VS023 LHR-LAX 8 OCT 14 (Upper Class)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

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Ok fasten your seat belts, this could be a long one!!

Rewind back to January (or maybe Feb) and thanks to the help on here I managed to grab our first ever G's going to Los Angeles...then followed months of over excitement, scouring these pages, reading trips reports and waiting for everyone at work to return from their jollies....then it was OUR turn!

Although we didn't fly until late 4.45pm there was no way I was risking a trip to Heathrow on travel day so I managed to grab a Premier Inn £39 bargain and we drove down the day before..good job really because it took 4 hours and we were ready for a drink then bed.

Weds 8th...the day I'd been waiting for......we made our quick journey to Heathrow and parked in Business parking, whilst stood at the bus stop I noticed that my OH had tracksuit bottoms on - he always flies in shorts due to overheating and passing out a few years ago - in my horror I asked him why he didn't have his shorts on, what was he thinking??, to which he replied you told me I couldn't fly in shorts...oh yeah, I forgot I'd told him they wouldn't let him fly in UC without long pants - I was only joking!

Anyway, the bus arrives and off we go to T3.....we had done OLCI but hadn't printed boarding passes because I wanted some proper printed ones to keep...we glided our way to the UC check in desk and the check in lady was lovely, whilst she was sorting us out I told OH to get his shorts out of his case or I wasn't flying with him...not believing me he then asked the check in lady if he could fly in shorts "yeah shorts are fine, as long as you don't take them off!", so shorts it was.

Next we glided through security with big grins on our faces and within 5 minutes we arrived at the hallowed stairs...."Welcome to the clubhouse, have you been with us before" I so wanted to say yes, many times, but had to say no, "well let me show you round" and off we went.

Wow....what do we do first?, we drank a bit, ate too much and passed the time playing pool. Just before boarding we ventured into the departure lounge and it was mayhem, needless to say we went to the gate where the agent says to us - they haven't sent you down already have they?, I'm awfully sorry but we'll be a few minutes before we can board you so unfortunately you'll need to take a seat and wait.....well no, no-one sent us down and its not an issue for us to wait!

Not 2 mins later and UC were called, we looked at each other, big grins on faces and we glided to the door (lots of gliding this holiday!), we were the first to board,out came the camera and the CC offered to take a photo of us, with champers of course!

I have to say it was everything I had imagined, I know regular UC fliers may not like the A340 and could have probably found fault with things but for us it was perfect.

I think there were 210 people on the flight, UC & PE were full so some space in EC.

CC were friendly, food was fantastic, I took photos of everything! We had 4&5K and managed to chat to each other, I would definitely be behind each other rather than across. watched a couple of films, visited the bar, drank lots (of soft drinks as driving when we landed) and before we knew it 10 hours had passed and we were making our decent into the car crash that is LAX!

Our luggage came off very quick and we were through security and out of LAX in less than 20 mins - a record for us!

We loved loved loved UC, only problem is now we only have 333 miles each left in our FC accounts and we both decided that UC is the ONLY way to fly!

Thanks for still reading if you stuck it out to the end!!!

Ah what a sweet trip report - please post your photos! Sounds like you had a great time.

I'm glad you enjoyed your first upper trip , I know I enjoyed and still savour my first trip , the only problem like you said you have the bug of turn left. Look forward to your snaps

Great report...its the most annoying thing when you splurge all your miles that you've been saving up

What a lovely report. We all have wonderful memories of our first UC flight and the realisation that nothing less will ever do again. As others have said, do post some photos please.

Aww that sounded like a lovely trip! Thank you for the TR. The bit about not taking the shorts off made me laugh

Thanks for the TR ,sounds like it was a great time all round from the CH to the flight .
Time to get spending to get some more miles then !

Super TR, great memories that will last for years and cost a fortune in the future Love the first time....months of anticipation, days of excitement and then living the dream Would be great to see your photos if you have time

Thanks for posting this report always nice to read a first time in UC TR.
Maybe next time you will do DTCI? That has the wow factor!
D

Wow, thanks for all the replies, I wasn't sure if it would be of interest to anyone!!!

I can't seem to add any photos, get an error message saying the file you are trying to download is invalid????

Can I also ask - we booked on a M fare so should we get miles for that, if so I might have to chase them up as they haven't appeared on our account yet.

We've got a holiday booked to Barbados in Feb but that is in EC....really don't know how we are going to manage that one, we haven't flown EC for a while and its going to be even worse after our UC flight - I've already checked and both PE & UC are sold out :-(

W

Can I also ask - we booked on a M fare so should we get miles for that, if so I might have to chase them up as they haven't appeared on our account yet.

You should get the miles for the original, pre-upgrade, booking code and though some V-Flyers have reported that they have received the miles automatically the working assumption is to give VS a ring to get the miles applied.

I'll get onto them then, we also booked our car hire through Virgin so have 1000 miles due for that.

My brothers informed me today "oh I have 10,000 miles via Tesco" well little brother you didn't tell me that and as its my birthday soon I think you should gift those miles to your big sister!!!!

We'll be turning left again before we know it!!

Glad you had such a positive experience of UC, I know we can all get blasé about it all, but going with Thomson in February puts it all into perspective.

We also went on this flight on the 2 nd October, I know I haven't done a trip report as so many have similar ones to ours. In response to your M upgrades ours where the same I just e-mailed them and within a day had the miles and tp's credited, saves an expensive phone call.

I love reading these first UC experience TRs as they make me even more excited! I'm glad you had such a fabulous flight, it really does sound great. As others have mentioned, you should definitely e-mail or call FC to have your miles and TPs awarded as it's hit and miss whether or not it will happen after you've upgraded. You get 3 delicious TPs each way for those upgradeable M fares

By the way, don't worry, you'll build up the miles stash again soon enough. I spent almost all our miles back in August sometime and have already amassed about 75,000 between the two of us with only one trip to NYC and the rest all being through Shops Away, CC spend etc... they build up quickly when you're dedicated