Kacee

Interesting. What fare class did you book into - O, A, R, or RN?

Good luck on the upgrade!

bballdad175

JShLin

My apologies, I could have been clearer. Im on flight 869, which being SFO-HKG is 14.45 hrs long. P+ was $1209 for upgrades prior to today; ie when I checked on upgrades pricing last week. TOD was $599. As a datapoint, J was $1250 TOD.

Edit: booked into fare class A, while my BOS-SFO cleared into Z.

fumje

Thanks for reporting. It will be interesting to see if the offers evolve with time.

Using dollar signs ($) helps with clarity!

under2100

I sat in center-aisle today (21D, 777-200) UA949. Not officially selling PP yet on this route so classed as E+. I was surprised at the seat bracket placement. They seemed to be lined up with the middle of each seat - so three reasonable sized full seat width spaces - but all shifted by the width of half a seat so brackets in the middle of everyone's leg spaces. Then on the both ends, there were half-width spaces (which would not fit a small backpack or briefcase, but only a small handbag, or a pair of shoes). Fortunately, there were only 3 of us in the center 4 seats, and we each took one of the reasonable sized underseat storage slots. If all seats had been occupied, and everyone wanted to put a backpack under the seat in front, it could've been quite awkward. I'm quite short and I struggle to reach the handle of overhead bins, so I usually only carry a small backpack that I expect will fit under the seat in front of me.

The post above (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30818276-post264.html) has photos of the side-aisle storage, which appears to be shared between two people. So depending on how cooperative your neighbor is, it might work better.

I once sat next to some woman on a 767 window pair seating. She'd boarded much earlier and had occupied the entire underseat storage in front of us with three of her large bags leaving me no space at all. She was a doctor wannabe, in training, and voiced strong opinions about the healthcare system in the US throughout the flight and how she was motivated to provide service to the community, etc. It was all very noble sounding, but I rather wished she'd have been less selfish and left me with space for my legs during the 10 hour transatlantic flight, let alone my bag.

So I'm not very pleased with the underseat arrangement of the PP center seats.

Also, there were a LOT more people in PP than the seat map indicated. I wondered if some people self-upgraded once on board. I guess it's not officially being sold as a separate class yet on this route, so the cabin crew wouldn't care.

Kannai

You were very kind to not tell her to move her stuff out of your storage/foot space. I don't think I would have been so kind.

FlyingHighlander

Yep. No way I'd have been letting that happen.

Kacee

Yeah I have no qualms about saying, "hey can you please move that so I can put my bag there?"

Had to do same with jerk who jammed his Polaris pillow, blanket, and assorted other detritus on top of my backpack in the overhead on Monday. Restrained myself from throwing the pillow at him. Seriously, do these people have no consideration for how their behavior impacts others? (rhetorical question)

Silver Fox

I have just flown Premium Economy (PE) on Virgin Atlantic on a 787-9. I have not sampled the meals in Premium Plus (PP) but the seat in PE is much much better: wider, nicer width armrest, nice place to put your legs, a nicer footrest, feels much roomier, the IFE is much better placed with the USB jack right under the monitor, and I like it better as I do not feel as close to my next door neighbour. I have not done a price comparison as yet but on the whole I like the Virgin product better at this stage.

phxrsng

Leaving the rest aside, I think that the setup with USB right under the monitor is far inferior to UA's new charging setup. It requires the cord to be dangling there and to find a spot to stuff the phone in. The UA charging setup is quite nice, in my opinion.

Silver Fox

So I just did what I consider to be a price comparison for PE vs. PP: VA is £1817, UA is £3597 for LHR-SFO-LHR, May 11 depart, May 17 return. That is pure money, no miles, or miles plus money, using their websites. If I had to choose one over the other I would choose VA as I do not see ~£1700 of difference in the UA PP product.

WineCountryUA

Was your PP experience on an UA's787 PP or 777 PP. As the UA 787 PP is also wider than the UA 777 PP. But for that route and carrier choices of aircraft, the 787 will be wider.

On that day VA may have been the better deal but on another day I see UA for that route as $2,200. (in R) As always price will depend on inventory fare class availability

findark

Comparing fares irrespective of inventory is completely meaningless. If UA is pricing over £3,500 then it's because it's booking into O, which is because RM thinks that for that specific flight they are already selling seats quite well.

Silver Fox

It was on the UA777 PP. I have not seen the 787 on the LHR-SFO-LHR route for a while now.

I get the inventory thing but to most potential customers that are not inventory savvy (and I am not sure I am in all honesty) they are going to do what I did and pick the cheapest. I did not bother doing a "my dates are flexible" search on either. Perhaps I should.

Probably. But what is Joe Public going to do?

Kacee

Or RM is completely asleep at the switch. Which is IME an equally plausible explanation.