V-Flyer

Aircraft : A340-300 (Could n't see the name at LHR nor at BOS)

The day started off badly, with my regular Taxi firm not turning up to collect me. When I called them, they were at LHR expecting me to step off VS20, I believe because I wanted them to pick me up at home at 10:30 for the Boston flight at 14:30, they confused this and thought I was on the SFO flight, which lands at 10:30 and is a regular pickup for this company.

It starts to get better once I get to the airport. An hour later than planned, and I would guess no chance of my usual seat in row 18.

I get to the UC check in, the security checker welcomes me by name and recognises me. The lady on UC check in tells me that there is only 22F left in PE, which is the middle row, middle seat and PE is oversold. I could ask at the gate for an aisle seat. I know the chances of this are zero. She did say that there was a chance they would be bumping up passengers, starting with Gold members.

I asked if this could be done at Check in, she called someone telling them my journey hassles and asked 'Can we give Mr Hayden a better seat today', to which I was given 14A.
This was my first Op-Up at Checkin, the last was as a Red member to JNB at the gate last July.

The Fast Track line was empty, straight to the belt. As the Virgin Store is still closed at T3 I went to the Lounge, as I really had a taste for the Club House Burger, and it was just as good as i remembered it.

Boarding was called, and by the time I got to Gate 20 they had just called the back of the plane.

We pushed back a few minutes later, PE was full and UC had around 10 spare seats. I was lucky enough to get a treatment. The food choices were good, I chose the Salmon and the Sausages.

There was no wait at immigration, although the officer did stamp my documents with thr wrong date, and my Virgin stickers on the back of the passport jammed his passport reader.

Bags came off within 20 minutes, although I'm convinced the majority of the PE and UC bags were not off first. The AVIS bus was there waiting for me, and my car was quickly made available.

I'm back in 2 weeks, this time from LAX, so look out for another report.

My Taxi driver is off the hook fo his mistake, due to Virgin's overbooking and Gold member programme.

Mark

thanks for the tr mark a jolly good read glad all was well after the taxi problem!