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Old Sep 18, 2005, 10:43 pm
  #1  
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Business Class on Star Alliance Partner: Varig

Would any of you on this board have recent experience flying in Business Class on Varig?

I would be flying round trip from New York JFK to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and/or Santiago de Chile but would like to have some advance knowledge about what to expect: seat quality, meal service, aircraft size & comfort, in-flight entertainment, etc.

Thanks very much.
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Old Sep 18, 2005, 10:58 pm
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I would suggest that you cruise over to the RG forum and do a search or just start reading... there are lots of threads about C in RG (including, IIRC, a report from the JFK-GRU flights).

If you find some conflicting information, that's because travel in C in RG is hit and miss (mostly miss, IME)... The big issue is related to the equipment they use. There are 3 different configs of the 777 (one of them ex UA), and the variation in comfort among them is huuuge.

Within South America (and Brasil), I've had some decent experiences with RG.
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Old Sep 18, 2005, 11:41 pm
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Moved to Varig.

Thanks.

cblaisd
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 4:50 am
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Try the SEARCH function in this forum. There are a lot of very recent threads on this subject.
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 6:39 am
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Thanks.

Thank you all, and sorry for the mis-posting.
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 11:51 am
  #6  
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Originally Posted by WindFlyer
Within South America (and Brasil), I've had some decent experiences with RG.
Within Brazil they only offer Economy from now on. They still have the business class section on the planes before they get to reconfigure them. I just had few RG flights in the past two weeks within Brazil.
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 11:57 am
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Originally Posted by holtju2
Within Brazil they only offer Economy from now on. They still have the business class section on the planes before they get to reconfigure them. I just had few RG flights in the past two weeks within Brazil.
Hmm, that would explain why I've been assigned a biz seat on an upcoming domestic flight.
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 12:37 pm
  #8  
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Originally Posted by WindFlyer
Hmm, that would explain why I've been assigned a biz seat on an upcoming domestic flight.
I had an award booked in business before the change and had to remind the check in person that I was ticketed in C. She had to call someone to allow her to issue me a BP in C.

It is actually quite funny if they don't sell C domestically when they have these MD11's and B777's birds flying between GRU-GIG. I don't know if they do other domestic runs too on these bigger birds.
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 2:10 pm
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I've got a JFK-GRU-GIG segment in my RTW trip next month. My Itineraries showed the GRU-GIG segment as "TK". When I called United, they said that that was due to RG rebooking me on a new flight (MD11) instead of the continuation of the JFK-GRU segment (772). She also noted that I was booked into Y on the GRU-GIG segment, which she quickly rectified (I'm on a C GATW award).

I guess my next question is will I be in a C seat with Y service???

JJ
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 5:49 pm
  #10  
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Originally Posted by JetJunkie
I guess my next question is will I be in a C seat with Y service???
GRU-GIG posted something like 210 miles. I am sure that you can survive it with the Y service.
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Old Sep 19, 2005, 5:52 pm
  #11  
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Not so encouraging!

Thank you all for your responses; I appreciate your sharing your experiences with me. The responses here, and to an earlier posting about the flight between New York and Sao Paulo, are not so encouraging! It looks like I should stay with LanChile and OneWorld for South American business class travel. Once again, thanks to all for your comments.
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Old Sep 20, 2005, 3:42 am
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Originally Posted by JohnWM
Thank you all for your responses; I appreciate your sharing your experiences with me. The responses here, and to an earlier posting about the flight between New York and Sao Paulo, are not so encouraging! It looks like I should stay with LanChile and OneWorld for South American business class travel. Once again, thanks to all for your comments.
You seem to be a very wise person @:-)
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