hughw

I can book a flight to LHR on Virgin UC out of JFK or in CO BF out of EWR on a 777. I'm very familiar with CO's offering and I love it. That said, a real lie flat seat is very tempting. All in all, which is the better experience for me and my wife? And if I have a choice of a Virgin Airbus 340-600 vs. a 747-400, should one be favored over the other in UC?

jh3327

I have taken both in the last year - go with Virgin.
You can eat dinner on the ground in the Clubhouse before take-off and get your seats in the "snooze zone". You can get into your Virgin pajamas and sleep the whole flight. The bar will be open if you want to go back for a snack or drink in flight. You can skip breakfast in the air, maximizing your sleep time. The arrivals lounge has showers and a full breakfast menu.

The Virgin departure lounge in LHR is not to be missed. You can schedule a shave, haircut or other "beauty treatment" on their website in advance.

The pods on Virgin make it a little hard to talk with your traveling companion, but there is "buddy" seat so you can sit face to face for a while.

rolov

I just did the 346 last Wed.
The UC cabin is very very long , they put up a divider to make the cabin smaller , also I guess in front of the divider (Between Seat 7A and 8A )
That may be the snooze zone.


I would say go for the 747 UC on the upper deck, and if you want to snack or drink just walk downstairs to the bar.

Just like post # 2 says, the lounges are great.
The JFK CH has great meals and drinks before departure, so you can sleep the whole flight to LHR.
The revivals lounge has showers , and hot breakfast foods.

Departing LHR give yourself extra time to enjoy the clubhouse food and extras like a haircut .

If you want to do both , you can do what I did
747 LHR-JFK to enjoy the bar during the day , and 346 at night .

J-FLyer

Have flown UC on both 340-600 and 747 - - prefer the 747, and did not notice any significant differences in terms of the product.

Virgin UC flat bed is a much more comfortable sleeping seat than CO 777's angled lie-flat seat. That said, if you are not planning on sleeping, then CO's seat provides better lounging angles and tends to be more comfortable. I like to sleep on a plane, so its a no brainer for me, but it depends on what's most important for you. As others mentioned, Virgin is more of a solitary experience, as it is difficult to chat with your flying companion unless one of you gets up and moves to the other's pod, although I think that might be different downstairs on the 747 with the middle two seats if they remove the divider for you.

colpuck

Virgin all the way. In general European carriers are almost always a better choice than US carriers.

TWA Fan 1

Agreed that the Virgin experience on the ground vastly superior.

Regarding flat seat vs CO BF Barcalounger, I have been sorely disappointed by all the lie-flat seats I have tried.

In my experience, they are claustrophobic and strangely uncomfortable. If you're flying as a couple, it's very hard to feel as if you're traveling together. Of course, if you're alone there is greater privacy.

After trying a couple of lie-flats, I actually prefer to sit in a BF Barcalounger.

ContinentalFan

There's no question that Virgin's preflight is better than anything Continental has to offer. I prefer the Airbus. The B777 is fine, but the upper deck feels cramped. I haven't been impressed with the crews that I have met on Virgin. I find the entire in-flight experience to be highly over-rated. Were I to choose, I'd pick Continental's BF over Virgin.

ContinentalFan

I have the same experience on the lie-flat seats. I don't like them--at least, I don't like the seats on Virgin Atlantic. I find the seats on AA's B777s and the FC in the B762s to be much more comfortable--they're old and worn, but I like them a lot better than those on Virgin.

If you haven't flown Virgin, it's worth flying at least once--I say that because I believe that with Open Skies, the carrier's days are numbered.

ijgordon

VS without a doubt on the eastbound transatlantic (assuming redeye).

Mr. Roboto

I did LAX-LHR in VS UC (346) and LGW-IAH in CO BF (777). I personally enjoy the lie-flat on the long overnight eastbound flight (especially from the west coast), but prefer the BF seat for the day flight westbound. I think I would feel a bit cramped in the seated position (on VS) for such a long flight during daylight. In other words....for overnight flights=VS UC, day flights=CO BF, at least for me. I also have no problems taking naps in a BF seat, as long as I don't have a chatty seatmate.

The only negative I noticed for the VS UC seat is that one can not go directly from the seated position to the lie-flat one while seated. This conversion has to be done while there is no seat occupant.

precision80

I flew UC east and CO BF west. I think Virgin wins hands down. Service, quality of product and IFE (which nobody has mentioned especially if you are unlucky enough to get one of the old 777's on co) make the flight much more enjoyable on VS. Continental business first is a great product and with the right crew an amazing experience, but I still prefer Virgin UC.

rolov

and when you make the conversion , you have to fold the mini shelf up or the seat gets stuck ,which means you have to hold your drink in your hand

ijgordon

Generally I agree, but when you factor in the ground service of VS at LHR (drive-through check-in, UC private security channel and Clubhouse) it does kind of tilt the cards back toward VS, particularly on shorter flights to the East Coast.
One additional benefit of the VS seat vs the CO seat on a daytime flight is that you will never have anyone reclining into your face on VS. That's important IMHO. For these reasons I personally would choose VS over CO on a westbound TATL flight, but it's not quite as cut-and-dry as the decision on an eastbound redeye.

I think this is less of an issue than people make it out to be. You have to get out of the seat anyway to make the bed with the mattress pad and duvet. I'll gladly make that trade to actually have a mattress pad and duvet instead of a cr@ppy wool blanket like on CO. Maybe it's a drawback in the morning in that when you wake up you can't slowly inch the seat back up toward upright, but not an issue at nighttime.

jh3327

The VS seat and lounges are better than CO.
That being said, the food on board VS is rather poor and I have had much better crews, food and service on board CO.

dgilman

I flew as a couple LHR-JFK a few weeks ago and I thought it was great that we could eat our meal face to face, and even pull out scrabble and play without straining our neck to look at each other. When the gf wanted to nap, she returned to her pod and had a good sleep.

I can't recommend UC enough - a much better experience overall.

David