BA vs Virgin

[wowzz]

ExpertFlyer - one of the best value hundred dollars I spend every year in relation to travel.

 

Thanks - very useful.

PS Do you ever sleep?!

[Globaliser]

PS Do you ever sleep?!

I'm a great believer in this observation: The human brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you wake up in the morning and doesn't stop until you get into the office.

[wrp96]

I'm a great believer in this observation: The human brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you wake up in the morning and doesn't stop until you get into the office.

 

I love it!:p

[cshim]

I used to work for BA and have flown PE on both airlines. In my opinion Virgin has the edge. Slighty better product and seats.

 

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[wowzz]

I used to work for BA and have flown PE on both airlines. In my opinion Virgin has the edge. Slighty better product and seats.

 

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Globaliser]

I used to work for BA and have flown PE on both airlines. In my opinion Virgin has the edge. Slighty better product and seats.

Do you mean all versions of BA's premium economy are less good than all versions of Virgin's?

 

And would the difference justify paying an extra £300 or £400 to fly Virgin, if that were the case?

[cshim]

BA's premium economy can be hit and miss depending on the aircraft type. I found that Virgin's cabin felt a bit more exclusive.

 

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[villauk]

OK, the first thing is that if you're prepared to take a small gamble (particularly if you might have a day or two of flexibility in the long-haul flying days), then there's no necessity to rush into buying anything now. Towards the end of August, there should be a BA sale. It will be worth having a look then to see whether the travel dates extend as far forward as April. (The outbound date is the only really important date, as that fixes the season and hence the fare structure for both halves of the trip.)

 

That is what I would be doing in your shoes, but this involves a bit of risk as availability in the lowest WT+ booking class (T class) is middling at the moment for the LHR-BOS sector around your travel date. If the flights were truly wide open, I'd be recommending this more strongly.

 

If you do want to book now, there are some sale fares in force at the moment. These have to be ticketed by 11 August. However, my guess is that a sale at the end of August is likely to bring lower fares than these.

 

The second piece of advice is to try pricing it with and without the BOS-Florida sector. You may find that it's cheaper with that sector included. However, that may mean flying BOS-MIA rather than BOS-FLL. You'll need to look for the rules about paying baggage fees; if you have an international ticket that covers LHR-BOS, BOS-MIA and LAX-LHR, I don't know whether that automatically means that you don't have to pay baggage fees to AA on the BOS-MIA sector.

 

The third thing to think about is this: You may find BA fares that are much cheaper if you start in (say) Amsterdam, Bergen or Stavanger. The trick is to fly from London to (say) Bergen and fly straight back to London on the same aircraft. You also have to do the same thing at the end of the trip. There are some (perfectly soluble) complications with bags etc, but you could either save some money or find yourself being able to buy a ticket in the next cabin up.

 

For example, doing LHR-BOS//LAX-LHR in WT+ on your travel dates starts from about £1167 at the moment. If you start in BGO, it's about £917 (with the short haul flights in economy). But perhaps more interesting, you could do the trip in business class for about £1464. (Doing business class starting in London would be about £3261.) Of course, you do need to add in the cost of the extra ticket to/from BGO (from just over £100).

 

And these are all with current fares. It can be even cheaper when there's a sale on in those markets (not necessarily at the same time as in the UK). The reason for picking those three cities is that their airports are probably the best for doing an immediate return to London on the same aircraft, which is one of the least risky ways of starting or finishing one of these trips.

 

Virgin's PE fares are significantly higher than BA's at the moment, but I don't know what will happen when the UK sale starts. VS also has the disadvantage that as far as I can see you cannot easily combine the BOS-Florida sector into the same ticket.

 

I found this very interesting as I was looking at SQ flights from the UK and then noticed a deal for business class seats flying with them from FRA. The cost was virtually the same as flying PE from the UK :eek:. Are there any restrictions to booking these type of flights if you are a UK resident i.e. as long as we booked separate flights to the start destination with sufficient turnaround time, we can then board the long haul (cheaper) flight? Presumably we'd have to go through immigration and then go straight to the checkin desk in FRA, go through their security etc. rather than being a pax in transit? From experience, do you expect we would encounter any problems?

 

Just considering all of our options for next year. I was amazed at the price difference for flying the same route, by inputting FRA instead of LHR or MAN - the couple of hundred pound European return flights would be peanuts compared to the difference between a PE seat price and a business to SIN. Hopefully, they will be offering one of these deals next year.

[Gardyloo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by villauk

I found this very interesting as I was looking at SQ flights from the UK and then noticed a deal for business class seats flying with them from FRA. The cost was virtually the same as flying PE from the UK :eek:. Are there any restrictions to booking these type of flights if you are a UK resident i.e. as long as we booked separate flights to the start destination with sufficient turnaround time, we can then board the long haul (cheaper) flight? Presumably we'd have to go through immigration and then go straight to the checkin desk in FRA, go through their security etc. rather than being a pax in transit? From experience, do you expect we would encounter any problems?

 

Just considering all of our options for next year. I was amazed at the price difference for flying the same route, by inputting FRA instead of LHR or MAN - the couple of hundred pound European return flights would be peanuts compared to the difference between a PE seat price and a business to SIN. Hopefully, they will be offering one of these deals next year.

 

Nothing wrong with it at all.

 

Some of the savings with non-UK departures, even those that require a plane change in the UK before heading on, is that you avoid the UK Air Passenger Duty's premium cabin - long haul tier, currently £142 in any but the least expensive cabin (so PE, business, first) vs. £13 for short-haul economy and £26 for business.

 

On Flyertalk's "premium fare deals" board - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/ - you can frequently see terrific prices on Europe - Asia and Europe - N. America business class flights. It's worth monitoring.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Gardyloo

[villauk]

Nothing wrong with it at all.

 

Some of the savings with non-UK departures, even those that require a plane change in the UK before heading on, is that you avoid the UK Air Passenger Duty's premium cabin - long haul tier, currently £142 in any but the least expensive cabin (so PE, business, first) vs. £13 for short-haul economy and £26 for business.

 

On Flyertalk's "premium fare deals" board - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/ - you can frequently see terrific prices on Europe - Asia and Europe - N. America business class flights. It's worth monitoring.

 

Thanks for the link :).

[Globaliser]

Are there any restrictions to booking these type of flights if you are a UK resident i.e. as long as we booked separate flights to the start destination with sufficient turnaround time, we can then board the long haul (cheaper) flight? Presumably we'd have to go through immigration and then go straight to the checkin desk in FRA, go through their security etc. rather than being a pax in transit? From experience, do you expect we would encounter any problems?

There are no restrictions based on residence. (It's likely that EU rules mean that there can't be any such restrictions, which have always been difficult to enforce anyway, especially since the advent of the Internet.)

 

What happens at the European turnaround point depends on how you do it. Our usual method is to go to London City airport with only a passport. Fly to Amsterdam, get off the aircraft, walk into the terminal building (no immigration or security necessary here), walk back onto the same aircraft when boarding starts, fly back to London City and go home. At a later time (perhaps some months later), we go to Heathrow and start the long-haul trip. And we do the same at the end of the trip.

 

Sometimes, this means that we end up having to pay that £142 tax anyway, but it's worth it because it's relative chicken-feed compared to the big savings elsewhere in the process. People get sometimes too hung up about paying APD; it's not that much money.

 

You have to have robust contingency plans: A good question to ask is what if your flight from the UK to the starting point is four hours late?

[travelplus]

I'm in the process of sorting out flights for our Panama transit cruise next year. We're flying into Boston from LHR for a few days, before flying down to FLL to pick up the Island Princess, and then at the end of our cruise, flying back to LHR from LAX.

Basically,we are looking at flying Premium Economy on either BA or Virgin. The costs are virtually identical, and the schedules are both OK, although BA are a bit better.

So the crunch comes down to the equipment:

 

LHR - BOS: BA: 747 [Great!!] VS A340

 

LAX - LHR : BA A380 VS 787

 

I'm tending towards the BA option, but before booking I'm hoping that some of the experts out there will give me some guidance.

 

If you can fly on BA A380 even in coach see if you can get seats on the Upper deck much quieter and you will more than likely be served first. Also you deplane via the Business Class door so it will be quicker to customs.

 

This too will be my first time on BA and from what I read BA has more professional service as the crew is senior vs VS where the crew is newer and you may find BA has better food etc. But over all you can't go wrong with VA's Inflight Enternatinment System or BA's new IFE Audio Video On Demand System either. Just pick the itinerary, timing and pricing that fits your needs.

[wowzz]

If you can fly on BA A380 even in coach see if you can get seats on the Upper deck much quieter and you will more than likely be served first. Also you deplane via the Business Class door so it will be quicker to customs.

 

This too will be my first time on BA and from what I read BA has more professional service as the crew is senior vs VS where the crew is newer and you may find BA has better food etc. But over all you can't go wrong with VA's Inflight Enternatinment System or BA's new IFE Audio Video On Demand System either. Just pick the itinerary, timing and pricing that fits your needs.

 

Actually, if the BA crew are 'Mixed Fleet' they will be relatively new compared to the traditional BA crew. In my somewhat limited experience, 'Mixed Fleet' crew tend to make up in enthusiasm what they lack in experience.

[Globaliser]

Actually, if the BA crew are 'Mixed Fleet' they will be relatively new compared to the traditional BA crew. In my somewhat limited experience, 'Mixed Fleet' crew tend to make up in enthusiasm what they lack in experience.

Yes, this mirrors my experience of WW and MF.

 

The 380 has BA's new seat; the 747 has the old one, although one configuration of the 747 is having those seats refreshed starting in September. I don't know how long it will take to get all of that done.

 

As for quicker service and quicker disembarkation on the upper deck, I find it hard to see how that's either guaranteed or normally measurable - other than that the upper deck door is often the last to be opened on arrival.

[villauk]

There are no restrictions based on residence. (It's likely that EU rules mean that there can't be any such restrictions, which have always been difficult to enforce anyway, especially since the advent of the Internet.)

 

You have to have robust contingency plans: A good question to ask is what if your flight from the UK to the starting point is four hours late?

 

Yes, been thinking about that and our local airport flies to AMS up to 6 times a day. We could fly out the night before the long haul flight, stay over and be ready for the afternoon flight the next day, and still be quids in. Obviously, this is dependent on the offers been available for when we are due to fly. However, I've definitely learnt to think outside the box after reading your OP ;) - thanks.

[wowzz]

I'm always intrigued to know what final decision is made when someone asks for advice, such as in my original post.

In my case I booked our flights yesterday with Virgin, in Premium Economy, at a cost of £1050 each. Today the same flights are over £1200! Currently BA are charging £1200, so by flying Virgin I have saved £300 and also I have pre-selected our seats at no cost, thus further saving money over BA.

Interestingly, I found a business class return [LHR - BOS, with a change in IAD, LAX - LHR] on an Austrian Airlines code-share with AA, for £1687, which I was sorely tempted to book, but I couldn't really justify the additional £1200, especially as the LHR - BOS is a relatively short daylight flight.

Once again, thanks to everyone [especially Globaliser] for your advice and recommendations.

[Gardyloo]

Austrian doesn't codeshare with AA, they're in different alliances. You probably meant United Airlines, UA.

[wowzz]

Austrian doesn't codeshare with AA, they're in different alliances. You probably meant United Airlines, UA.

 

Sorry - my mistake. You are correct - I should have said United.