every effort to ensure these forums are enjoyable and valuable, the ultimate responsibility rests with those who contribute.
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Disclaimer
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V-Flyer is not liable for any loss or damage caused by information obtained through the site. We are an independent site, not connected in any way with Virgin, or any of the other travel companies featured on the site. Any employees of Virgin or related companies who post on this site, do so in a personal capacity, and are not speaking on behalf of their employers.
NEVER rely on information or opinions posted on V-Flyer to replace the information that you receive from the Flying Club, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Holidays or your travel professional. Whilst V-Flyer is a great source of unbiased information, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information provided in the forums. Things become outdated and we don’t always revisit historical threads.
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The Forum
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It might be intimidating at first to post a message, as with any strange place – the ‘regulars’ may appear to be ‘cliquey’ and dismissive of newbies. No problem – even the moderators were newbies once! You're welcome to lurk (participate without posting) and read posts until you feel comfortable. Of course, we encourage you to join the discussions. We actually have a very supportive community and we welcome your contributions.
Before posting, you will need to register a username with V-Flyer and create your subscription. Your username is the way you’ll be known on the board unless you choose to identify yourself otherwise. With this in mind remember that you’ll probably be a member of V-Flyer for quite some time to come. Registering as “IDontKnowWhatNameToUse” might seem cute today but in a few months time will it seem quite so clever? Once you’ve got a name it cannot be changed, so think about your choice carefully.
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Browse First
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Before you post it might be an idea to browse the board to become familiar with V-Flyer. Read the forum descriptions and read several threads in each of the forums. This will help you to determine where any posts you might want to make should go. To maintain the structure of the site, threads posted in the wrong forum will be relocated by moderators. Duplicate discussions (discussions which are already under way elsewhere on the board) will be locked and a link inserted to the original thread.
Before starting a thread, use the Google search feature to see if there's a recent thread on your topic. Many questions come up repeatedly on V-Flyer. If you're wondering about In Flight Entertainment (IFE), or which aircraft you will be sitting on when flying a particular route for example, there's a good chance a thread - or 10 - already exists. The search link is located in the navigation menu near the top of the Forums page. Keeping information on the same topic confined to as few threads as possible helps members quickly find the information they need.
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Create Descriptive Titles
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Make thread titles as specific and descriptive as possible. Sometimes posters will start a thread with a very general title such as, "VS022" or "Help me, please". Be as helpful as possible in your thread titles, and if you want to improve or change your thread's title after you create it, you can use the edit icon or ask a moderator for help.
In this way you’re helping others to help you. As the site grows there are more and more threads and very few people have the time to read them all. By making your thread title explicit you increase the chances that someone who knows what they’re talking about will actually read your question, and thereby be able to provide you with the information you’re looking for.
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Post Your Thread to Just One Forum
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Don't post the same thread more than once. Our members read many forums, and weeding through the same message in multiple forums can be frustrating. Duplicate threads will be deleted, combined or locked. In addition it’s polite to only post the same question to one site. If you were thinking of posting to multiple sites then just ask yourself which site has the most experts on that subject – then post in that one. Multiple site posting is a breach of netiquette –it’s like a small child asking mum and dad for something in the hope that one answer will be more favourable. Mums and dads don’t like being played against each other and neither do site members.
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Stay on Topic
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Please keep your posts on topic. Posts that stray from the subject of the thread may be split into a new thread by the moderators, or removed. Please also be a good net citizen, and don't hijack someone else's thread. If someone is asking a question of others, please don't take over by asking your own question and diverting away from the original poster.
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Welcome Newcomers
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V-Flyer strives to be, friendly, informative, fun and is a thriving community. When newcomers arrive, welcome them. By helping new members learn, you provide a shining example of V-Flyer’s raison d’etre and you help ensure that V-Flyer continues to flourish. New members may not understand V-Flyer as well as you do. Remember we were all newbies once.
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Respect our Diversity
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V-Flyer members come from all walks of life and all parts of the world. We are as diverse in our makeup as we are alike in our passion for the Virgin brand. We are very proud of the inclusive nature of V-Flyer, and will do everything we can to uphold this.
Our diversity demands that we respect each other. Due to the inherent constraints of the Internet, humour, sarcasm, language and slang can be easily misinterpreted - especially when crossing cultural boundaries.
When posting a message, pay extra care to how it might be interpreted. . Remember that “Emoticons” are your friend. They’re those cute little smilies you can click to include in your message. If you want to post something jokingly, then add a smiley. Not all readers are big on irony so give them a helping hand. And when you come across a post that offends you, read it with an eye toward giving the poster the benefit of the doubt. If you have an issue with a post, please contact the member privately or contact a moderator. Do not make a situation worse by publicly responding – this frequently leads to escalation and can start what is known as a “flame war”. At V-Flyer we take a very dim view of these and participants will be warned and dealt with appropriately.
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Construct posts carefully
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Posts that are badly typed, use poor grammar or that are incoherently constructed are very difficult to read and understand. Why should the thousands of unique readers of your post have to spend their time decoding what you could have made more clear with a little more thought? One minute of your time spent constructing a posting correctly might save literally hours of other peoples time.
The moderators reserve the right to edit posts that are made with poor grammar, spelling, ‘text speak’ or that are lacking in clarity. We do NOT edit to censor posts and posts that are edited by moderators will be labelled as such with the reason for the edit clearly stated.
As stated above, V-Flyer is proud to be an inclusive site, it is accepted that English is not the first language of some posters and that some posters may be affected by dyslexia, or other conditions. These rules are not intended to demean individuals, but are in place to make the site a pleasant and informative forum for all. When you first start posting it’s possible that you’ll breach these rules – other forums are less strict and we understand that it’s easy to become accustomed to posting in a certain way. As your moderators we’ll strive to help you correct your postings using Private Messages (PMs) as a “heads up”. If you ignore this help then we’ll move to public posts to encourage you. If you still ignore our encouragement your account may be locked.
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Trolling
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A Troll in an internet forum is defined as a person who enters an established community such as V-Flyer, and intentionally tries to cause disruption, most often in the form of posting inflammatory, off-topic, or otherwise inappropriate messages.
Trolling is NOT tolerated in this community and people who indulge in such activities will be dealt with appropriately.
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Copyrighted material
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Do not post copyrighted articles or photographs onto the V-Flyer site without the express permission of the copyright holder. Any such articles may be deleted by the moderators. When quoting an item from another website it is permissible to post a link to that website, don’t cut and paste passages from the other site and remember to acknowledge the site that it is taken from.
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Guard Your Privacy
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Keep personal information personal. If you want to share your personal information with another member of the community, do so via e-mail or private message.
V-Flyer respects members' privacy. None of your personal information will be posted on the forums unless you post it yourself. Moderators do not have access to your password. When you are asked to post your Flying Club number in your profile this is purely to establish your level of membership. The appropriately coloured icon is attached to your posts, but the number is not stored within our databases.
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Guard the Privacy of others
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Do not post names, addresses, phone numbers or e-mails of other V-Flyer members unless this information is clearly in the public domain. Any such information will be removed by moderators. Respect the privacy of Virgin and other travel service employees by not referring to them by name, unless their specific permission has previously been obtained.
Posts that ask members to submit personal information will be removed. This includes, but is not limited to, communications that ask for personal information submitted via e-mail, mail, telephone, surveys, or research studies unless this request is specifically asked for from V-Flyer.
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V-Flyer Events
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Many V-Flyer members get together socially, and there are often V-Flyer events and gatherings. Details of these events, past and future, can be found in the Social Events Forum. Members may plan and announce events on that forum. Events announced on V-Flyer must be open to all community members (no single sex events or age dependent gatherings for example). In addition, it is worth pointing out that V-Flyer is not a dating service, and posts of that nature will be removed. The Social Events forum is visible to full members only.
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Commercial Messages
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With the noted exception of posts in the Sales, Swaps & Wanted and the Villa Rental Ads forums – both of which have specific rules, posts containing promotional messages for commercial or charitable products or services - including but not limited to Internet sites, business advertisements and solicitations to donate miles or points - will be removed.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify the validity of each charitable organisation; therefore, to protect V-Flyer users from fraud, we do not allow solicitations for charities. This includes member to member solicitations such as sponsorship drives.
If you spot a commercial post, please contact us
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How to Report Bad Posts
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Our volunteer moderators read as much as they can on V-Flyer, but they can't get to every post so your help is appreciated in keeping V-Flyer a polite community. If you see a post that does not comply with the rules, report the post by sending an email to moderator@v-flyer.com. Your message will be sent to forum moderators who will review the post.
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Management of Virgin Atlantic and the Travel Industry
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Please be aware that that the site is read by Virgin Atlantic management, and a number of people from other travel companies post or lurk here. We welcome their participation, but be aware that your posts may be read by representatives of Virgin Atlantic and the other travel companies. In other words – if you don’t want somebody at Virgin to know what you’re posting – be you an employee or a customer – don’t post it in a public forum!
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Reporters and Media interest
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News stories may be generated by members of the media who read V-Flyer. Reporters may contact members through private mail or e-mail, or they are welcome to contact V-Flyer administrators for assistance. It's up to members whether or not they wish to respond.
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Avoid Bumping Very Old Threads
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Unless there is a compelling reason, avoid bumping threads that are more than a few months old. Often the information is out-dated and it clogs the forums, making it difficult to find current threads.
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Disciplinary Procedures
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V-Flyer is not a court room and, as such, disciplinary procedures are informal. You are here voluntarily and have agreed to abide by site rules. Disciplinary procedures will be decided upon on a case by case basis, always with a determined attempt to stray on the side of absolute fairness, transparency and equality. As such all decisions made by the publisher and the moderator team are full and final.
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Examples of actions that may result in action being taken against a member
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- Deliberately misquoting other members
- Using more than one account to mislead posters
- Using V-Flyer for commercial purposes
- Posting private emails and messages without the author's permission
- Attempting to defraud any member
- Discussing specific moderator actions in a manner designed to stir up contention
- Personal attacks or threats on other members or groups
- Obscene or offensive language/material
- Furthering illegal activity
- Invasion of another's privacy
- Posting copyrighted material
- Padding post counts
- Post stalking
- Repeated posting of disruptive posts
- Abuse of private messaging and emails obtained through V-Flyer
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Common Questions: Which plane will I be on?
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We don't have access to details of the actual plane that will be on a specific route, or a specific day. Aside from security concerns, please remember that the plane assigned to a particular flight is not guaranteed and can change right up to departure due to operational reasons. Usually you can work out the type of plane by comparing the the Virgin Atlantic seat map associated with your booking and the seat maps on V-Flyer. Also, the route history page will give you an idea of the type of plane recently flying that route.
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Common Questions: What are the best seats to pick?
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This is a very broad question, and will depend on your own personal circumstances; but for VIrgin Atlantic aircraft, you can check out the seating opinions of other V-Flyers on the seat ratings page.
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Common Questions: What do all the abbreviations mean?
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We apologise in advance, but there is a fair amount of internet abbreviation and semi-technical language used on V-Flyer. We all know this can be confusing (even daunting), so we created a glossary to explain them - please see this page.
In our forum, any posts that contain abbreviations from the glossary will automatically have a 'tooltip' added. If you see a dotted line under a word in the forum, it means you can hover your mouse over the word to get its meaning appear.
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Common Questions: Where can I see a list of all the airport codes?
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You'll find that most posters will use the 3 letter airport code when referring to destinations - please see this page for a comprehensive list of airport codes.
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Common Questions: How do I get the route maps to appear in my trip reports?
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The maps display automatically if you format the Trip Report title in the following manner:
[flight number] [airport-airport] [date]
e.g.
VS019 LHR-SFO 08 Nov 2007
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Common Questions: What are the little planes below a member's post count?
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If you roll your mouse over the plane icon, you'll see a list of future flights for that forum member.
Any posts you make to the Intineraries Forum for future flights will automatically appear in your aircraft pop-up list.
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Common Questions: How do I put a picture into my profile?
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Firstly get the photo onto your PC and edit it to crop out any unwanted area, adjust brightness levels, etc... The profile space is square, so try and make the picture the same dimensions in height and width otherwise you might look a bit "squished". The space in your profile page is 150 x 150 pixels, so that would be the ideal size.
Next, you need to get the picture uploaded to a webserver. Most ISPs give you your own webspace as part of your subscription, and that's an ideal place to put it. Note that V-Flyer does not offer this storage facility.
Finally, go to edit your profile. In the Picture URL: box, type the location of the picture you want to appear. This needs to be a link to the picture file itself, not the page that it appears on - so you might end up with a URL something like:
http://www.mywebhost.com/mugshot.jpg
Save your profile, and your picture will appear
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Common Questions: What are the titles for under a member's forum name?
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The titles are an indication of how many posts have been made by that member in the V-Flyer fora. For reference, here are the titles:
Just Checked-In = 0-4 posts
New Passenger = 5-49 posts
V-Flyer Frequent Passenger = 50-149 posts
V-Flyer Cabin Crew = 150-499 posts
V-Flyer Senior Cabin Crew = 500-999 posts
V-Flyer Cabin Services Supervisor = 1,000-1,999 posts
V-Flyer Flight Service Manager = 2,000-4,999 posts
V-Flyer Flight Engineer = 5,000-9,999 posts
V-Flyer First Officer = 10,000-24,999 posts
V-Flyer Pilot = 25,000-49,999 posts
V-Flyer Senior Pilot = 50,000+ posts
You will also see members with the title "V-Flyer Moderator" - these members are the site editorial team and have special posting powers. Occasionally, for special endeavours & sterling work, "one-off" titles are granted - see if you can spot them (there are no prizes)
NB: These titles do not in any way reflect any position or status within Virgin Atlantic or the Virgin Group
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Common Questions: How do I upload images to the V-Flyer Gallery?
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Firstly, make sure your image is in JPEG or GIF format and below 120k in size, then go to the Photo Gallery page and click on the section you want to upload to. Then click "Upload a photo to this category" and fill in the relevant sections. When you press submit & answer the "are you sure?" question, you should get an "upload successful" message. From this point, a member of the editorial team will approve/decline the image (NB you will only be notified if the image is declined or there is a query about it).
All photos uploaded onto the site should be specific to either Virgin Atlantic, Travel, V-Flyer People or Destinations linked to Virgin Atlantic. Essentially, they should always have a "travel" theme.
While we all appreciate the "social" side of the photograph postings to date, we must be aware that these images are not always clear or relevant to all members and we must also be mindful of the space we use up on the server to store these. As always, people are more than welcome to host such images on their own web space/server and link to them in a post.
Please only upload pictures of crew or staff if you have permission to post them.
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Common Questions: How do I add images to my posts?
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There are 2 methods of adding images to posts:
Using the [img][/img] tags:
These require a direct link to the image URL, for example:
[img]http://www.v-flyer.com/photos/1793.jpg[/img]
However, the [img] tags will just insert the full sized image - i.e. if it's bigger than the layout boundaries, it won't be scaled down to look nice in your post. There's a better way of inserting images, which only works for images hosted in the V-Flyer
Using the [photo][/photo] tags:
After your image has been uploaded & approved for entry in the V-Flyer Gallery, open the full resolution version and right-click the image itself. In the properties/location section, you'll see the URL of the image - select the numeric part of the URL (the XXXX in http://www.v-flyer.com/photos/XXXX.jpg) and use CTRL+C to put it on the clipboard. Next, paste that URL between a set of [photo][/photo] tags, e.g. [photo]1793[/photo]
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V-Flyer Rights
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V-Flyer reserves the right to remove any content posted on our site at any time for any reason and to organise topical forums in order to best serve the majority of our visitors and members. V-Flyer reserves the right to revoke members' accounts. Decisions as to whether content violates our rules will be made by moderators.
V-Flyer reserves the right to delete messages that violate applicable laws or that may be harmful to others. V-Flyer does not have the ability to restrict conduct or communications that might violate our rules prior to transmission on the Internet, nor can we ensure prompt removal of offending forum posts.
V-Flyer reserves the right to limit access to specific forums to members who meet specific requirements or other criteria at the discretion of the V-Flyer moderators. We also reserve the right to change those requirements at any time.
The content of messages does not constitute approval by or even necessarily reflect the views of V-Flyer. You participate at your own risk on the forums, in chat and in e-mail. You take responsibility for postings under your identification and use the information provided here at your own risk. V-Flyer takes no responsibility for the content or opinions posted here.
V-Flyer reserves the right to makes changes to the rules without notice. As it's impossible to address every issue that could arise on these forums, just because an issue is not covered in these rules, does not mean it will or will not be allowed.
By posting to a forum on V-Flyer, you agree to abide by our rules.
Thank you for taking the time to read these Rules which are intended to benefit the V-Flyer community as a whole. If you still have questions about behaviour on V-Flyer, please feel free to contact us.
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