"Reserving" PE Seats In The Bubble ex LGW

and I use the "reserving" word advisedly.

I am confused as to how this procedure works.

I am aware that the VH brochure for 2010/11 says about PE "we have an exclusive allocation of seats on the upper deck and can confirm your seats at the time of booking."

However they don't do such confirmation anymore (and haven't for at least a couple of years!) and in fact make it quite clear now that they, VH, no longer allocate seats, steering you to VS.

So the brochure is wrong.

Two years ago, nearly eleven months in advance, I was given via the Manage My Booking area of VS, the choice of two pairs of seats at the back of the bubble. So not the front section we all think is reserved for VH. Last year, six months out I was offered a choice of one pair of seats at the back of the bubble. This year, six months in advance, I was offered nothing upstairs.

I rang VS and asked about this. The CS person said that there were no seats left to "reserve" and, as I already knew, the next tranche would be released at OLCI and then the final tranche at physical check-in.

PE is not fully booked even now as VH are continuing to sell those seats for my flight. I asked him about those seats and he said that he didn't know how "full" those VH reserved seats are??????

So it would seem that via the Manage My Bookings section you can only access the non-VH seats? I know VH do not pre-allocate their seats and it would seem that VS don't allocate them either.

Within the general scheme of things it is of little consequence, I shall be up early for OLCI and endeavour to secure all sorts of "goodies" then, otherwise we will sort things at Twilight Check-in.

However it would be nice to get a definitive answer as to precisely how this works.

[Neil]

Are you booked via VH or VS?

Hi Neil, VH.

[Neil]

Hmmm, I can't explain it then. They way I understood it was that whilst VH didn't allocate seats now, their pax still had the option to select seats in the front half on the bubble, but obviously not.

Just thinking about, maybe that was only on certain routes, like MCO, or maybe I have just made that up.

I know 'Virgin Holidays' sometimes post on here, and it would certainly be interesting to see what the official line on it is now.

Thanks Neil. y)

As I said, it would be nice to get a definitive answer. Perhaps Fergus has a chum at VH or VS who can provide it? y)

[mitchja]

My VH flights to/from HAV in the new year are exactly the same. Booked in PE but whole front half of the upper deck is blocked despite this being a VH booking. I'd booked this before the flight booking had been sent over to VS so its not a availability issue as I selected my seat the very first day I was able to.

VS will not talk to you about seat allocation if you booked via VH !

You have to call VH, who will put you through to their flights department (who only work Mon - Fri office hours) to get the front half of the upper deck made available to you.

[rant mode]
Don't you just love how well VH and VS are integrated - NOT. It also makes things even more difficult as VH are now using their new res system for Caribbean bookings which appears to be even less integrated than their old system was. You cannot even view new res system bookings online yet v( heavens help them if and when they move Florida bookings (which I beleive are now the only bookings still using the old system) over as that will be complete chaos.

[/rant mode]

As you may have gathered I'm rapidly loosing patients with the way VH bookings work (or not) now!!

You have to call VH, who will put you through to their flights department (who only work Mon - Fri office hours) to get the front half of the upper deck made available to you.

Thanks James, if for nothing else other than my amusement I shall call them tomorrow. Now, where did I put the non-premium number. Grrrr. ):

[mitchja]

Use the FVC number for even more amusement, as that number usually dumps you through to VH's main switchboard and you then have to explain how and why you got through to them in the first place!!!

VH certainly don't make things easy anymore!!! Just wish you got through to a dedicated FVC agent like you used to do !

A definitive answer - well maybe!! |:)

I gave up at the menu stage on the FVC dedicated(?) number. Fortunately I also have a Virgin Holidays 01293 number which does take you directly to a human.

The VH CS operative I spoke to was patient, pleasant and helpful. However, she was not able to put me through to "flights department", the only department she was aware of was flight contracts and she was not authorised to redirect me to them. She later contacted them twice for additional information.

The summary is:

Virgin Holidays do indeed block out a number of seats on the LGW/MAN 747s, including the front of the bubble, for their PE customers.

At the time of booking they do not allocate specific seats to customers. Virgin Holiday's PE travelling customers can put in a request for bubble seats at the time of booking but there is no guarantee associated with this.

They - VH customer service operatives, the VH website and the VH telephone menu - all recommend the customer contact Virgin Atlantic if the customer wishes to "reserve" specific seats. The VH telephone menu actually describes in detail how to go through "Manage Your Flights" etc at VS to do this.

However VS do not have any access to the VH blocked out seats which strikes me as a bit daft. The only PE seats available to the customer via "Manage Your Flights" are the remaining VS seats ie those unallocated to VH. I would imagine that is why, if they are available, they are either downstairs or at the back of the bubble.

She said that seat numbers are not issued by VH to specific bookings until from 72 to 24 hours prior to departure. I guess you can either phone at that time or that these become available on the VS website. At that time any seats not taken from the VH allocation by VH customers would also be released to VS.

After a second or third "I just need to check something" she told me that she had actually reserved specific seats for me on both our outbound and inbound and gave me the numbers. y) I would not however be able to see those seats on the VS seat map until 72 hours before departure when they would show as attached to my booking via "Manage your Flights."

I suppose that this will be a complete irrelevance should the proposed refurb occur to the LGW fleet and the rather odd UC/Econ layout take over upstairs.

But for the moment, that is how it is (apparently). ii)

Really useful info.

I've always popped into my VH desk at my local House of Fraser and they've been able to call a flight team somewhere to book the relevant seats in the bubble. I always find sitting in front of them gets the results and I've never had an issue doing this.

They were even helpful when I'd booked my parents holiday on the VH website, they still helped me in seat allocation, calling on my parents behalf.

I know this isn't the easiest option but in some cases, if you're already popping into town on the weekend, there is no harm popping into the lovely ladies that run the VH travel shops for their help!

My parents did OLCI with no issues and the seats that had been allocated when we went in were all fine.

(I'll add that I tend to do all the planning and organising for my parents holidays, I didn't actually get in the bubble myself )

When I've booked PE through VH I've only ever been able to select the "non VH" seats at the rear of the PE cabin until the time of OLCI, when the allocation seems to open up and generally I've found we've been catapulted forward into the "VH" seats.