V-Flyer

This is my first trip report, so bare with me

It was our first flight from Manchester since 1998 and wasn’t looking forward to the experience, mainly due to having come to like Heathrow and Gatwick much better, but price of £802.00 was much better than the £400 been wanted by Virgin down south.
We arrived at Check in at6 around 6:30 and where the first people there, the supervisor asked us to stop queuing in the Premium Economy Line and move to Economy? Why she continued to say that we were in the wrong line and therefore had to get the tickets out and having become a sdilver member and after many years of flights I have never had this treatment on the ground. We were first to check in, we did this due to not been able to get any seats in the bubble, so we gopt the check in girl to see if we could have the exit seats, which were granted and therefore we were in the bubble!

After having a good look around the duty free we made our way to the gate where there was the biggest line I had ever seen and no preferential boarding?

At the gate security were we subjected to harsh questioning and searches and then given new boarding passes stating that we were now downstairs in our original seats at online check in , why this was when the complaining got louder and louder and we were told to sit down and wait for people to board before a lady came and said that someone had brought them tickets at the same time at the ticket desk, we stated that we had looked over at the ticket desk when the girl was ringing to book the exit seat so how could this be the truth?

They offered us the exit seats and then the woman went on to the plane to sort it out and therefore at this point we were the only ones left at the gate with a virgin representative, who then after talking to colleges said that only two people could be seated at exits and that the other would be seated in row 80? Not good enough, therefore the lady at the gate came up with another option, two seats at the front of Premium downstairs and then one seat in Upper Class, which we excepted, the woman off the plane then came back and stated that she had got the exit seats which at this point we had agreed to the downstairs seats and the upgrade, so therefore she had to go back on and sort the seats out. Once this was sorted we were the last on the plane at 10.20 for a 10.25 departure and were given £60.00 duty free vouchers to spend onboard.

Therefore a good result and good handling of the problem when virgin representatives are there, maybe they should train all of their Manchester staff to give the same level of service as the problem should not have happened at all.

Good cabin crew, good service in both Upper and Premium, but they need to make sure that they have the right menus as they gave out the wrong ones before then telling us that they had different choices, this should not happen.

Old Nova system not great but did not watch that much TV so was not a problem.

The flight itself went well and very quick, just over 7 hours and landed in to Orlando at 13.50 rather than 14.45 and therefore was a breeze during immigration and therefore meant we were in Orlando earlier than we have ever been.

Wow - what a performance trying to get your seats sorted. I'm glad you stuck to your guns and got an upgrade for one of you. We once had been changed to the downstairs seats in PE after re-booking during the ash-cloud problem. We drove down during the night & got first in line to change to the exit seats upstairs and were successful so I can appreciate how you felt. We were in the Escape lounge upstairs from the gate and when the flight was called we came down the lift and just skirted around the crowd to get in the PE line. Gatwick is better for seat allocation as you can do twilight check in but we find it too far to drive from 'oop North. Thanks for your trip report - I have enjoyed reading it.

Katie

Thanks for the TR!

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare with the seating, although sounds like it was resolved very well - especially with the UC seat and duty free, actually very generous!

Thank you for the TR.

What a nightmare, glad to read that the seat issues got resolved satisfactorily.