No it isn't, at best these days it's an inferior business product.

You didn't ask to be rerouted and downgraded. You've paid for first and you're not getting it, simple as.

I would phone up customer relations first.

 

well it used to be close to F at one point maybe. My last upper class flight in November last year was pretty poor. Average food, wearing seats and pretty awful service. You should certainly get some compensation for being downgraded.

 

As you and others have said, Upper = Business. Just to reinforce it with some extracts from Virgin-Atlantic.com:

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb...lass/index.jsp

Ask for a Supervisor and insist on a partial refund.

 

It's luck of the draw with VS I find.

We flew LHR-SFO in upper Oct 2008, service was friendly but slow, food crap. Had the infamous 'we've run out of champagne' with somthing like 8/9 hours of the flight to go. Clubhouse was still as good as ever though.

Just done MAN-MCO return in upper Dec08/Jan09 and service and crew were fantastic both ways, even the food had improved. This being on the much maligned MAN route too it was even more of a pleasant surprise.

As for being close to F at one point, I guess that depends who's F you're talking about!

 

The quality of a business class product doesn't make a difference as to what class it actually is. I had an absolutely amazing Etihad trip from AUH-JFK on the A345 with great food and a flat bed.....in business. The new SQ product is great, complete with amazing food and a real quality feel to it. But it's business. Both these products (amongst others) knock the socks off AF L'Espace Premier. But they are both business class where as L'Espace Premier is first class.

 

I called the ICC for the very first time last night to make a booking for travel commencing on the 27 January.

Had a few routings shown as being available in C using the ANA tool from Baku (GYD) to Sydney, Australia.

Here's how it all went:

First Agent (couldn't catch her name as the line was so bad): Could see availability GYD-IST-BKK but "there were no onward flights to Australia available", departing from BKK over a 4 day period even connecting through SIN. I explained that I had looked on the net and gave the flight numbers but it was all to no avail. Was recommended to call back in a few days.

So I checked ANA again to see if I'd made a mistake (which I hadn't) and then called the ICC again.

Second Agent (Kalpna, on a much-improved line): Immediately could see what I was looking at on ANA and amazingly everything was setup in around 8 minutes -

GYD-IST-BKK TK C
<stopover>
BKK-SIN TG C
SIN-SYD SQ F

Was asked to call back after 30 minutes so that the taxes could be loaded.

This I did and the very efficient Afreen then advised me that this (correctly) would be charged as a Business Class redemption as the longest sector was IST-BKK. As I had requested part miles and part cash, my outlay was:

37,500 miles, UKP255 plus taxes of UKP225

On visiting my reservation on checkmytrip this morning, eTicket numbers have already been issued.

All in all a very pleasant experience and a successful outcome for a redemption made at short notice! ^

 

Not bad for just 4 posts, GASUG - all that lurking must have worked!

 

I redeemed two cash & miles around December 20:

FRA-ZRH-DXB LX/LX 02JAN

FRA-MUC-VIE-EBL LH/OS/OS 06MAR
All Fridays in February were full on the VIE-EBL-leg, on my date FRA-VIE was full so now I have to take the detour via MUC

 

GoldCircle -It's all thanks to the excellent information posted on this site (mostly by yourself!). Many thanks to all the others too, by the way.^

 

Oh, I love BMI

I've just completed booking 3 x one way Miles+Points in C class on Air NZ from SYD to LAX via AKL, then onto LAS on US in F (where my wife, son and I are relocating to)

Of course, it wasn't simple (if it was, I suspect everyone would be doing it). I started last saturday, armed with availability from the ANA tool of 2 seats on one flight of the crucial AKL to LAX leg, and 1 seat on the other NZ flight on the same day.

The first ICC consultant I spoke to refused for a good few minutes to acknowledge the availability of the SYD-AKL-LAX routing. He said that there was "no availability between SYD and LAS", which is hardly surprising. Then he offered me seats on AC via YVR and YYZ! (almost tempting, and a route I'd never even thought to consider, but a hilariously long way round)

Eventually I got him to put each leg in one by one. Then, of course, I had to explain that the booking was in F for the LAX-LAS leg. This took another few minutes of discussion.

But it all worked. I got 2 of the seats I wanted. I then phoned back and got the 3rd seat on a seperate flight (my wife would have been the lucky one to not fly with our 3 year old) with pretty much no hassles but again explaining the F rule for domestic US flights.

And today I've just phoned and changed the flight over for my wife to the same as mine and my son's. She's not so happy, as she was looking forward to 12 hours of peace...

So for 90K points and about 800 pounds, I've got what Air New Zealand are currently selling for over 12,000 pounds. Not a bad deal!

Without trying to repeat the FAQ, my strategy was:

1. Research on ANA site to work out when seats open up. I knew last week that the seats on the day I wanted were coming up any day now, and increased my checking rate accordingly.

2. Be persistent with the agent on the phone. Unlike with another airline beginning with the letter U, my experience has been in the past and now that the ANA tool matches perfectly what the agent can see. The agents also seem to be willing to try things that don't make sense to them. One thing I told the agent was not to worry about how many points it was going to cost until the end. He thought that adding the leg from LAX to LAS in F would cause the whole route to price in F, which turned out not to be true.

3. If you need 3 seats, and you see 2, book the 2. Another one will probably open up. My strategy was to book the other seat on another flight and absorb the 20 quid charge later when the other seat became available.

4. Don't kick the computer when it takes too long to load the ANA site, then shows availability of 3 seats just as the clock turns 8PM GMT

 

Absolutely ^ One area where (bmi) award flights are amazing good value is for one-way long-haul flights.

 

Booked for Christmas travel:

MUC - GRU 2x J 18750 miles + �127.5 cash + �99.3 tax

Return flight not available yet, but we don't really want to risk it. In the worst case, it's just a �25 cancellation fee.

LHR - MUC segment - there are no business class seats on the flights that would connect well with LH504, and because of the new increased APD, the *extra* tax would be �135 ish per person, so decided to not have the connecting flight.

 

I had VIE-ZRH-BOS (stopover) BOS-YYZ-MEX booked. LX J & F and AC J for 25000 miles + £140. I was told to call back when taxes were loaded. New agent said that I would be charged for a Zone 1-3 and a Zone 3-3 award.

So I'm just doing the first part. J to MEX is pretty cheap anyway.

 

Well, it is a bit of an indirect route for VIE-MEX

 

What would availability be like to GRU with LH or LX anywhere between June - August?