V-Flyer

My first TR & post on V-Flyer after viewing for many months so here goes

It’s been 3.5 years since our last Virgin flight or any flight for that matter, last time was in/out of Boston, so with this flight being that much longer we decided to book Premium Economy again & boy were we glad. I was a bit nervous after reading a couple of posts on here where people have said Premium Economy is not what it used to be, but we were very impressed with the service we received & it’s possible as we don’t travel that often we had nothing to compare it to

I used OLCI the afternoon before & we still had our requested seats of 34 D E & F & after leaving home in Essex at 07.10, amid protests from hubby that we were leaving too early on a Saturday for a 12:50 flight, we got to Purple Parking & were on the bus for the terminal at 08:30 ! Bag drop was very quick & painless, as was Security, then on to a bit of shopping & some brunch before heading off to the gate – time went really quickly, I was even told I had made the right decision for us to leave early as you never know with the wonderful M25!!

Didn’t seem long before they were calling for Premium to board G-VWOW, I always like to check out which plane we’re on . We then settled in with a nice welcome drink, it was a very busy flight which I suppose you would expect being the last full 2 weeks of the kids holidays – I did miss not having a window seat, but having my Step Son with us this time, it would have meant one of us sitting on our own, which would have been me, if we had opted for window seats.

Only a few minutes late leaving & before long the CC were coming round with drinks & my favourite sour cream & chive pretzels, which go very nicely with Tiger Beer.
IFE was great, with so many films to choose from I started on the first of 3 more or less as soon as we took off.

Food was being served before we knew it, I chose the Chicken Cacciatore where as the boys chose the Beef Stroganoff, I passed the Halibut starter over to hubby, but enjoyed the dessert of fruit forest mousse, finishing off with a nice glass of wine – We all enjoyed the meal.

I declined the Brandy or Amarula, as I had enough with the beer & wine, but a very nice touch.

CC came round a few times offering drinks which was great, along with the bottle of water left in the seat pocket & the one we had taken on, we had no fear of dehydration ....

Watching 3 films & reading does make the flight go so quickly, before long it was time for High Tea of Cheese & Pickle Sandwich, followed by Banana Toffee Cupcake which I passed over to the boys.
Finished watching my 3rd film & descent began into San Francisco, our first time to the West Coast & the 3 of us were happy the flight had gone so quickly & thanks to a great CC who made a great start to our holiday.

The Immigration Hall was quiet & the bags arrived very quickly, so on to pick up our hire car, we had hired a Convertible from Alamo via Virgin which at time of booking said Mustang or similar, this had then been changed a couple of weeks before to Chrysler 200 or similar So both knew it would be a bonus if we could get the Mustang as we do have 66 Mustang at home. I had checked in online so straight to the Garage, where we handed over the paperwork, she had the keys straight away & pressed the fob to open a white Chrysler 200 – Hubby & I looked at each other & said Yuk with a smile .... Her words were ‘ I thought you Europeans love Chryslers – ‘Not us’ was our reply We asked if they had any Mustangs as we love them & she said ‘Of course I will ring down for one’ within a few minutes a beautiful black convertible Mustang pulled up, we were very happy, thanked her, gave her a tip, which she seemed very pleased about & were on our way for the very first time on the Streets of San Francisco & a wonderful 4 days in this lovely city.

Thanks again to the wonderful ground & flight crew

Apologies if this was a bit detailed ............

Great TR, thank you. No such thing as too detailed!

Hope your flight home was as good.

Great TR and good result on the rental car. I love the look of the mustang convertible, especially in the bright blue colour. We saw a few on our recent travels but would have been too small for all our bags
Hope you enjoyed SFO, we just returned from there last weekend. In fact this time last week we were on Dylan's tours somewhere near Twin Peaks. Was HOT in the city though !!
L2H

Great to know PE is not that bad.......I am getting a little worried we won't be able to get the upgrades for our December flights. So I'll relax a little more and maybe call just once a day to check availability, not twice!

hales wrote:Great to know PE is not that bad.......I am getting a little worried we won't be able to get the upgrades for our December flights. So I'll relax a little more and maybe call just once a day to check availability, not twice!

I was just questioning my rushed decision to get PE to BGI, but I'm sure it's not so bad. Extra legroom, wider seats, slightly more seat pitch and priority boarding count for something.

Hi and welcome to V-Flyer.

Alimal wrote:My first TR & post on V-Flyer after viewing for many months so here goes

It’s been 3.5 years since our last Virgin flight or any flight for that matter, last time was in/out of Boston, so with this flight being that much longer we decided to book Premium Economy again & boy were we glad. I was a bit nervous after reading a couple of posts on here where people have said Premium Economy is not what it used to be, but we were very impressed with the service we received & it’s possible as we don’t travel that often we had nothing to compare it to

On and off down through the years on VF, there have been times when people have posted negative comments (often with reason) and newbies to the service have had the same concerns as you have had, only to find they were unfounded in their experience. I sometimes wonder whether, when two or three people start posting in this vein, we get caught up in a negative spiral to the extent that be begin to blame VS for everything including the fall of the Roman Empire and the start of WW2. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't criticise where it is justified but I remember some years ago, arriving in Zone A in LHR with the attitude of "OK, let's see what I can find wrong so that I can post it in my TR" I quickly realised what I was doing, switched off the antennae and had an excellent flight by going with the flow. We have to remember that for many on this site, it may be their first experience of VS, so let's not spoil it for them unless there is a really glaring gap in the service which needs to be addressed.

Apologies if this was a bit detailed ............

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there's no such thing as a TR that's "a bit detailed" - well except for the guy, who on FT or else A-net, wrote and 18 page TR which went into the minutiae of a Singapore Airlines flight or a guy I knew from another now defunct travel board who used to write such gems as "For an appetiser I had the shrimp salad. There were four shrimp. I really think there should have been five" or, "The seat reclined by 10 degrees. I think it would have been better if it had reclined by 20 degrees"

lovetoholiday wrote:Great TR and good result on the rental car. I love the look of the mustang convertible, especially in the bright blue colour. We saw a few on our recent travels but would have been too small for all our bags
Hope you enjoyed SFO, we just returned from there last weekend. In fact this time last week we were on Dylan's tours somewhere near Twin Peaks. Was HOT in the city though !!
L2H

We loved the Blue ones too, really stood out L2H & you'd be surprised what you could fit in the boot or should I say trunk ! We had 2 decent size suitcases, not hardshell ones & a decent size holdall, then fleeces etc but I left hubby to position them as they only went in one way, which he found out when we were packing up to move down to Los Feliz
We loved SFO, it was bearable when we were there so must have missed the heatwave.
We too went on a Dylan's tour, we had Andreas who was brilliant & the apartment we rented was just down from Twin Peaks, so a wonderful view of the city

Tinuks wrote:

hales wrote:Great to know PE is not that bad.......I am getting a little worried we won't be able to get the upgrades for our December flights. So I'll relax a little more and maybe call just once a day to check availability, not twice!

I was just questioning my rushed decision to get PE to BGI, but I'm sure it's not so bad. Extra legroom, wider seats, slightly more seat pitch and priority boarding count for something.

Tinuks & Hales we were very happy with PE, but I guess if you are used to UC then it probably doesn't compare !
Our last return flights to Boston we had booked PE as we were getting married in Vermont, when our flight out was cancelled due to bad weather, VA were brilliant & got us on a flight the next day knowing we had to get our marriage licence & what a wonderful surprise when we got to the gate as I believe the check in agent arranged for us to be upgraded to UC

On our journey home we certainly noticed the difference being in PE, but as that was over 3 years ago you forget how good it was - maybe one day we may get back in UC

RachelCox & honey lamb thanks for the welcome, I will post a TR soon of our flight home from LAX

Great TR thanks.

Big fan of the Mustang, particularly when still with the new car smell . Do, however, like the Chrysler Sebring, the first rental car we had in the US..

Thanks for your trip report, it is always interesting to read the views and opinions of other travellers. As has been previously stated there are often many negative reports, as in many areas people only put pen to paper when they feel let down, therefore it is good to see some balance.
I have been fortunate in mainly travelling in UC but have also experienced PE on several occasions and the difference is pretty obvious. However the Cabin Crew make a tremendous difference, I have been more warmly welcomed and received more 'personal' service on occasion in the PE cabin than the one further forward !
Although I enjoy reading the reports I rarely get round to posting one as generally the points I would like to bring to the table have already been covered by others.
HL hope that you enjoy the trip to Vancouver, my Trip report would read " as expected, rubbish IFE, decent food, arrived on time and in one piece BUT there was no Port to be had with cheese!".
Unfortunately my AU will be lapsing this year due to unforeseen family commitments grounding me, but it has has been nice to experience some of the advantages over the past few years. I would encourage all V-Flyers to stay loyal, some standards have been found wanting recently but "things can only get better" , fingers crossed!

Great TR. like others have said details schmeetails lol
we like details. Apart from how many prawns were in the prawn cocktail lol (as HL said)
I have flown PE a few times on long haul and definitely prefer it over Y. Wider seats which are more easy going on the posterior lol sometimes better food and priority boarding and luggage. last time our bags were one of the first off :-)
Oh PS welcome to v-flyer

hazban wrote:HL hope that you enjoy the trip to Vancouver, my Trip report would read " as expected, rubbish IFE, decent food, arrived on time and in one piece BUT there was no Port to be had with cheese!".
Unfortunately my AU will be lapsing this year due to unforeseen family commitments grounding me, but it has has been nice to experience some of the advantages over the past few years.

I shall of course. Quite honestly, I don't mind the 343 and if I get G-VSUN that will be a bonus but I rarely use the IFE except for the iMap so it will be no big deal getting Molly or African Queen or the other one with Vera-Reel. The major catastrophe would be no port with the cheese!!!!

My Au status lapsed this year too, partly because of the changes in requalification and partly because a variety of circumstances limited my travel but I know that some of the crew I have flown with will be as superb even with my lowly Ag status and the ones that were rubbish when I was Au will still be rubbish. Fortunately, these were in the very small minority

Alimal wrote:Tinuks & Hales we were very happy with PE, but I guess if you are used to UC then it probably doesn't compare !
Our last return flights to Boston we had booked PE as we were getting married in Vermont, when our flight out was cancelled due to bad weather, VA were brilliant & got us on a flight the next day knowing we had to get our marriage licence & what a wonderful surprise when we got to the gate as I believe the check in agent arranged for us to be upgraded to UC

On our journey home we certainly noticed the difference being in PE, but as that was over 3 years ago you forget how good it was - maybe one day we may get back in UC

Beware the infamous left turn that has snared many (including myself and barely 3 years ago, I used to insist that UC wasn't worth it) :-)

Tinuks wrote:Beware the infamous left turn that has snared many (including myself and barely 3 years ago, I used to insist that UC wasn't worth it) :-)

Ditto. Until I got to experience UC and the difference it made to how I felt when I arrived I like Tinuks didn't think it was worth the extra. However once you turn left and start learning about G fares then its a slippery slope lol