Review: Virgin Atlantic Upper Class on the A330 fleet

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• Paul says:

  26 Jun26 June 05:20

  What compensation was paid?

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

    26 Jun26 June 05:32

    It should be €300, right? Half of the €600 for a type 3 flight.

    • Genghis says:

      26 Jun26 June 05:45

      Are you sure EC261 applies?

      • Genghis says:

        26 Jun26 June 05:46

        Or that it doesn’t apply but that’s a method to work out the compo?

        • Erico1875 says:

          26 Jun26 June 06:16

          If the other flight was full and took off. then surely Rob was bumped and due the €600.

        • James A says:

          26 Jun26 June 06:41

          I actually agree, if there was no email or other attempt to contact then surely it is a case of IDB at the airport and 261 applies.

      • Genghis says:

        26 Jun26 June 07:00

        Apologies Klaus Peter. I’m no EC261 expert but it appears you’re right, assuming Rob wasn’t delayed by more than 4 hours in which case full amount due. CWS’s FT page is invaluable.

        • Rob says:

          26 Jun26 June 08:45

          No compensation due as far as I can tell.

          For a start, I could have been moved prior to 14 days before departure – as I never got an email, I can’t tell. And I wasn’t 3 hours late, only 2 hours.

        • Frankie says:

          26 Jun26 June 09:24

          Hello Genghis. What is CWS’s FT page?

        • Jovanna says:

          26 Jun26 June 09:54

          Surely My Flights would have notified you at some point if you were bumped 14 days ago? You would have received some sort of notification alerting you – unless it was when you went to check in?

        • Rob says:

          26 Jun26 June 10:08

          Virgin does not use Amadeus as its booking system, so it doesn’t work with MyFlight frustratingly.

        • Genghis says:

          26 Jun26 June 09:55

          @Frankie http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1812051-2017-ba-compensation-thread-your-guide-regulation-261-2004-a.html

        • 1nfrequent says:

          26 Jun26 June 12:14

          I agree with Genghis – this has to be worth a punt, Rob, for an IDB given that the original flight left without you. The onus is on Virgin to confirm when they notified you of the change to your flight and if they can’t demonstrate that they made reasonable attempts to contact you.

          1F

        • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

          26 Jun26 June 12:23

          You should still get €300 unless they can prove they informed you fourteen days before. My BA flight to Munich was cancelled a year ago and I had to get an earlier one, so I landed earlier than scheduled. I still get €125 compensation for IDB (50% of €250).

• James A says:

  26 Jun26 June 06:01

  I flew the old config A330 for the first time last week and was not impressed. The narrow seat was particularly noticeable in bed mode, where when laying on my back my shoulders were wedged in against both sides of the plastic dividers. I am not tall enough to suffer the foot problem though 😉

  Needless to say I didn’t get a restful nights sleep.

• Jason Hindle says:

  26 Jun26 June 06:30

  Out of interest, was this flight a redemption or cold, hard cash? Rightly or wrongly, I always feel a little vulnerable having paid miles for a seat in premium cabin. I worry I could get bumped to the back in favour of a paying passenger, ruining either the start or end of my holiday.

  • Jane says:

    26 Jun26 June 07:52

    They are just flights. It is public transport. It is inconvenient if bumped or things don’t work out entirely according to plan, but to ‘worry’ about a redemption flight being bumped or have it ‘ruin’ the start or end of tour holiday is just plain silly!!

    • Lili says:

      26 Jun26 June 08:00

      It is not silly. Some of us work on extremely tight schedules when we travel, and we take an overnight flight to save time. If I get bumped there is no chance I’ll sleep, just cannot do this in economy. That means that on arrival I’ve lost a night and I’m arriving absolutely knackered, it will take me time to recover. It is time that I do NOT have if I have to hit the road straight after arriving. It’s not just inconvenient, it’s dangerous to drive on heavy sleep deprivation.
      Maybe you go on “lie on the beach” travel in which case possibly it isn’t such a big deal but don’t assume that all people travel like you do.

      • bill says:

        26 Jun26 June 08:21

        How can I like this comment 🙂

      • Leo says:

        26 Jun26 June 08:27

        To be fair to Jane she is explicitly talking about holidays not business travel or life and death situations.

        • Rob says:

          26 Jun26 June 08:45

          It was a redemption (obviously 🙂 )

        • Lady London says:

          26 Jun26 June 12:57

          +1. You could have put it stronger Lili. And yes it is a life or death situation if on landing after a night like that you are going to get in a car and drive especially in unfamilar territory.

          BMI tried to do just that to me – luckily a number of weeks before the flight and I was immediately able to check that they were, indeed, still selling seats on the earlier flight they’d emailed me “Your flight is cancelled and you’re being moved to flight 3 hours later”.

          When I confronted them they moved me back. But in Rob’s case I agree with other poster IDB is the way to go. It’s clearly pants that they tried to alert you and in any case if they tried right before the flight how could they be sure you would receive.

      • Mzungu says:

        26 Jun26 June 17:43

        Another +1 from me.

        The travel policy in a company that I used to work for stated that if you flew overnight in business, you were expected to work the day you arrived. If it was overnight in economy, you were entitled to the next day off to recover – which was of course a waste of the travellers time as well as theirs!

    • Phew says:

      26 Jun26 June 15:06

      Jane, I’m glad you’re not my partner!

• Bill says:

  26 Jun26 June 06:54

  Kept reading waiting for the compensation details to emerge. Don’t let us down Rob spill the goss.

• Paul says:

  26 Jun26 June 07:20

  I would go further. Airlines should be mandated to make automatic payments to the original form of payment. There should be an independent ombudsman for delays/situations that are in doubt and clear publication of those flights which are entitled to compensation and those which are not. It’s not good enough today to have to claim

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    26 Jun26 June 08:25

    I recently got a partial refund from Virgin Trains paid to me automatically within 72hrs of a delay and a polite email notifying me of such. I didnt even know I was entitled.

    Shows what can be done if there is the will to do so, but the amounts for airlines are so much larger I cannot see them instigating unless forced to do so.

  • Lostantipod says:

    26 Jun26 June 09:19

    Which magazine is running a campaign on automatic payments – worth adding our voices to that

    • Chris says:

      26 Jun26 June 22:43

      Why do lazy people need helping at the expense of those that can be bothered?

  • Chris says:

    26 Jun26 June 22:38

    No thank you.

    When my company or my client pays for my ticket and I’m delayed, it’s not their child I don’t get to see before bedtime.

    When I’m delayed, it’s my personal time that’s used to absorb it. Why should my employer/client be compensated for that?

• Alan says:

  26 Jun26 June 07:44

  Totally agree with how uncomfortable that seat is, Rob. On my recent flight back from Boston to Manchester I was expecting a refitted A330 and was surprised to find a 1-2-1 layout. Although eco and prem eco were half empty, upper class was rammed, so I wonder if they’d changed the plane to accommodate more folk (when selecting my seat it was a 1-1-1 layout). I found it an incredibly uncomfortable sleep, feeling really hemmed in at the top, with hardly any room to turn over. Quite disappointing and not helped by a quick eastbound flight time either. I’d definitely pick BA CW over this configuration.

• Chris P says:

  26 Jun26 June 07:55

  My recent Manchester – Boston flight was also shown as 1-1-1 but 1-2-1 on the return from New York. In fact, it was actually the same plane both ways with 1-2-1. My other gripe is being a compulsive cloud-gazer I don’t like the seat being angled away from the window and getting a stiff neck trying to look out whilst having to twist backwards!

• DaveM says:

  26 Jun26 June 07:58

  Why would you publish an article like this headlining on a major travel website just to have a rant? The configuration is poor but you know it, they know it. Must be a slow news day

  • Alan says:

    26 Jun26 June 08:02

    The article seems like fair comment to me. Given the bashing the BA seat gets I think it’s helpful to see how uncomfortable some of the alternatives can be.

  • LB says:

    26 Jun26 June 08:24

    Miaow…

    • Rob says:

      26 Jun26 June 08:48

      ….. because I never actually realised how bad the A330 was until last week, so I thought it was worth an article to inform others.

      I wouldn’t have written it if it had been an airline readers were unlikely to fly.

      • Lostantipod says:

        26 Jun26 June 09:23

        The old Cathay Pacific herringbone config seems identical, I am surprised anyone is still flying these. I had exactly the same issues with length and width and luckily it was only a short day flight between HKG and SIN – I too avoided it going forward. More to the point, you were bumped without discussion; that’s a trick straight out of the BA playbook and I am disappointed to hear Virgin seem to be doing it too.

      • Jay says:

        26 Jun26 June 10:42

        Totally concur with Rob. I generally fly to Dubai for work with Virgin in PE but was bumped up recently to UC in the A330 they fly there and was very uncomfortable. Not as tall as Rob and still very cramped. That experience certainly deterred me from wanting to travel in UC on the A330 again way it is currently laid out so good article to bring to attention of wider audience.

  • Eastland says:

    26 Jun26 June 11:31

    I had no idea this was an issue having never (yet) flown virgin and being a big fan of BA First (when it’s free).
    Helpful article for me.

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