Cedar Jet

2 x SYD-LHR-SYD in J
and
1 x LHR-JFK - LHR in J

That was all the evidence I(my credit card and hard earned GF FF points) needed. Upper Crap(class)= crappy food, crappy seat(sit or sleep only and get out of seat if you want to sleep first??), crappy(but friendly and pretty) cabin crew

BA304

People never seem to complain about getting out the seat to make up the bed in SQ Suites...

slinky09

Which adds nothing to the crappy first post .

Returned from SFO two nights ago, great meal (braised beef, lovely), great crew, great lounge, very comfortable seat and bed, nice time at the bar - only spoiled by crappy Americans shouting at their friends across the aisle (could have been any nation, true, but some US people do boom!).

Oh and so far this year 14 x UC round trips, 1 x PE round trip, and all have been great.

Cedar Jet

VS is all yours guys!

PaulaJK

Well, your post makes me shudder as we are flying VS in late August.
However, I once again am grateful to this forum. I was totally unaware of the 13 hr rule out of LHR...and yes, I had selected my seats with VS via telephone without a mention of it.

slinky09

Hi Paula - I think what you see are petty comments that are out of tune with the majority experience. I hope you have great flights.

sdix

Possibly petty but they are perhaps more indicative of a bigger problem. Their refusal to pay me the delayed baggage compensation resulted in me just booking 2 BA business tickets from SFO to LHR. A trip I would have done on Virgin.

Silver Fox

The problem is this matters not a jot to bean counters.

airboss

And I was miffed because they took away my lowly 4000 flyer miles......I am surprised that so much can go wrong on one trip !!

newfoundglory

I travelled VS for the first time back in June - bucket and spade route unfortunately - lgw to mco.

It was a business trip in premium econ - I actually thought I had stepped back into the 1980's.

Negatives:
Very dated cabin and product, ripped seats
again, poor ife
unable to checkin online both ways at T-24
unable to reserve a seat before hand
cabin crew covered my trousers in baileys
on the return to lgw we were miles from passport control
the food, very disappointing

Positives
at least we were in the bubble
i got the exit row on the way home
fast luggage
priority boarding is good

I can't believe Virgin can advertise "your airlines go it, or it hasn't", because i'm not sure Virgin has got it. All the nice advertising, the PE leather seats etc are meaningless. I cannot believe that in this day and age I couldn't even bloody check-in 24 hours out. Very poor indeed, and I definitely regretted not booking with BA.

I believe i am qualified to say this, as i've travelled many times in First, club, wtp and econ on BA. And on other airlines. The products are obviously different in many ways, but Virgin doesnt seem to have the magic touch it claims to have. Not being able to checkin alone is enough to put me off flying VS again.

Unfortunately, i got over 20,000 VS miles for the return trip and now i'm wondering if I should risk booking another PE ticket and using the miles for an upgrade to Upper class...

ANstar

All these things are/have being addressed. The Leisure fleet are all getting refits, new IFE, seat reservation system is also being upgraded. Even on BA you have to pay to get a reserved seat beforehand!
Food in J and PE has also been upgraded recently and is actually quite tasty! (especially the PE lasagne!)


What has that got to do with VS? Surely it is LGW who allocate their gate?

Silver Fox

The fact that given this refit mess with no seat allocations being available until T-24, and even then you cannot change them when you do OLCI, shows that VS has lost the plot. They took FAR too long to even contemplate then action the refits, and then it is a fiasco. So, apart from that they are just like every other airline.

newfoundglory

Exactly - even if you get past check-in stage, all the seats are pre-assigned to pax - with every one taken you cannot change your seat. So, even if you can get it work, it doesn't actually offer you anything... unless you are travelling with no luggage.

And the new PE food is not good - you get to pick a J main course on BA, and Virgin PE is basically an economy meal from what I could make out with a appetiser.

Does anyone know if I book Upper class from LHR whether I will actually be able to select a seat at check in? If no seats are being reserved, if you check in at T-23.55 I would expect the vast majority to be available. Is this usually the case?

Jimmie76

Sadly despite making a �18.5m profit the previous year VS made a loss of �80.2m last year which I suspect the new UC suites, clubhouses and other refits must have contributed to. On the plus side they have said that they aren't expecting to get rid of any staff as a result of the cost saving plans.^ I just hope the customer experience isn't hit by it instead.

slinky09

I do find it amusing when people with affiliations to other airlines come and dump. I should go to the UA forum often and drop nasty comments about how dire United is, how crap the services is, how aged and miserable the FAs are, how tired some of the planes are, etc. etc. etc.

So, let's look at your comment above:

- What is the refit mess? It's going pretty much to plan ... people who have flown on the refitted planes are generally complementary ...
- Seat allocations not being available until T-24 well let's ask how you would manage it if you couldn't guarantee what aeroplane would be flying which route until the day before? Would you allow it, then make 450 people miserable as you swapped at the last minute, then create havoc for your staff?
- Well if a plane is full, a plane is full, would you put extra seats on the wings to give people a choice?
- Substantiate 'far' compared to another airline, oh like United in economy to Australia with 15 yo interiors and not even IFE of any description.
- What fiasco?