Delta Premium Select versus Virgin Atlantic Premium
 

My wife and I will be traveling to the UK in mid-May for a family wedding.

The options under consideration from ATL are Delta to LHR or Virgin Atlantic to either LHR or MAN. DAL appears to be using a 767-400 and VA uses the A330-300 to LHR and the A330-200 to MAN.

We plan to sit in Premium Economy. Pricing is very similar. Which airline’s offering is better, Delta’s Premium Select on the 767-400 or Virgin’s Premium on either of the A330s?

If it's an A330-200 (not A330-300) are very narrow. I would prefer Delta.

But the VS A330-300 PE seats are a couple of inches wider than the Delta PE seats.

The other consideration is whether you want to fly into MAN or LHR. Depending on where you will be going in England, MAN can be a lot easier and more manageable airport than LHR. From MAN you can get trains directly to a number of other cities without having to change in the Manchester central station.

If you are Delta PM or DM it is worth returning from LHR just to be able to use the VS Clubhouse, regardless of which airline you are flying.

From a strictly airframe standpoint, go with Virgin. The A330 seat is going to be a couple inches wider which really makes a difference. Also, I prefer the Virgin "vibe."

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately don't have medallion status.

Wedding is in Liverpool, hence the probable arrival into Manchester. As of right now Virgin website shows the A330-200 daily ATL – MAN.

Going to be spending some time in Paris and London afterwards, so the return flight back would be LHR. That is where the Virgin A330-300 versus the Delta 767-400 decision would come in.

Wouldn't it make sense to go to London first? You could take the Chunnel train or even a boat to France and then fly home directly from CDG.

Good point. I'll add it to the number of permutations under consideration.

While there are differences, VS and DL are similar enough overall that I would probably pick based on schedule. If you're going to fly VS into MAN, maybe fly DL out of LHR for variety.

Thanks to an above suggestion looking like it will probably be ATL to LHR (Virgin American A330-300) and CDG to ATL (Delta 777-200).

Trip is almost exactly 4 months away. What is the ideal time frame to buy the tickets.

I've flown VS PE on the 787, A330 and A350 and I felt that Delta PS (I've just flown it twice on the A350) was just miles better. Better service, wayyy better foood, better alcohol. Honestly I was expecting VS to win on all those accounts since that's their reputation but I was pretty disappointed. Just my anecdote from 6 legs in VS PE.

IMO DL's food and IFE are better. The 21" seats on the VS 330 are better than the narrower seats on either DL or VS. I have had good service on both products.

If you have the points, upgrade the VS segment if you can: Upgrade on VS.

While airfares can vary at any time, IME the best prices and availability for W to LHR are at least 60 days out, and don't vary that much. (ie: The prices are usually pretty similar 6 months out and 3 months out.)

A bigger issue is seat availability. W to/from LHR is IME super popular. I regularly see all the "good" seats taken a month out, and have seen the W cabin go out full or almost full when Y is half empty and J isn't sold out.

Unless I were swimming in miles, I wouldn't go out of my way to upgrade VS W to J, except on the A350 (which has both VS' worst W configuration and its best J seat by far).

This doesn't apply for OP if he's going to end up flying out of CDG, but for non-elites (or FO/GM), the UG on the return would also get you access to the LHR Clubhouse.

Have seen price vary +/- $500 per ticket day to day. Would agree that seat available is probably biggest issue (at least ATL - LHR) as there only appear to be 6 pairs of Premium Economy seats left for a flight that is 118 days away.

Upgrades from PE to UpperClass/or Delta One for TATL flights cost 25K miles if upgrade space is available. It used to be fairly easy to get upgrade award space on AF or VS (before DL offered PE) but I’ve had no luck in recent years.