Check your seat map if you are on a 747 - 6-11AK

Thanks to the sale and promising a treat to my wife who has undergone surgery recently, I'm booked in UC for a flight to St Lucia in March (o/w 5th VS031, r/t 12th VS032). When I booked the tickets I was surprised to see Economy in the bubble on the outbound but not the return so selected 22/23K outbound and 10/11K upstairs for the return.

With all the news about the 747 refits I went and checked that my seats were still valid and lo and behold I now cannot select the seat map on my return journey. The page just comes up blank. A sure sign that something went wrong and it's time to call up...

After a very frustrating call with the call centre ('No, they wouldn't put Economy up there, it would only be Premium Economy' !) - she gave up using her system to try and find out what the seat map looked like and used the website instead ('Oooh, it went blank, is that what you saw too?') *sigh* she confirmed that she couldn't move me to 'valid' seats as they were now all allocated and there is no way to override without checking in 24 hours ahead using OLCI. It wouldn't surprise me if I'm unable to use it as my selected seat is now invalid but I guess we'll have to wait and see... I guess I'll save the rest for the TR

I know seat selection is only a request so I guess the moral of the story is beware of 6-11AK on 747's and select your seat elsewhere if you want a stress free journey!

Sadly, you've been caught. It sounds likely that the 747 scheduled for your flight is being converted to the UC / Y upstairs arrangement. My comments on the awfulness and VS's stupity in doing this are legion ( [:I] )but it's an unfortunate warning for anyone else who has booked in UC. Don't go upstairs anymore [V].

If the VS website is correct, the St Lucia flights are ex-LGW, so it looks like Virgin are sending a LHR configured aircraft over to LGW to operate this flight. I know that they often use a LHR config 747 on the BGI run for the higher capacity J cabins. Do Virgin use LHR config planes on the St Lucia route often, or is one of the LGW aircraft in for maintenance (given that the LGW/MAN fleet is one smaller due to G-VROM being leased out)?

Yes they use the LHR aircraft that does BGI everyday except fridays when it does St Lucia.

Why on earth didnt they just have them all having the bubble split between UC and PE. All this ti**ing around just annoys paying customers.

So much for VS being market leaders, looks like they are scrambling round in the dark a touch.

Just in case anyone else reads this thread and is worried about being able to select a seat, I checked my seat map for the return journey today (3 days before I go back) and it appears our 'invalid' seats have been deleted - this means the seat map let me select seats for the flight. I picked 16/17K - all the others were at the front of the bubble.

sorry if this is a silly question but how do you know which version 747-400 will be flying on what day please? Seat Guru still showing all 747-400 as old configuation

quote:Originally posted by SNOMO
sorry if this is a silly question but how do you know which version 747-400 will be flying on what day please? Seat Guru still showing all 747-400 as old configuation

It's not a silly question [|:)] and the answer is by using the VS seat assignment tool.

Paul