V-Flyer

I am flying VS045 in July and see that there are economy seats upstairs in the bubble. How does one get to sit here as they do not seem to be available online? Does being a silver tier member make a difference? ?|

Hi and welcome to V-Flyer.

The perceived wisdom is that these seats are not released until OLCI unless bookings indicate that the flight is full. Even then they may not be available for allocation as only 60% of seats are released for that purpose. The upstairs economy seats are probably in the 40% of seats not released.

Being a silver tier member makes no difference

Thanks - so I guess the question remains, how do I get to sit in these seats? Do I have to not check in until I get to the airport? Or do I check in online and then ask to switch at the airport?

You do OLCI and try and get them then.

Leaving it until you get to the airport will almost certainly mean they will already have gone.

Also, if the load is light, the upstairs may be totally blocked off.

On my last couple of flights, the economy seats have usually been released at 24h/25h to go. You can therefore pop in and use the seatmap to allocate them.

This also has the benefit in that it often pops the seats available for reserving to the correct side of 60% meaning that the seatmap opens up again.

Thanks everyone for the advice - I will let you know how I get on!