MAN/MCO PE UPPER DECK SEATING ISSUE

I've aired my dissatisfaction before on this topic and recent frustrations with getting preassigned seating on this service have provoked me to bring up the subject again.
The entire forward section of the upper deck (Premium Economy)is set aside for passengers who are booked through Virgin Holidays. I booked back in June (not through VS Hols)for my flight which now departs in 2 days time (10 September). Until today absolutely no advance seating was available which, for a Premium fare ticket, is simply not good enough. What makes the situation even more ridiculous is the fact that Virgin Holidays are obviously struggling to sell their allocation as today the entire block of 71ACHK through 74ACHK opened up.
Yes, I'm delighted that I have at last been able to secure 2 seats together but am equally frustrated by VA's policy of holding off prime seating for a tour operator who doesn't need them.
It's time that VA treated all it's passengers equally.
PS. I've a similar frustrating wait to see if the inbound opens up.

I use Virgin Holidays to MCO in PE and always choose my own seats anywhere on the top deck. No VH rep has ever told me the front of upstairs is reserved for VH.

[Neil]

I understand what you are saying, but VH are a very big 'customer' of VS and on the MCO route they sell a very high % of the seats on the a/c. They have obviously negotiated and agreed the exclusive use of the front section on the upper deck, but that still leaves over 50% of the seats available for other pax, and I personally I'm not sure I see there is to much of an issue.

You could always fly BA and pay to choose your seats

Neil

Ha Ha I have been with VS since 1984!

I prefer to be at the back of the cabin, its quicker to get off and I'm not sat by the toilets

We have always used VH for our flights to Orlando, and always get to choose our seats. But yes they should let you choose if you book early enough.But its up to them if you should get the choice before VH passengers.My advise go with them and no probs.

[buns]

No doubt this all stemmed from having that ghastly PE cabin downstairs (as we have all been proved right, it should have been made UC from the start |:) )

As Neil says, VH are a major "customer" for VS on the MCO routes and must have had a big say in preserving upstairs seating for their customers.

The difficulty must be that VH only issue their tickets a few weeks ahead of departure and there must be a compromise where VH could confirm their allocations 8 weeks before, when VH passengers pay their balance

buns

The Dowstairs cabin is actually very popular.

You get your own dedicated crew member, with crew to pax ratio of 1 to 16, where as upstairs its 1 to 21.

You normally always get your first choice of meal unlike those upstairs at the back (depending on previous pax selection)

The J crew and Y crew are often nearby, you get off before Upper Class and the row 81 is excellent due to the legroom and 82 is great because you can recline your chair without worrying about anyone behind.

Thanks everyone for the interesting (and contrasting responses). VH passengers can actually access seating via the VS website using their VH booking reference so they can preassign ahead of the couple of weeks before. Most VH pax on this route tend to book back of the bus which means a number o their unsold PE seats get put back for seat selection by other pax within 48 hours of flight. It seems very frustrating when the airline hold back such a large block of seats from their other customers for their tour operation who appear to frequently fail to sell their allocation. At least when the new airbus is on the route all passengers will be trated equally. I never book my flights through VH because they are too expensive. Incidentally on the inbound flight VS auto allocated us 82AC which we were unable to change online prior to, or within the check in deadine.. However we were able to change to 75AC at Downtown Disney check in. Incidentally 75HK remained empty. Why can't VS make it more straight forward for ALL their passengers?

Most airlines have policies to restrict advance seat requesting. In VS's case its 60% with the other 40% available at (just before sometimes) OLCI.I'm not sure how the VH allocation gets accounted for in the mix though.

I'm not sure if the VH block booking will dissapear on the new A330-300s though. They will probably still have an allocation as its one of their selling points.

Unless you have some sort of status on BA you generally have to pay to prebook until OLCI opens.

I'm flying Swiss in business next month and can only grab a seat at OLCI stage - 23 hrs before departure.

I'm with Howard here in a different way - VS could do a lot more in terms of organizing online seating requests, I think their system is inadequate and broad brush. My beef is that Au's or higher should be able to select exit rows, PE front rows etc. online. This is such a straightforward thing that it leads me to believe the system is poor, or VS is behind the times.