V-Flyer

As my wife and I are both working over festive period I decided that I would treat her to a weekend in New York beforehand.
Taking into account the fact the Mrs H was working on the Friday morning I opted for the VS001 LHR-EWR.

OLCI at T minus 24 and only managing a lowly SEQ 8, we loaded our boarding passes onto the Passbook App on our iPhones this seemed to work well right through to boarding.

At 0900 on departure day we received both text and email messages alerting us to the fact that there would be a delay of around an hour, it’s always nice to know before you get to Airport I think.

Traveling light I met Mrs H at Paddington at 1230 and we took the Heathrow Express to LHR, as we had only hand luggage we proceeded straight through security and on to the No 1 lounge by courtesy of Amex Platinum and Priority Pass.

The flight information screens were showing the VS001 as delayed until 1700 I think that it was finally allocated a gate number around 1625.

The gate area was busy and boarding had already commenced, traveling in Economy I had purchased extra legroom seats in advance we were in row 42 so were among the last to board. We settled in and I have to say that the £30 for the extra legroom seat was well worth it, when traveling in Economy I will use this option again.

We pushed back around 1720 and took off soon after. Take off was smooth and soon the drinks service commenced, a bag of mini Pretzels and a can of beer were enjoyed, a while later the meal service began Mrs H and I both had the Chicken with Cheese and Leek sauce which was not bad at all and as with any Chocolate related desert Mrs H enjoyed mine too we both also had a glass of red wine with dinner, followed by coffee a little later.
I liked the updates to V-Port (sorry Vera) and after a quick play i set up the Sky Map and listened to an Audiobook on my iPhone. A while later soft drinks were offered by the polite and efficient crew.
Afternoon Tea was served before landing along with more Coffee, Cheese and Red Onion sandwich fingers and the Great British Cupcake again not bad at all.
We made up some of the lost time en route and landed about 20 minutes late, a short walk into a fairly quiet immigration hall (it took about 15 mins to get through) as we had hand luggage only we went straight through the baggage hall to customs and out to the Air Train then the NJ transit to Penn Station and into our Hotel which was across the street.

All in all a pleasant enough flight to start our 48 hour break in NYC and thanks to the Tier Point and bonus millage offer Mrs H and I both achieved AU in the process.

Thanks for a great TR Sounds like a decent flight, after the announced short delay, and there are few better places to be around Christmas then NYC - hope you had a ball

Congrats on getting to Au

Hopefully it will pay dividends and will beckon a new era of flight enjoyment

buns

Petmadness wrote:Thanks for a great TR Sounds like a decent flight, after the announced short delay, and there are few better places to be around Christmas then NYC - hope you had a ball

Thanks, yes we did have a ball, i would like to do it again another year if we can get more time to enjoy it all and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about it.

buns wrote:Congrats on getting to Au

Hopefully it will pay dividends and will beckon a new era of flight enjoyment

buns

Thanks, it's been a long time coming, I've been a loyal Virgin flyer since my first time in 2002.

We have a couple of PE flights coming up so we are looking forward to all the new found benefits