Dave Noble

I just received an email saying that my flight MEL-SGN on 7 April had been downgraded from Premium Economy to Economy due to there no longer being PE om the flight.

Looking at the current seat map , it still seems that there is a PE cabin, just that it is reclassified as economy. I still have the same seat assignment

From what I can see, VN doesn't have any 359s that have no PE cabin. Does this look like this is just going to be an airline change in my favour with the compensation of a free flight but still having PE seating or would it be likely to change to an aeroplane that has no PE cabin and I should look to change to a different flight

Firemansam

Dave I would say that they are operating one of their older 359's which has a number of rows with extra legroom, but still 9 abreast like normal economy, pretty crappy to be downgraded to that from their regular PE for a flight of that length.

Are they offering you a free flight as compensation?.
Curious to know as this is our normal way of flying to Vietnam now.

Dave Noble

It is going to refund the cost of the flight as compensation

Checking on seatguru and aerolopa , both formats are shown to have a PE cabin with 38" pitch but only 18" width on the 3-3-3 layout vs 19" on 2-4-2 - the seat map is still showing 2-4-2 in rows 12-15 and then 3-3-3 thereafter, so I am currently confused on what is happening

I was pondering on seeing if I could get swtched on SYD-SGN

Firemansam

If they're willing to refund and let you still take the flight I think that's a bonus.

It's possible they haven't yet changed the aircraft in their systems yet but I did notice in the last 2 days they did use an older aircraft to Melbourne.
Wouldn't hurt to ask if they'd change you to Sydney.
We find their PE seats very well padded and comfortable..

Dave Noble

Well - I decided to stick to the same flight and have a new ticket issued in 'Y' ( fare basis YAD00N1 ) for the sector. When going into seat selection, unfortunately I now had to pay for seats, but the layout is still showing 2-4-2 in rows 10-15 and then 3-3-3 from row 16. Given that it was happy to charge me VND1,225,000 to select an aisle seat in the 2-4-2 section and has allocated it, I am hoping that the layout will stay. Annoyingly, within 5 minutes of me paying for the seats, my missing mileage request was completed and I attained platinum status and could have got the seats for only VND875,000 if I had waited

I do like VN's premium economy and if the only real difference is going to be having an economy boarding pass rather than a premium economy one, I think that it seems like a good result

I did consider changing to Sydney and missing out on visiting a friend in Melbourne - I originally only booked ex-MEL since ex-SYD was expensive that day and made it worth going via MEL and catching up with friends

The email with the new ticket states to contact at completion of trip to collect the refund. about the only thing I can think of to explain this would be that there were very few PE bookings but a high volume of economy bookings