V-Flyer

I arrived at MIA very early - I had a connection from Mexico City. Too early for check-in to be open, but I discovered a rather nice Club America lounge landside on concourse J - a priority pass membership gets you in. This Club America lounge turned out to be a lot better than the Club America lounge used by Virgin airside on concourse F - you can see the outside world for one thing. So I'd advise anyone with a long wait for a flight to try to get in to the J lounge.

Headed to check-in soon after it should have opened - 3.20pm for a 7.25pm flight. There was already a queue at Upper Class check-in. Only a couple of minutes wait though before they opened up the desks and I was directed to the end desk (which also doubles as ticket sales). I'm afraid the level of customer care wasn't what you would expect; the phone rang half way through checking me in - it was answered - and I was ignored for about a minute. Limited choice on seating, because the plane was full; lots of families returning from Easter fly-drives. Finally handed boarding pass and invitation to Club America lounge; although I wasn't given any directions where to do. Fortunately this wasn't my first trip through MIA, so I knew where to go.

Cleared security and headed to the concourse F Club America lounge. This was already pretty busy; it would appear both BA flights were also full of Easter fly-drivers. Service in the lounge is pretty basic - free drinks together with the odd sandwich. Managed to kill time with the free Wi-Fi and then headed to the gate a little early, just to stretch my legs.

Boarding started pretty much on time and Upper Class passengers were invited to come forward first (unlike my outbound journey). Welcomed at the aircraft door (although not by name) and directed to my seat. Service seemed a little slow at first and I waited quite a while before being offered a drink; you could put that down to the flight being full, but I was one of the first passengers to board.

Took off on time and then the stewardess came around to take drink and dinner orders. Friendly staff, although again no name check. All in all, a good service onboard. The only amusing point was that I ordered the cod as a main course. Just before it arrived, the stewardess came over: "Sir, you're having the cod - well just to let you know, it's actually salmon. Would you like to change to the pork?". I was pretty happy with salmon, although I'm not sure how you load the wrong fish, without knowing.

Got a good night’s sleep; the cabin was pretty quiet, despite being full. Landed on time at Heathrow. Straight through immigration - used the Iris scan device which had no queues - collected my bag and headed to the Revivals Lounge.

All in all, although a long days travel - I started in Mexico City 18 hours before arriving in London - the onboard service was pretty much Virgin's good standard; not my best flight with Virgin, but certainly nowhere near being the worse either. However, parts of the service from ground staff, both on this flight and my outboard journey were not in the same league; something that Virgin should perhaps pay some attention to.

Woralla

Thanks for taking the time to post your TR (especially as you only got back this morning )

What used to make the VS Magic work for me was the way in which the friendliness and approachability of the staff made the occasion seemed special.

By just following the motions, VS can quite easily loose its edge

Hope you manage to get your body clock back on track quickly

buns

Great TR. I used to fly VS out of MIA regularly in the late 80's and the service at check in was always first class. As Buns says if you set the bar high it is quickly noticed when standards start to slip. Glad the flight went well for the most part.

Thank you for the great TR.