The story of 2016/17 - a few firsts and a brief return to VS

A bit of a rambling post, so if you’ve the time, sit down with a drink and I hope you enjoy my story!

Anyway, it’s about time I checked in again here, have been on the site much recently!

2016 saw the introduction of my “couldn’t care less about status” attitude which freed me up to look at more options on the flights for that year.

And so it was that I ended up on 4 VS flights for the first time in 6 years.

I needed to be in New York in August and I called VS to ask “I don’t suppose you have any reward flights in August do you” – “in UC yes…”

Well, knock me down with a feather, they did – and what’s more, on the exact dates I wanted.

This meant – first time on a Boeing 787, first time in the JFK club house – more on that later.

Mid June saw me looking for a family holiday and I tried all the usual sources for a trip to Barbados in July.
Well, a second feather viciously attacked me and Virgin hols came up with a superb price staying at my second home – Turtle beach! Even better, the flights were in PE!
The price was so good, that it was better than flying in economy with BA on every site I tried.

Called them – “oh, are you a Frequent Virgin club member”…it would seem my ancient account number was still valid and a further 10% was had!

Later on in the year, I had another trip to BGI – this time with BA o/b in WTP, i/b in CW.

So, what’s the point of all this?

I have to admit to a certain excitement returning to VS after all this time and was really looking forward to both trips.

PE – well, I think the overall service probably still beats BA WTP – but…

The A330 struck me as really cramped – very narrow isles and so on, and our outbound flight saw two gentlemen servicing the PE cabin that really made me feel quite uncomfortable.

It’s not often I’ve experienced a sense of walking on egg-shells when I am the client, but that is exactly how it felt. They were non-communicative and somewhat edgy the entire flight – hayhoe, that’s the way it goes. The extra 30 minutes due to the A330 being slower really dragged as well!

The return flight was better, but I didn’t really see that old VS sparkle…

Would I fly VS PE again – yes, absolutely, if the price/dates are right, it’s up there with the best and you can get bad crews/good crews on any airline right?

Even more excitement saw me heading off to LHR for my UC return flights to JFK in August.

First time DTCI – what a brilliant service that is – incredibly warm welcome and the private channel is awesome.

Off to the CH – well folks, this was disappointing. I managed to hit the end of “no warm food” and the cold food offering together with the overall service and ambience of the CH that day was not good. Nothing like I remembered and was looking forward to.

The JFK CH, on the other hand, is now probably my favourite lounge I’ve ever been in. Terrific service with a smile, really great atmosphere and that burger…!!!

The flight home was novel as it was my first time on the Dreamliner – the UC suite seemed on a parr with the one on the A340 but obviously less warn…I liked this plane, and the crew were fine, but it could easily have been BA for all the difference it made.

The 787 is a nice plane and I definitely felt fresher getting off that plane…

My BA flights later in the year were as expected and just re-enforces that there is little left to differentiate these days in terms of service – but the VS inconsistency seems to be alive and kicking whilst I’ve not had a disappointing flight with BA yet.

2017 sees more first for me – I’m using the BA001 (LCY/JFK) for the first time and will also be using the JFK Concord room so looking forward to that!

All my flights booked so far this year are with BA, but I tried VS as well, BA just came up with better prices/flights – including a great deal upgrading with Avios to first on one sector.

Unfortunately, the IT gremlins were playing again on a couple of occasions and the VS site was not letting me use the booking engine, and also bugged out several times – they really must loose a lot of business due to this.

And so, that is the story so far…it was great to be back on VS metal again, and the JFK club house was perfect, but it didn’t persuade me one way or the other that any one airline should be my first port of call.

2017 will also see me not achieving AG with BA for the first time in 5 years – am I bother, “nah”, the benefits are so watered down now that it doesn’t matter. The only thing I’ll missed is free seat selection, but I can live with that.

Anyway, it looks like I’ll make AG again next year!

If you’ve got this far, that was a big drink – and thanks very much for reading!

[buns]

Concorde

Thanks for such a thought provoking post.

At the heart of it all is the new age dilemma of flying - "Do I continue with an airline, despite the issues, to retain status or do I allow market forces to dictate my carrier".

As financial pressures continue to mount, I suspect many of us will go with the cheaper option, but this in turn is putting pressure on airlines to trim their costs and as a result passengers end up voting with their feet and going elsewhere.

I have an ambition of travelling BA First (having a staunch dislike of CW), but recently i have heard from those who wwre V Flyers who have gone to BA that the Concorde Room at Heathrow leaves a lot to be desired - so perhaps the grass is not always greener

buns

Thank you for an interesting post. I have to admit that it left me feeling rather sad - but then I am lucky enough ( old enough ) (?) to remember the days before cost cutting became the god of airlines .....even the different airline check in desks used to compete to lure you with their diversity.

A good read, thank you! You have many valid points, however I find I am the opposite to you. I don't find VS inconsistent but with BA I've had some excellent flights, some very average flights, and also some pretty rubbish flights. I suppose it's how it all goes on the day!

Best wishes
Lx

Thanks for the enjoyable read.

I am a little bit similar in that now pretty much ignore going for any status (but happily take whatever accrues) and simply go for best price / value overall between VS, BA, AF, KLM etcetera.

Done a few ex-EUs last year from BRU (and even an ex-UK with AF/KLM to pick up a couple of cheaper trips to SXM by starting in London instead of direct from CDG or AMS).

I did bag a nice couple of UC VS reward flights for this year to burn up some miles before the redemptions changed so I have a nice LHR-LAX for March/April and an even nicer LGW-ANU for October/November 'in the bank' already.

Hoping to manage another trip or two this year and I remain happy to continue with VS/VH, KLM/AF or BA depending on price (and I still have some VS miles and Avios to burn through) as I've had good recent trips with all of them but I will have to try the great value Norwegian long-haul at some point too (if only to see how I like it, reviews don't seem conclusive enough for me to be sure so I'll just take a punt at some point when I simply must get away but prices too high with the 'big name' carriers). For UC vs CW I think I still slightly prefer UC out of LGW if prices match but from LHR this will be my first UC from there in several years so I'll have to do TRs in April !

Have a like ! You and the others posters are right about the "austere" mood these days. Certainly in my case I am really looking at the prices now and although I do have what I think is a well paid job according to national averages, all of a sudden I don't seem to have the spare cash that I used to, so am a lot tougher now when it comes to insurance renewals, subscriptions, eating out, and of course travel. But I have to temper it with my "life's too short" attitude as I do not want to sacrifice "life". I think a lot of airlines have reacted to this and definitely the experience is not as pleasant as it used to be for me (I fly United TATL 99% of the time) but I have felt it all over. It's just seems a miserable mood at the moment. Whether it's "him" and "that" hanging over people I don't know but people just seem generally unhappy. But of course it could be the weather, or post-Christmas blues (and credit card bills)....but of course it is definitely not me!

As for retaining status, I always try to on United as it does make travel a little more pleasant. The UC at LHR T2 is fantastic, plus the boarding group 1, and "free" E+ seating is worth retaining it for me.

I'm in the leisure flights branch of V-Flyer rather than the business flights branch, we take maybe three returns a year, two to EWR (JFK if essential) to visit family and one to a holiday destination. The idea of TP runs to retain AU is the stuff of myth but maybe those tier points are mostly attained from business flights rather than personal expenditure. Equally, we don't then have the miles accumulated that way to be able to fly off somewhere for a few days. I mention this purely to inform my views.

We used to be concerned (why, I ask myself!) to retain AG on the rare occasions we got to those lofty heights but given the recent hike in miles needed and plunge in those earned, that's in the past.

So for us in future, flights will depend on who flies where we want to go (VS doesn't always as we know), whose flight times suit best and also, naturally, who has a decent price, though I accept that this contributes to airlines racing to the bottom.

Ex-EU flights are not for us, OH with his now considerable sight loss doesn't need the additional battles through security and he's expressed doubts about the additional stress of weather or other problems with the positioning flight.

One aspect no-one's mentioned, and I accept I'm perhaps being paranoid, is the Delta factor. We were late to the party here and didn't much experience the glory days of VS which some reminisce enviably about. Has VS's decline in crew standards, website disasters, booking engine nightmares, flight changes without notice, not all happened since the advent of Delta?

Imagine you're an airline boss wanting to extend your reach. How best to do it, to attract new pax, to get more landing slots? How about taking over another airline? Not BA, they're too big, but how about a small airline, one with a fiercely loyal customer base, then let the bean-counters loose, cut every possible attractive aspect, crash the IT regularly, "update" and wreck the website, force through unattractive amendments to the miles and tier points so that the previously loyal pax start to look elsewhere. And then when the small airline goes out of business, hey presto you've got more pax and more landing slots at your disposal.

Maybe it doesn't work that way? Maybe I'm paranoid?

Whiterose, very well explained from the 'liesure' traveller's viewpoint. My thoughts are echoed in your words.

We will be taking our last UC flight and experiencing the 'perks' of that in March.

There is no way we can ever accrue the necessary hiked-up miles to upgrade anymore, sad but true and the cost of paying upfront for an UC fare is way way out of our reach.

Good experiences and memories but knew it couldn't last forever

Finally Airlines couldn't care a damn about customer care or loyalty any more (for the liesure traveller that is). Perhaps its time to rediscover the good old United Kingdom. It certainly will be alot less stressful than the past six months have been with Virgin Atlantic.