Virgin vs Air New Zealand

I am traveling from LAX to LHR and considering using Air New Zealand instead of Virgin Atlantic for the first time.

I can pay $2200 for myself, wife and 9 month old baby to fly Virgin economy or $3100 to fly in Air New Zealand new Spaceseat.

I was wondering if anyone had any unbiased opinions if the Air New Zealand Premium Economy is worth it.

Virgin premium is $4000+ or I would have booked that....by the way!

No direct experience, but I've read good things on here regarding the ANZ remium offering - although I think it has only been rolled out to a few routes.

I'm sure others will respond, but try a search on air new zealand premium economy, and you'll get some fairly recent posts about this.

I have not tried ANZ premium but if I had to make a choice between Y and PE then not surprisingly PE wins every time.
I have seen videos of the PE and it looks good. They also have a great reputation for food/drinks/service.
I am pretty sure that the LAX-LHR route runs the new config as that is a much harder sell for them as most people do not even know they fly that route and it is not the most obvious airline to consider which is probably why there is such a good deal.

Plus you also get all your VS TP/miles as well on ANZ

I think NZ have had issues with the space seats as they are to close together; I seem to recall they are taking a row of seats out.

I had the pleasure of flying ANZ Business Premiere this October, and it was phenomenal! Took a peak back at PE and was also impressed. I wish I was on an A346 instead of the noisy 77W.

Service on ANZ is absolutely astounding as well. This was on LAX-AKK.

The space seats are a good idea but in practice probably not worth that sort of fare increase. They also vary in terms of cost according to the flight and I believe there is no absolute guarantee you will have one as the ANZ fares change very quickly. I am a huge fan of ANZ and have traveled all classes with enthusiasm but personally I'd travel Y with the family and use the saved cash for a future adventure. They'll be on a plane longer than they want to be, space seat or not but once you've arrived...

Thanks for the advice everyone, very helpful.

Interesting I now have an option to purchase my baby a seat and get 3 economy seats with Virgin for $3100 and use one of virgins infant seats.

I'm assuming infant seats have to be in the window seat and there doesn't seem to much room for legs! We would also be split across an aisle as we'd be on the A346

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/us/pa ... /index.jsp

Anyone have any experience of this?