V-Flyer

Hi all,
Looking for altenative to VA when travelling to Vegas and would like some feedback from anyone who's traveeld that route please, seating, meals etc and the experience as a whole.
thanks in advance

I've done the BA LHR flights a couple of times now in Club and they're great if you can get the upper deck as really peaceful and you can catch up on sleep on both outbound and return.

However, I much prefer the VS flight timings as you get into your hotel earlier in the day when all the better rooms have not been taken. The return journey is much better timed too as you won't need to pay the hotel to keep your room on for longer as it ties in with the hotel's standard check out time.

I much prefer travelling to LHR as it's closer for us in the Midlands and you don't have such a nasty early start on the morning of travel as you do to LGW.

I still prefer VS over BA as their lounges are better and the small upper cabin makes it much nicer to travel in. On BA, downstairs can be busy and noisy and you disembark after WTP which is a pain - upstairs though there are no problems, although their 747s are getting long in the tooth now.

BA does have better mileage availability if not paying hard cash though as they have so many more Club world seats available for redemption against Virgin's 14.

BA LHR v VS LGW
BA wins on: redemption availability and LHR convenience.
VS wins on: lounge, cabin, timing.
AVOD and food: both appear equal.
Crew: when you get a good crew with VS, they are exceptional and make me want to sing their praises to everyone who will listen but when you get a bad/lacklustre crew, you really feel let down and wondered why you didn't fly with the dark side. BA seem to be steady and don't have the good and bad element that you get with VS sometimes.

I do hope this helps a little.
Lynne

For me it is the timings and the Virgin experience. Even though LHR is much more convenient for me and I fly from there a lot, I actually think that LGW has a very good product now. BA crew is just so variable in their moods it seems to me, and I don't care whether it is mixed fleet, old fleet, new fleet - they all wear the same uniform, end of.

The only thing I don't like about Virgin is that in PE, and it certainly extends to E, they close the bar too early. I am not trying to get hammered, it is just sometimes I would just like an alcoholic drink and do not like being able to get one.

Overall, VA is winning at the moment.

Have you tried asking on BA Flyer.
From the producers of V-Flyer.

Wow thanks all, some relly good feedback for me to mull over.
What prompted me was a two recent flights that are just not upto scratch for VA coupled with the new flight times fr BA on the LGW to LAS route on Monday & Thursdays.

Sealink wrote:Have you tried asking on BA Flyer.
From the producers of V-Flyer.

Thanks Sealink, I never new this existed

lynnewob wrote:On BA, downstairs can be busy and noisy and you disembark after WTP which is a pain - upstairs though there are no problems, although their 747s are getting long in the tooth now.

Is this true of all the BA flights? One of the big benefits of Upper is that it gets you to the front of the queue, but WT+ going out first (and does First go out after Club?), this sounds like a serious disadvantage...

It's the same on the VS flights to LAS - the configuration of the LGW 747s means there's no way to hold back pax in the downstairs PE cabin to let UC disembark first.

And upstairs, economy pax get to disembark before PE.

If travelling economy on Virgin do bear in mind that they limit alcohol and serve just with the meals on the Vegas flight - I went last year with BA seemed to be no limit although you did have to ask for refills but they were happy enough to serve as much as you wanted

Smid wrote:Is this true of all the BA flights? One of the big benefits of Upper is that it gets you to the front of the queue, but WT+ going out first (and does First go out after Club?), this sounds like a serious disadvantage...

It is not true of all BA flights - just the mid-J config 744s which have, I think, 52 CW seats instead of 70. The space saved by the smaller CW section is given to WTP, which gets to disembark before First, and only then CW and the rest.