VS008 LAX-LHR 20 JUN 25 (Upper Class)

I had a week out in Las Vegas with some friends, having flown out BA Club from Gatwick. I had secured a really good cheap premium one way fare to get me home. VS were offering an upgrade to Upper for ONLY $8000. I'll pass.

Comes to OLCI and now being offered for $1000, YES please! Ding 1A!

I was connecting on a different PNR from Delta and annoyingly as I had been in Vegas for a week had a checked bag. I arrived LA at 0730 and was leaving on the VS8 at 3.30. I was expecting a few boring hours sat landslide in Starbucks but lo and behold this was not to be!

I took my checked bag around to the new DL One private check in area kind of expecting to be told "No you're Virgin bugger off" but they logged into the VS system and had me checked in and ready to go through security in minutes.

The experience is even more private than at JFK, once you are screened through TSA, you are straight in an elevator into the DL One Lounge. The lounge is probably about 1/3rd of the size of the JFK one, and about 3 times larger than the Boston one. A great assortment of cocktails to be had, including one which was very close to a redhead. Sadly uploading photos on here is a pain in the bum, but I'll try and find a way! The main showers are in the main Delta SkyClub which you are escorted through to.

After 3 hours there and a little bit of work, I left rather tipsy after trying all of their signature cocktails, and proceeded round to TBIT to take in the new Clubhouse.

I must admit, that I didnt find the walk between T3 and TBIT as long as I remembered last time I was in LA, have they installed more moving walkways as it was only a few minutes.

In the new CH was reunited with one of the former VS supervisors who I met on a few trips to LA back pre-covid and is now working for Sodexo as their GM For the Clubhouse. Lovely Aussie guy, if you see him say hello! The Clubhouse itself, is small, I was actually surprised just how small it is, but is perfectly formed. It didn't feel busy ahead of what was a full Upper Class cabin on the VS8. I must admit to having one too many Drama Queens (their signature cocktail) so if I was tipsy on leaving DL one, I was steaming on leaving the Clubhouse! (Also, yes, I did colour coordinate for the picture)

Boarding from gate 133 was prompt and I knew I was in for a good flight as the FSM greeted me with a smile and a hug having recognised me from a previous flight.

A quick flight deck tour of G-VPOP - Momma Mia with the SFO who was in the third seat for this 9hr 50 flight time.

Gold Thank you card left on my seat and a lot of fuss made over the 4 gold card holders in the upper class cabin.

Much has been said of VS's catering of late, but I thought it was pretty on point for this flight, a lovely soup, and a great veggie curry. I spent a little bit of time reading in the loft before heading off to bed. The weird thing with the VS8 at this time of year is that the whole flight is in daylight because of the routing it takes, so keeping the tail cam on the IFE screen messed me up a little.

I had a good sleep but woke up about two hours before landing with a lovely coffee prepped for me by the guy who was serving my aisle and bottle of LP left for me as a thank you for being a Gold Card holder!

Straight around into Revivals before trying to make my way back north in the heat!

Solid flight 9/10.

I think the pics below show work!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[mitchja]

Thanks for the TR. Love to read a comparison between VS and BA for your trip!

So, this is a follow on review of my outbound flight to Las Vegas as per Mitchja's suggestion.

BA2277 LGW/LAS

Now the whole context for this trip was all a bit crazy. My time with V-Flyer started 10 years ago which involved a 3 week trip across the US and my first every flights in Upper for my 30th birthday, and as we are now hurtling towards my 40th, I am doing something equally as exciting, but that is rather than one big trip, I am doing 2 trips a month for the whole year, normally based on little and often weekends! I had already planned to go to Corfu flying back on Monday the 16th June, but when a friend said she was operating a flight to Vegas and did I want to go as her companion, I was like "HELL YES". The trip snowballed and a few other friends joined us so rather than just going for a simple out and back with my friend, I ended up staying in Vegas a few days longer (hence returning on VS). I booked using Avios, and there was quite high availability, in fact the flight itself would be quite lightly loaded.

Landed from Corfu on time into Gatwick on BA at about 2200 on the Monday night after a good Club Europe experience, over to the Hilton Gatwick who were having a power failure. Couldn't check in, issue keys, lifts not working, no lights other than emergency ones and no idea how long it was going to take either. The General Manager was called in about 2300, and having lived at that hotel for nearly a year for a work project, she instantly recognised me, gave me a big hug and moved me straight over to their sister property the Sofitel in the North Terminal, but all in all, it was still about 1am before I was in bed.

Up at 0530, showered and ready and raring to go. BA Club Check in for Gatwick is its own little private area fenced off from the main throng of check in, a nice little touch. Straight through to the lounge which was thankfully rather quiet this morning (it had been a total zoo on my way to Corfu a few days earlier). I do like the BA ground experience at LGW, it feels a lot more personal, and a lot more special, despite not being dramatically different from that at LHR in terms of the actual product delivered.

The new bar that they have installed in the Club Lounge is a very welcome addition, I love sitting at the bar in the lounge, chatting to the staff and fellow customers. I got chatting to a lovely lady off to Kingston, and we ended up doing shots of Tequila, not the most responsible, but we were on holiday!

Our aircraft, G-YMMD is a geriatric (well 25 year old, so not as old as me I guess!) Boeing 777-200, and boarding was from the very far end of the long Pier 2. So had virtually walked to Vegas by the time I got on the aircraft. Boarding by group and Club (and my silver status) only entitled me to Group 2 boarding.

On to the aircraft, and I think overall the cabin environment is really nice, despite the age of the seat, the cabin itself looks good and airy. I was in Seat 1K a window seat at the front of the aircraft, in the usual BA Ying-Yang old Club World set up. The seat itself is showing its age, the IFE was a recent upgrade on the LGW 777 fleet and so is relatively good, with a decent flight map (thats all I ever use it for). The privacy of this seat I think is amazing, you really do feel cocooned in your own little world in the window seats, and sitting watching the snowy mountains of far northern Canada with a Vodka Cranberry felt lovely. Here's the rub there's just no effective storage or places to put "stuff" during flight. You have the little drawer but it's really annoying, but actually just somewhere to put something down was a pain.

I needed to work for about 3 hours of the flight, and the tray table being so flimsy was a total nightmare to work on with a laptop!

In terms of comparison, if we are comparing this to the Upper Class "coffin" (I hate that term as I still love this seat!!), you have your cocktail table by your shoulder for drinks, and the space behind you where you can easily just leave stuff. I also think that the general wear and tear on these Club Seats, certainly on these aircraft is much greater than we see on the older 333's and 787's with VS.

The service from the crew was generally very good, but not with the same level of pleasantry that you find with Virgin and certainly not the same level of "spunk" you see either, it just didnt feel as "fun" but still a very good level of service.

The food is where I feel there was a really big difference, and as I said, I am no fan of VS's recent menus, and in fact I think some of them have been dire, but I did find the Newrest catering out of Gatwick quite lacklustre for the first meal. I had a beetroot and feta ravioli, and a tiramisu. They felt like they belonged on Club Europe, and I certainly wouldn't have put them up against VS in terms of catering. I do have to caveat that BA from LHR with Do&Co is meant to be much better.

The Club Kitchen was well stocked throughout the flight with some small sandwiches and I had a cold Halloumi slider which was nice, but nothing to write home about. The thing I found, was that not having somewhere else to go, especially for a 11hour Vegas flight just caused me no end of boredom. I know VS aren't installing them on the new round of 339 deliveries, but honestly the Loft or Bar make a flight for me, so I must admit, I did spend a fair bit of time stood up at the 1 doors chatting to the crew as it was so difficult to just sit still for so long.

The second meal service was where I think there was the biggest difference between BA and VS, in that with VS, its the new Afternoon Tea, which I think is "okay" but BA have a full second dinner. It felt a bit much to be honest, although I did find the quality of the second meal higher than the first.

Landed a little early into Vegas, and managed to be through immigration within a few minutes and in an Uber to the Flamingo in less than 30 mins from wheels down.

I am a VS fan boy, so this comparison is very driven by that, and I have only flown Delta and VS long haul over the US and this was my first BA long haul flight ever. It was a great product, and very worth the money and Avios paid for it. The ground experience at LGW I think does rival the VS LHR experience in terms of it generally feeling very private, and quite premium, however the BA Club LHR experience I think is a significant downgrade unless you're going to the T5B gates lounge. (And naturally ignoring the F Lounge or CCR). The onboard experience I think is very competent and very what I would expect from BA, but just lacked that spark that a really good VS FSM and crew can bring to brighten up the skies.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... share_link

Images from the BA flight