VS 603 LHR to CPT 11/12/10

Hello all, an interested and engaged viewer for some months and now a member. After a hectic 6 months at work and now FC AU I am booked on the 603 to CPT on 11 Dec for 3 days on a job. Am booked in PE on a W class ticket and I was just wondering if someone could do me a load check to see if an OP UP is possible?

welcome !

OP-UPs are only given for operational reasons (hence the name) such as a lower cabin is over-booked and they need to shuffle people about.

Just because there is space in UC does not mean VS will give people 'free' upgrades - even if they are FC AU

VS does not (generally) give upgrades like this unless it really has to. You could ask at the airport how much a paid upgrade will be or you could use FC miles as well. If you check 'manage my bookings' there may be paid upgrade options listed there.

Thank you for the welcome it's nice to be part of the family. I just have a suspicion that PE is chokka block as I can't see any allocated seat and there's no seat map on my booking. I know about the 60/40 rule 24hrs prior and seeing as it is a Sat night (I guess it's a big holiday flight) I just wondered how full the flight is.

The best advice I ever got many, many years ago from a lovely VS lady was Q. What's the best way to get an upgrade? A. Pay for it...

However, I will have to say that the other day I flew MAN-ATL on Delta, arrived early to check-in and I simply asked nicely and got bumped from Econ to Business without a question. Perhaps the old days aren't quite as dead as we thought on other carriers? Or was it that I had a full price Econ ticket???

That advice is indeed true and is expressed every now and then on here !

A full price econ ticket always helps but then again the US airlines do appear to have rather different upgrade policies which often leads to people expecting to be upgraded then complaining when they arn't

[honey lamb]

VS 603 December 11

J9 D9 R9 Z9 W3 S3 K3 Y9 B9 L9 M9 Q9 X9 N9 O9

It looks wide open so the chances of an op-up because of overbooking in economy and/or PE look negligible. I have been on a flight in PE when the load has been light and no op-up was forthcoming. Your best option of upgrading is either by paying or using miles.

As tonty says, US airlines have a far more liberal policy with regard to upgrading and to a certain extent devalues the product in so doing.

Thank you very much this it's much appreciated. Expectations now met! I agree about the US policies and it's rare that I use them as a carrier of choice - you kinda want to have something as 'special as possible' if you are going to spend so much time away from home.

I did read a very interesting article recently about passenger attitudes to US domestic air travel and the findings were that people's views were so low that they benchmarked airlines on a par with municipal transportation i.e. bus or local train services! The good news is that passengers numbers were the highest for 3 years this Thanksgiving and if that means more revenue that means improved services and attitudes (I hope). Virgin America does stand a million miles apart though - highly recommended if anyone's connecting in the US

Many thanks all.

J

Frankly this is shabby... 8 months after travelling to CPT and everywhere else in-between I have finally got round to updating this post - sorry all. I just wanted to let everyone know that both myself and my colleague arrived at LHR for check in and when we were allocated seats directly next to the loo in PE all I did was ask really nicely if there were any other seats in PE we could move to. The lady at check was apologetic, said no we're completely full and those were the only seats left. then completely out of the blue she said "I might have an idea, give your boarding passes..." and she wandered off into the back office. We all know what happens next don't we.... One of of two things, your PE boarding passes are handed back with an "I tried" look but on this occasion they were ripped up, put in the bin and 2 x UC seats allocated. I get the feeling this was an Op Up but it might have just been the hand of god?

Great flight as ever VS and little things like that make up for 'adequate' service on board, ok food and of course no IFE - broken YET again and no matter how many 8k Exec Office miles you get for no IFE it does make you feel as though an UC upgrade has to come once the margins return to flying?

Jim

Many thanks for finishing off the story - better late than never.

I'm sure a couple of full fare PE tickets helped here. I expect it would have been different if thay had been from the lowly K bucket. Those seats 23D/G are speculated to be the worst available, so it was a good call of yours to ask to be moved.

Glad to hear it was a good flight overall, but a shame about the broken IFE. Thats all too common these days and not acceptable.

Cheers

Martin