Question on Upper Class-

Do the cabin crew know, who has 'paid' for UC seats, and who maybe has been upgraded for free to UC on any flight?

Say VA has overbooked Economy and people are moved up for free to PE or UC, will the cabin crew know who was who?

Is there any difference in the level of service?

Looking at my seat maps for my up coming flights with VA, there is only seats booked for my family and say two or three more people, so UC could be up to 80% empty on one of my flights and in August so I suspect a full flight and there will be upgrades.(Some people I understand might not pre book seats but I would have expected more to have done so) I know UC might make offers to upgrade but if people do not take them up, they will have to fill UC.

What flight / date are you flying on? A load check might give a better idea than the seat map.

Should add that VS do not upgrade just to fill seats because they are empty ( unlike many us airlines ). They occasionally offer "slightly" cheaper upgrades at checkin but you are more likely to be shocked at how high the price is rather than how low it is

David

[Neil]

Welcome.

The first thing to say is that they don't have to fill up upper class. They only ever do op-ups if they really have to and they are quite rare and not something the airline wants to do if they don't have to.

Yes they do sometimes overbook a cabin, but not massively, certainly not where they have to move large numbers of people up a cabin.

Back to your original question, the crew probably have very little idea who has paid and if anyone has been op-up'd. The FSM might, and maybe some of the crew will know that there had to be some op-ups but the service offered to ALL pax will be the same. This is true if you have paid £8000 for a fully refundable J fare, paid £2000 for a discounted Z fare, paid a few hundred £ only and used a chunk of miles, or have been bumped up for free.

Neil

Exactly as Neil says - just because a cabin is empty it is not good business to fill it with lower revenue custom - on this basis no one would ever buy a premium seat.
This is true of many domestic USA airlines that they fill F with FF members but this is not adopted on International routes.

Only if the booked cabin is oversold will pax be upgraded free but that will usually be after upgrading FF members (based on their status) , those wishing to upgrade with miles and then on the basis of the fare paid.

Once you are in the cabin I would be surprised if the crew know who has paid and how much they paid on the basis that many of them never seem to know if you have flown before and know how the seat works.

In airline terms August is a long way off and all cabins can be full by time of departure.

I have been on a flight once when there were only 4 booked into upper, including us. PE was oversold.
What they did was move the other couple into the a-zone (this was a 747, don't know why they had chosen the b-zone?!) and put the PE extras into the B-zone. When talking to the crew we were told that they weren't going to open the bar (it was a night flight anyway) as the extra PE pax were still going to get the PE catering and didn't want them trying to use the bar!

So not about op-ups but Virgin can be creative with extra passengers.

I have found that in Upper, the seat map suddenly fills up a day or two before the flight.

Seat Maps are notoriously useless when it comes to judging how full a cabin will be.

And as others have said VS generally does not upgrade people just because there is room.

One V-Flyer was once the solo person in the UC cabin on an LGW flight despite the rest of the plane being full.

I was on a 747 with only 1/3 of UC occupied - the entire B Zone was empty with pax upstairs (pre it being split with Y) and in the A-zone.

And again August is a long time away !

I think it's better for VS not to offer upgrades just like that.
Having said that on a recent VS901 flight my wife and I were upgraded at the gate from PE to UC. I think it was an op-up and judging by what's been said here perhaps somehow we were the only FC members in PE on that flight?
Needless to say it was our first experience of UC and it spurred me on to save up enough for an UC ticket for our next flight to NRT.
I also sent a massive thankyou to Crawley towers for the upgrade and positive feedback of our outward flight in PE.

Wow, thank you for your fast and informative answers, I am on VS0095 to Vancouver 3/8 and San Francisco > London 17/08 VS0020, The Vancouver run has a few more UC people in it now, but SFO is just two other people apart from us. I was thinking as its peak school holidays they would move people up. In 2012, we had selected UP seats and were moved on embarkation and my wife's table jammed on her seat so it blocked the UC seat from going flat on the night flight home. I thought there was a good chance they knew on the outward run, they did give her a bottle of perfume from DF for free. A male attendant in the end kicked it in, it was one of the older non refurbished planes, it was funny that we were moved into that one and the cabin was full. This one was X- MCO Orlando. Think we are on a newer 2006 airbus out and a 747-400 on the way back.

Back to your original question, the crew probably have very little idea who has paid and if anyone has been op-up'd. The FSM might, and maybe some of the crew will know that there had to be some op-ups but the service offered to ALL pax will be the same. This is true if you have paid £8000 for a fully refundable J fare, paid £2000 for a discounted Z fare, paid a few hundred £ only and used a chunk of miles, or have been bumped up for free.
Neil

The service *should* be the same for all pax, but consistency is a Virgin problem. On my recent flight home from MCO we had a Z-lister onboard in Upper Class & the crew were all over him like a rash & delivered very mediocre service to the other 13 pax in Upper.

LHR - YVR

J3 C3 D3 I3 Z0 W1 S1 H0 K0 Y9 B9 R9 L9 U0 M0 E0 Q0 X0 N0 O0

Upper virtually full with only 3 seats left to sell

SFO - LHR

J9 C9 D9 I9 Z1 W8 S3 H0 K0 Y9 B9 R9 L9 U9 M9 E9 Q4 X0 N0 O0

At least 9 seats empty in Upper but selling out as only 1 of the cheapest class (Z) left

Shows how unreliable seat maps are

As others have said, August is a long way off and will probably fill up even more

David

David, interesting, thank you. Guess a lot of people are not bothered where they sit.

from MCO we had a Z-lister onboard in Upper Class & the crew were all over him like a rash & delivered very mediocre service to the other 13 pax in Upper.

any names ?

[Neil]

David, interesting, thank you. Guess a lot of people are not bothered where they sit.

If the flight is August, the 90 day window will have only just opened up recently so maybe a lot of people haven't got round to going in and selecting yet.

from MCO we had a Z-lister onboard in Upper Class & the crew were all over him like a rash & delivered very mediocre service to the other 13 pax in Upper.

any names ?

Big orange coloured clues in Kraken's TR.....

David, interesting, thank you. Guess a lot of people are not bothered where they sit.

If the flight is August, the 90 day window will have only just opened up recently so maybe a lot of people haven't got round to going in and selecting yet.

I can attest to that. When the 90 day window for our flight to NYC opened I went in and was the first to assign seats. At the 30 day window, only one more seat had been assigned.

When I checked my booking for my flight on sat yesterday only 18 of the 45 UC seats had been selected ,if anyone cares to do a load check it may give us a little insight into roughly what percentage of UC passengers have bothered to select a seat ,it's vs17 .
I appreciate it won't be too accurate if it shows 9s across the board but if it comes back with low numbers it will give us a rough insight

When I checked my booking for my flight on sat yesterday only 18 of the 45 UC seats had been selected ,if anyone cares to do a load check it may give us a little insight into roughly what percentage of UC passengers have bothered to select a seat ,it's vs17 .
I appreciate it won't be too accurate if it shows 9s across the board but if it comes back with low numbers it will give us a rough insight

it does show 9's across the board

Thanks penny ,looks like it could be a quiet flight then