brt8452

Hi,
I am planning our first trip to London for this Nov. My husband, myself and 12 yr old daughter. I want to make sure the trip is special, can't afford business, but trying to find differeces between carriers and classes.
BA vs. Virgin- premium air vs. ecomomy.
BA premium is appx 300.00 less than Virgin.
premium vs coach is appx 400.00 per person.
Will be flying from Chicago, Virgin will be starting service in April, maybe they have specials or try to have extra special service ? Looks like airbus for travel,now.
Not sure what BA is.
I've seen a few reviews on other forums and I am very confused. Just joined this forum hoping for some good input.

Thanks

ira

Hi B,

If you go to BA and Virgin's websites, you can determine what kind of plane you will be on.

www.seatguru.com will tell you about what to expect.

$400 pp is a lot of money for a very teeny, weeny hotel room .


"Fly cheap, sleep cheap, eat well" is my motto.

Jed

We have a trip coming up, and have a similar dilema.

To further ira's advice, go to http://www.seatguru.com/charts/premium_economy.php for a good discussion.

All the PE seats on Virgin and BA are 38", vs the usual 32-31". Virgin's seats are wider than BA.

Sorry I can't help further.

Dukey

Is Virgin by chance telling you that their PE seats have "leg rests?" reason I ask is we flew on Virgin PE two years ago and those "leg rests" turned out to be foot rests only.

The FA's were rather stingy with the "pre-flight" drink which turned out to be either a mimosa or a mimosa..and please, do NOT ask for a second one!

The food in PE is generally the same as in regular Economy on both airlines. This past September we flew Economy to London on BA and because we took the daytime flight we practically had the entire cabin to ourselves whereas PE was full..so WE had a LOT more room. I noticed that BA PE folks got offered a newspaper prior to take-off and got the same food we did.

I have always thought that Virgina entertainment system is one of the best in the air.

Looking at things on seatguru is an excellent recommendation IMO.

travelhorizons

There are now some discount all-business class airlines flying to London... for instance, MaxJet. Their website doesn't go out that far, but they've posted some pretty amazing fares. You'd have to go through JFK. (Also, check out Ios and Silverjet).

MorganB

Well between regular econ and premium you have to ask yourself, are you uncomfortable in regular? I personally am and would do anything not to fly coach. So for a bit more i would go for premium. I doubt if Virgin premium is worth 300 more than BA World Traveler Plus however. Virgin does look a bit nicer but I have no experience with them.

historytraveler

I haven't flown Virgin for several years so can't help you there. I did uprade to premium on BA once. IMO it simply wasn't worth it. The food the same,as Dukey said, and not much difference in seat size & leg room (from economy).If you want a noticable difference you'll need to upgrade to Business Class. Personally I'd save the difference and spent it on the trip.

Try seatguru as suggested.

MorganB

Well there is one less seat across in World Traveler Plus and you have about 6 inches more leg room which to me is nothing too sneeze at IMHO. Its certainly not business however.

xxxx

Haven't flown on Virgin.

Regarding BA PE seats....the extra legroom is a noticable difference. However, the seats are not much, if any, wider.

brt8452

Hi all,
Thanks very much for your input.
I will look at seat guru for more infor.
I believe BA has a daytime flight, do you think that that flight is booked less than the pm flights? Also, do you think I should be patient and wait closer to travel time (Nov) to book?
Any suggstions on hotel? $200-300 in good central location?

Thanks again.

MorganB

For BA, WT+ prices will only go up as you wait.