My day comparing British Airways domestic with Virgin Atlantic’s new Little Red

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• Stephen says:

  20 Jun20 June 07:46

  Your report contains a number of inaccuracies, for example if you are VS FC Gold you can use the Serviceair lounge at Heathrow T1 and also if you’re connecting from a VS Upper Class flight, you can prerequest seating (must have been a web issue or you didn’t notice on the website), and VS gives you 1 tier point per sector. Secondly you’re comparing VS Flying Club Silver with BA Exec Club Silver, they are not comparable, VS Silver is comparable to BA Bronze, aka no lounge access with both. If you made this more sensible comparison you’d arrive at some different statements. All in though a useful comparison.

  • Rob says:

    20 Jun20 June 08:15

    Thanks Stephen. It is still a rarity that I step on a VS flight so please forgive errors. I have corrected the Servisair comment, but as you know the lounge is still a dump and totally unworthy of Golds!

    I know you can do reserved seating if you connect from a UC flight – I mentioned the 6 rows held back for UC’s and Golds – but this was really a review of the point to point services.

    And, as I said at the start, you would get a totally different review for any combo of Virgin and BA cards. A BA Gold who is also a VS Gold, for eg, would still take BA up because they would get into Galleries First. (And a BA Silver with VS Gold would still take Galleries Club to Servisair. Actually, a BA Blue with VS Gold would still be better off in Terminal 5, with no lounge access, than Terminal 1 with Servisair access!)

    • Stephen says:

      20 Jun20 June 09:33

      Thanks for the reply – my writing wasn’t so clear, you can use the Servisair lounge if you are connecting from a UC flight or a FC Gold. Seat requests are open to all ticketed passengers – there is no fee unlike BA.

      Yes I agree, the Servisair lounge is not somewhere I’d choose if there were a choice, but then I don’t look forward to galleries at LHR or LGW either. As I am sure you’d agree, these are all relative statements because I am most used to the Virgin Clubhouse at T3. Now if you’re VS FC Gold which equates to BA EC Silver, you get to use the Clubhouse whereas with BA you just get Galleries. IMO there is no comparison, Galleries suck ;-). Comparing BA Gold to VS Gold is a misnomer, you need much more flying for the former. But, I do agree, without status or with status T5 beats T1 hands down, although of course that will change when Little Red moves to T2.

      But as you say it’s a review of point to point services and the only important thing for me on such a short trip is punctuality. VS Little Red by reports I’ve read seem to do much better than BA here, particularly as BA is known to cancel domestics when it suits them.

      • Rob says:

        20 Jun20 June 09:50

        I have corrected the tier point typo!

        Punctuality is an issue. My BA flight was late because the plane came from Spain and was delayed by the French ATC strike. That is not an issue if the same plane is just doing domestics.

        That said, of course, BA has a lot more frequencies so even if the odd one gets cancelled they are still more regular – to Manchester – than Virgin!

        Not sure it is fair to compare VS Gold to BA Silver. Bottom line is that BA has 2 tiers which give you lounge access, whilst Virgin only has 1. Whether or not one is easier to earn than the other depends on your flight pattern – remember that BA really kicked up the tier points earned on Asia routes recently. Even 1.5 return flights on the New York flight from City gives you Silver.

        And OneWorld Sapphire (BA Silver equivalent) is free with Amex Platinum at the moment via the Cathay Pacific Gold comp.

        You could rewrite this review based on different combinations of status with BA and VS and come up with different conclusions.

        I also intend to do it again when Terminal 2 at Heathrow opens, to see what the experience is like then.

        • Stephen says:

          20 Jun20 June 10:54

          Look forward to the comparison when T2 opens.

          On the comparison I think it is fair. Status on both is earned by tier points flown and that’s the framework for my comparison:

          Flying Club Gold requires 40 TPs
          Executive Club Silver requires 600 TPs

          Four Virgin UC returns to New York = 40 to 48 points depending on fare class and therefore Gold status.
          Four BA Club World returns to New York = 560 tier points so just shy, one domestic return tops it up for Silver status.
          For BA Gold you need the equivalent of eleven Club World returns to New York so nearly three times the qualifying for VS Gold.

          Now of course, on domestic as per your article, this doesn’t matter much.

        • Rob says:

          20 Jun20 June 11:12

          Club World to NYC is 140 points each way, so Gold is 6 returns. (Or 3.5 if you take the City service as that gives you First Class tier points even though it is a business class service.)

          The reason Virgin doesn’t give lounge access to Silvers is purely, I think, to avoid massively diluting the Clubhouse atmosphere or having to build another lounge.

• Andy says:

  20 Jun20 June 08:05

  Very good review Raffles.

• James Ward says:

  20 Jun20 June 08:15

  I was particularly interested in your comment about their obligation to operate the flights for three years or lose the slots. BA recently reinstated their flights from LBA-LHR, using ex-BMI slots. These flights are operating with virtually no passengers. BA’s response? They cancel these flights with the excuse “bad weather” as soon as a cloud forms over Leeds. Last time I flew with them, they cancelled both the afternoon and the evening flights, put all the passengers up overnight (if they didn’t fancy a bus from MAN to LBA) and put us all on the morning flight next day. Even so, there were only seven passengers on board. When questioned, the crew said the previous day’s cancellations were “tactical”. Of course, this will be a self-fulfilling. Nobody’s going to book a flight with connections if they can’t rely on their in-bound from LBA will operate. I wonder if the same thing will start to happen to the Little Red service?

• Jens Moller says:

  20 Jun20 June 08:15

  Excellent review – good to see some hard fieldwork:-)

  • Rob says:

    20 Jun20 June 08:17

    All tax deductible as well!

• Rob says:

  20 Jun20 June 08:17

  Corrected. But I’d be embarrassed to send VS Golds to Servisair if I was them!

• E14 says:

  20 Jun20 June 08:44

  How about a cost comparison, for rev and red tickets ? Especially as on BA Man can be the free domestic addon to a non UK RFS

  • Rob says:

    20 Jun20 June 08:50

    Felt it was unfair to compare prices as they move around so much. I also haven’t marked down VS for having fewer daily rotations than BA, because it all depends on whether the 3 VS timings work for you or not.

    Whilst I could have done the BA leg for free by tagging it on to another European redemption, at the same VS is a cheaper redemption than BA – 7,500 miles vs 9,000, with similar taxes.

  • signol says:

    20 Jun20 June 08:57

    As a standalone reward ticket, VS charge 3750 miles + £15 tax. BA charge 4500 miles plus £20 (or free for a connection).

    • Rob says:

      20 Jun20 June 09:32

      Although the VS cancellation policy isn’t great!

• Jim says:

  20 Jun20 June 08:58

  I don’t know why you couldn’t pre-select a seat on the Little Red when booking… as this is a benefit for ALL pax when flying on Virgin or Little Red. Yes, the dront and exit rows are held back, but apart from that all pax can select a seat. NOT just status. This is an area where Vs beats BA easily.
  Sorry mate, but your analysis contains so many inaccuracies, it makes you look like an amateur..

  • Rob says:

    20 Jun20 June 09:34

    BA let me select an EXIT ROW seat because I was Silver, whilst Virgin did not.

    I didn’t say that Virgin did not let me select a seat at all! I could select one at check in. I was not, however, allowed to do so when I booked. If this was a technical issue at the time I booked then there was no way I could know that. (I have added a line to reflect this.)

    Total innacuracies so far = 1, I think (Gold cards do get VS lounge access at Heathrow!)

    (2 if you include the typo on tier points earned on VS, but the ‘2.5 per cent of Gold’ bit is right.)

• Neil says:

  20 Jun20 June 09:41

  The VS flights to and from EDI were almost full the other week, this is quite a busy route though and BA often run larger planes than A320s. So I think Virgin will have no problem with that route. A lot of American PAX were enjoying a easy connection to Edinburgh.

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