Lufthansa introduces Premium Economy, 20 years after Virgin Atlantic

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• Anon says:

  15 Mar15 March 06:53

  Virgin’s PE product is good, esp. for £374 +25k miles rtn to Orlando (Econ miles seat sale + Virgin Amex upgrade reward) and you’re right if they did lounge access for £25 for PE customers it would prove incredibly popular.

  Wonder what UC pax would think of that tho…! 🙂

• Zoe says:

  15 Mar15 March 06:56

  Agree with Raffles about the upgrades. We had 4 redemption premium economy seats home from Barbados at the end of October half term, by the time we boarded 3 of us were upgraded. My teenaged daughter would have been left in premium economy but I took the seat to prevent hassle. It was front row and fine. My older daughter swapped for some of the journey and naturally it feels rubbish if you move there from Club World.

• Charlie says:

  15 Mar15 March 07:39

  I have 2 similar experiences with upgrades from PE to Upper on Virgin. One was an automatic upgrade from Hong Kong to London, the other was upgrades for sale at the check in desk in Miami, just 3000 miles, this was last year and on a redemption booking. Unfortunately there were 2 of us and they only had 1 remaining seat so we declined, then changed our mind for my wife to take it only to find it snapped up. Lesson learnt is to always turn up early for PE!

  I have had enough of saving up miles to fly PE as I think with Raffles help Business Class should be attainable!

• Paul says:

  15 Mar15 March 07:43

  I too have never flown PE with anyone. Always struck me as a product that offered little for a lot more money. When I have been on board BA or QF the cabins always look cramped and chaotic and impossible to clearly see the differentiation between PE and economy.
  The LH seat look robust and more along the lines of an old style cradle seat. This would be a minimum for me to buy such a product.
  I am also struck by how difficult all airlines make buying split cabin products. A decent PE on a day time JFK might be attractive when combined with a flat bed on the overnight return.

  • Mark says:

    15 Mar15 March 09:59

    It is quite easy buying split cabin itineries online with BA these days, both with cash and avios redemptions as it shows three classes side by side (Y/W/J or W/J/F depending on the requested booking class) when displaying flight options and you mix and match.

    Mixing Y and F is probably still difficult, but relatively unlikely that most people would want that unless scratching around for any redemption availability.

• Maximus says:

  15 Mar15 March 08:02

  Allowing lounge access would be great if i were flying PE BUT in a busy hub, with several long haul flights all with PE cabins, it would not take much to overload the business lounge. I suspect this would prove detrimental to the main benefit of lounge access for business customers- a relaxing, quiet haven away from the throng of the airport.

  A fee of £25/€25 would not cover the cost of drinks, food and a spa treatment in the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class lounge (although it may cover the poorer range of offerings in a BA Terraces lounge though!).

• John says:

  15 Mar15 March 08:39

  Never flown PE, keep getting CW opup even though I am BA Blue!

  (It helps that I tend to fly when lots of boarding school / university students are travelling to Asia)

• Rich. S says:

  15 Mar15 March 08:46

  Buying a BA “T” class premium economy ticket can be a bargain. The new premium economy on BA is very good , too. It is good to see Lufthansa offering a pe product.
  BA lounges are already too busy to allow entry to Pe customers IMHO, and if there is a charge then why not use a pay lounge at the airport? ( I accept there isn’t one at T5)

• Edd M says:

  15 Mar15 March 09:02

  Although I’m a BA fan, my experience is that Virgin’s Prem Ec is light-years ahead.

  I’d be happy in a Virgin Prem Ec cabin for flights of almost any duration – it’s a significant step up from the Economy cabin – with much better recline, much better food, and better service, with Biz check-in even without status.

  Although the more modern BA planes might be better, the only real benefit to WTP+ is the possibility of being upgraded, and a bit more leg room. There’s little differentiation from true economy – especially in the inbound second meal from the US, the infamous ‘muffin or nothin'” – just a bit rude when a ticket costs a few hundred quid more each way. Would a packaged sandwich or roll really kill them?

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