This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
imho the fare difference excuse is a bit off, VS knows what money it was paid, and it was way more than lowest PE available at time of booking, but i stay mellow as check-in staff are not to blame
since switching to VS from EK i've done the route a few times with TA tickets (with lower fare codes than M) and never had this happen, once back i emailed FC to ask for details of exactly what was wrong from their perspective
edit: FC just emailed me to say i that had...
[...]what we call a nett fare. These are non-published ticket types such as discounted, corporate, travel agent or tour operator fares and can only be upgraded using miles in the following booking classes: W, Y and B
...so i must've just been lucky with fare code on previous flights
the DXB business lounge looks a bit more tired each time, some turkish people were trying to get in and not having much luck, they seemed pretty miffed
had a soda and a pain au chocolate then did a few emails, tried two of the power sockets along under the windows but they were loose and dead, too many wrong plugs have been forced into them i think
left the lounge early and went and bought a gold bangle for mrs sungod, shhhh, do not let on!
no x-ray at the gate, instead random checks, so no queue, boarding was on time and quick
had a couple of sparkling wines to settle in
once boarding was complete they announced 181 pax and EC with bags of room, but please don't move seats until after takeoff, in retrospect i should have stayed in EC and tried to bag a row of four to lay down in
that 181 made me think... UC was almost full, load check before had 7 free and i could hear a few upgrades being done at checkin (sob) so maybe one or two empty, PE had just one free, call it 80 pax, so there're 185 EC seats for about 100 pax
i've had the same impression on other flights, i guess the multiple EK 380s on the route is hitting EC bookings hard, but as there's no PE on EK and their business class is expensive vs UC, these are now the busy seats on VS flights
it's not a great load factor, but maybe the premium bookings keep it viable? hope so as i've never liked flying EK
no delays on take off
had a white wine, cc was handing out bags of pretzels, but sour cream flavour, ugh, asked i there was something else and cc got me some crisps instead
also asked to buy a couple of the mini-bubbly bottles, they were put in the chiller, cc said i could pay later when duty free came round
started a film (grand budapest hotel)
meal time...
started first bubbly, menu...
starter - salad (bland even with the dressing, croutons would have helped)
main - beef ragout (good, yum)/red thai chicken curry/veg lasagne
pud - passion fruit rice pud (not too sweet, nice sharp compote on the side)
cheese and crackers, mini brie, ok but i'm not a brie fan
finished film, finished bubbly
donned eyeshades and ear plugs to try and sleep, but couldn't get comfy, again the lumbar support on the seat was broken and the leg room not enough to stretch, so just semi-dozed and had a stretch/walk every so often
flight was running ahead of schedule about 40 minutes i think, which was great news
about 90 minutes out the afternoon tea was served...
sandwich - beef (not good)/cheese
cake - ye olde fruit cake (a bit dry)
got held up by atc, we did three loops, then went for landing, just a short taxi, staggered off and walked fast to try and loosen up my legs
queues not too bad at passport control, went for the human touch as the e-gates were backed up, bag was already on the carousel as i reached it, but missed the heathrow express by two minutes, kicked myself as i had a fasttrack voucher in my bag, home
realised that although this time the cc didn't come and say "hello" or "free bubbly for AU", they never did charge me for the two mini bubbly bottles
