I needed to make a quick trip to the Southland this past weekend. and while I'm a UA 1K, VX was $100 RT at the last minute, so decided to give it a go.

Booking was easy and quick online. I also did online check-in. Of course, no gate was specified the night before. I showed up at SFO and went to the International concourse, forgetting there are TWO sides (United uses the G gates, VX uses BOTH) @:-), so had to sprint over to the A side and clear security again. I was taken aback that TSA is using body scan (which displays near-naked images to the screener) technology and I find it very disconcerting. It was the first time in all my years of flying (guess I don't frequent the airports/airlines that have them). I will avoid VX/A concourse for this alone.

The flight itself was, of course, short. Cabin was pretty full, but the seats were relatively comfortable and the FAs did a decent job getting drinks to everyone. RED worked pretty well (though the touch screen isn't sensitive enough), but the map display seems to have a serious lag (not real time). At one point it showed airspeed at 160 mph...and we were on the ground. Lots of programming, but nothing I really was interested in. Didn't check any bags (but was concerned since the VX website has unrealistic rules for carry-ons, which they don't enforce, luckily).

On the return, SNA-SFO, I was running a little late, but arrived a good 40 minutes before departure. Decided to try Economy Select for $25 more (with free drinks and snacks, figured it was my lunch). But TSA at the VX gates is INCREDIBLY UNDERSTAFFED. There were two lines feeding to one woman checking IDs. And they fed into one screening line. She was so slow, my (Premium) line barely moved. There were, perhaps 15 people ahead of me and IT TOOK 30 MINUTES to get through. I barely made it to the gate as they announced last call for passengers. I was the last to board and the VX agent admitted, yeah, the TSA is a problem.

The flight was nearly empty, so very pleasant once I caught my breath. Ordered some wine and snacks on RED and it took the FAs a bit to figure it out, as they were still passing down the aisle. The FA in First didn't have much to do for just 3-4 passengers, so I flagged him down as he passed by and he helped out. ^

All in all, I guess I find VX a nice product. Not sure it's enough to entice me from UA and free upgrades, despite the inconsistencies and shortcomings of UA's soft/hard product.