Hi again!

Back in March, I was scheming for a way to fly Delta business class from LAS to Italy. This is my graduation present, so I'd like to fly a class higher than coach and go in comfort.

With that being said, I've been comparing Delta business class and Virgin Premium Economy. I think I'm very close to deciding to fly Virgin PE, LAS - LGW, then hopping on BA down to Italy. What are your thoughts on this? (Patty - I read your review last year on Virgin's PE and it seemed to solidify my view of it).

The 2nd part of it would be a flight from LGW - Italy (don't know the destination yet). My question on this piece is on BA's pricing. Do they charge more for open jaw tickets? Every time I tried it on their website, it ended up super expensive because they didn't see the 2nd flight as a return flight. Am I missing something?

Thanks again for your help!

You need to book your ticket LAS to Rome. This way if a flight gets delayed, you are covered. Prices are high for the summer. You don't want to get yourself in a situation where you fly into one airport in London and out of another airport so check the ticket carefully before you book. Remember, British Airways has FLAT BEDS in Business. They also have economy plus, so give yourself as many options for finding the lowest ticket possible. United also has Economy plus. You said graduation present. If you are between 18 and 21 and you want to drink alcohol, you should fly on the foreign carrier because the U.S. airlines will require you to be 21. If you fly in May or late August, prices should be cheaper.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34602040

BA's website doesn't do "open jaws at destination" - only open-jaws at origin (i.e., you return to LHR instead of LGW.) It's a bug BA has promised to fix. And promised... and promised... Use Expedia or some such instead. BA's pricing on open-jaws is okay, it's just the website that's sucky.

Or, IMO better for LGW, use easyJet for your Italian segments and save money you'll need for gelatto.

Haven't priced it out, but you might also look at British Midland LAS-MAN and connecting on BMI or some low cost carrier to Italy. Their products are getting pretty good reviews.

Oops, sorry, ignore that last post. I don't know what happened.

jbee,
First of all, as much as I think VS PE is a great product, you're comparing apples to oranges between PE and business class. I don't want you to go into this thinking that the two are comparable, otherwise you'll be disappointed. That said, there's usually a big price difference too.

Have you checked what it would cost to fly DL Business Elite versus VS PE? BE will offer you greater seat pitch (60" vs 38&quot, a seat that reclines 160 degrees, upgraded food/wine selections, and access to airport lounges.

To answer your second question, as far as I know, BA's site still does not support open jaw bookings. It's supposed to in the future. For now, you'll have to call BA to price an open jaw ticket. When I've priced them, it seemed that the fare was an average of the two destinations if booked as a roundtrip.

Wally brought up a good point in that if you purchase 2 separate tickets - one on VS and one on BA, you'll not be protected in case of flight delay. Call VS and see if you can book a through ticket to your destination in Italy with them. I think they partner with BMI.

Another option to consider is World Traveller Plus on BA. WT+ is similar to PE (some think the WT+ seat is actually more comfortable).

I wouldn't consider UA E+ comparable to true premium economy products. Plus you can't purchase a ticket in UA E+. You have to either be UA elite or a full fare passenger to sit there.

Gardyloo,
Yeah I forgot that BA does offer the open jaw at origin option for online bookings, but WHAT were they thinking when they only implemented it one direction?

Here's more details... We want to vacation in Northern Italy and I'm using the dates of Nov. 18th or 19th as departure from LAS and Dec. 3rd or 4th as return. We're departing from LAS and don't really care where we land - Milan, Venice, or Torino would all be fine, but we're definitely ending in Venice.

One of the reasons why I thought VS would be so great is because it's nonstop LAS-LGW. Then we just have 1 connection down to Italy. With Delta, it ends up almost always being 3 flights.

Patty - I see what you're saying about Delta Business. I think that we would have BusinessElite seats, since they fly the 767-300 across the ocean. The other planes would be a 757 or 737-800, which would be first class. (I got this from seatguru.) Is that correct?

The prices I've come up with are:
Virgin: $1500/pp for premium economy.
Delta: $2500/pp for business elite.
BA: $8600/pp for business club.

Basically, I want to go with something higher than coach to have more recline and more seat room, but I don't want to go wild on the cost. After all, college is expensive... Virgin PE seemed reasonable for what they offer, but Delta seemed a bit expensive at $2,000 more total. Is Delta worth the extra $$?

One last thought... Most of the flights from the West connect in Chicago, JFK, or Atlanta. I was also worried about weather conditions in any of these cities potentionally stranding us in a connecting city. That was another advantage to flying directly to Europe from Las Vegas. I would much rather be stranded in London than Chicago... Is there any way around connecting in "bad weather" airports?

jbee,
You'll be in BE on the transatlantic flight only. Delta used to operate some domestic routes using aircraft equipped with BE seats (but domestic first service) but these are getting fewer and fewer and I think will eventually be phased out. And I don't think they ever used BE equipped aircraft in the LAS market.

If you fly through Atlanta, you'll be in first class from LAS-ATL with domestic first seats/service. You can fly one stop into Milan through Atlanta, where you'd have less of a chance running into winter weather.

Coming back from Venice, you'll have to fly through JFK. Again, you can fly one stop back to LAS, BUT your JFK-LAS flight will be on Song which is all coach. For first class seating on your domestic portion, you'd have to go with 2 connections (either JFK-CVG-LAS or JFK-ATL-LAS).

VS does have the advantage of nonstop LAS-LGW flights, but have you looked at the return options? Neither the BA nor easyJet VCE-LGW flights get into LGW early enough for you to connect the same day to the VS LGW-LAS flight, so were you planning to overnight in London on your way back if flying VS? Probably not a bad idea anyway if you're buying 2 separate tickets but will then add to your overall cost.

And forget what I said earlier about BMI. I see that they don't fly from LGW to any of your destinations.

Patty -
If I went with VS, we would fly VCE-LGW Saturday night and overnight next to the airport. It did make the most sense, especially considering the travel distance from Venice to the airport. I was figuring the price addition for a hotel room wouldn't be too bad, if we could find a room around $50 for that night. The exchange rate would push it up to the range we would be spending in Venice anyway.

I also saw the return flight with the JFK swap. Did you notice the price actually went UP with that option vs. 2 legs on first class? I thought that was weird... Another pro with Delta is that we can fly open jaw to and from Italy, which would be nice. Do they ever go lower than what it is now for upper class seats?

So with all things considered, which do you think is the best option for the price? Is Delta BE/first really worth the extra $1000 and chance of bad weather? (I know it's kind of a personal preference thing, but other's opinions are sooo helpful!)

I don't think the DL BE fare will go any lower than what you're seeing currently.

It's really a personal decision, but I'd go with VS if there's a $1000pp difference (and it sounds like there are 2 of you). That $2000 could go a long way toward your other trip costs. We were quite content with PE for the 10 hour flight to/from LAX and would do it again. If the distance was longer, I might say otherwise.

Following that same line of logic though, I suppose someone else might say just book economy and possibly have another extra $2000 to spend in Italy.

I'll have to talk it over with all other interested parties (my husband), but I think I'm still leaning toward VS when all is said and done. I was just so miserable in coach last year, I'd love to have just a smidge more space. Of course, once you go down that path, you can never go back to cattle call...

I think the biggest part for me is the N/S LAS - LGW. Late November weather can be so touchy in other parts of the US- I'd hate to get stuck on the way.

So if we go this route, I'm still stuck with the LGW - Italy dilemma. Right now, it looks like all flights to Italy have around a 5 hour layover. Is that long enough to take a chance on separate tickets?

<Of course, once you go down that path, you can never go back to cattle call...>

Tell me about it! Just remember going down this path will make all of your future trips more costly too

Have you checked with VS to see if they can ticket you to your destination in Italy with BA? I know you can't do it online and there aren't any third party booking sites that I know of that are capable of pricing PE, but they may be able to do it over the phone.

If you don't have a choice, I think 5 hours is enough of a layover to be safe, although nothing is ever guaranteed.

Thanks as always for all your input! After talking with my other half, I'm pretty sure we're going VS PE, unless there's an airfare deal that's unbelievable. I have some time to sit and wait, so I think I'll do that for now.

I'll definitely call VS and see what they suggest for hopping down to Italy. If all else fails, we'll have to book seperate tickets on BA. I tried the Expedia trick and I can get open jaw flights reasonably priced for BA out of LWG. As for missing the connection, if we don't make it to LGW, we'll have bigger problems than missing our connecting flight...

Thanks again for helping me with my brainstorming (especially Patty - you're great!). I can always count on you wonderful Fodorites to help. Hopefully someday (soon) I'll have something to contribute on the airline board!

my husband and I just did BA PE to london and then switched to TAP air portugal flight to Porto - the second ticket was an expedia purchased ticket - the first was directly from BA - we had a 5 hour lay over at Heathrow (to do the flight all on BA we would have had to transfer to Gatwick and this seemed like to much after a trans atlantic flight) -
Nothing went wrong - in fact the worst part was the lenght of the lay over - we had to much time and terminal 2 was very hot and we were so tired -
It took us about 1 1/2 hours to get through immigration - collect our luggage and get from terminal 4 to 2 (this took about 45 mins of the 1 1/2 hours)- so yes, things can go horribly wrong - but 5 hours is a lot of time.

Thanks for the insight, wsm2004. I'm glad to hear the 2 ticket system can work, too. I dislike long layovers, but with Gatwick, it seems like it's my only option. I can't imagine switching airports either, although we would have more options out of Heathrow.

What did you think of BA PE?

As an update for those who are interested, I called Virgin to see if they could book me a through ticket to any point in Italy. Unfortunately, none of their partner airlines (BMI, Continental, etc.) fly Gatwick to Italy either, so we're still stuck with a 2nd ticket set.

We looked into BMI LAS-MAN, but their nonstop flights are only on days that won't work for us. I am going to keep them in mind for the future, though. Their prices were comprable to others and the direct flight would be great. (Thanks Gardyloo for that idea).

So... In the end, I think we're going to stick with VS LAS-LGW and hop on EasyJet or BA down to Italy. Hopefully we can keep our luggage under EasyJet's restrictions!

You can book VS LAS-LGW, and then BA LGW-Italy on the same itinerary on orbitz.com, which will protect you if you miss the connection.

However, I don't know how you can specify Premium Economy using Orbitz.

rkkwan,
Thanks for the idea, but you can't book PE on Orbitz or Expedia. Plus, I want to book PE on the VS flight, but the jump from LGW to Italy can be in coach, since it's a short flight.

If we booked through a TA on 2 different airlines, would be covered if something happened? I hadn't really considered that because this is kind of an easy itinerary.

Yes, I think a travel agent can book them together on the same itinerary. You'll pay $5-10 these days for the service, but it is worth the insurance, in my opinion. While 5 hours is plenty of time in normal circumstance, delays and mechanical problems do happen.