Virgin Business Class Lottery - Pay for Business, get Premium Economy! Now 0 for 2.

[Moopere]

Re: Virgin Business Class Lottery - Pay for Business, get Premium Economy! Now 0 for

As for the free Amex flight on DJ, I give that away now.
In fairness I (and Mrs GPH) have decided that we would rather fly less but do it in J (or better if available) .

This was going to be a problem for me too. 2x "free" DJ flights and not knowing what to do with them .. give them to family/friends? A real possibility. However, with only a little bit of patience you can turn these into J class upgrades. The route is a bit circuitous, but most people who frequent these forums would be ok with it I think. Look for some recent posts on this subject.

 

[Deleted member]

I’ve never done it in that order… I didn’t realise that was possible

Ha ha. Very good.

 

[Deleted member]

This was going to be a problem for me too. 2x "free" DJ flights and not knowing what to do with them .. give them to family/friends? A real possibility. However, with only a little bit of patience you can turn these into J class upgrades. The route is a bit circuitous, but most people who frequent these forums would be ok with it I think. Look for some recent posts on this subject.

I don't wish to infer anything about those who choose to fly DJ, I don't ( at this stage) care for them,
Not sure how I would turn them ( amex free flights) into J upgrades ( except with cash) as I don't have status or points of any value , and as this thread is dealing with the lack of J options on some planes, probably not a great idea.

 

[danielt25]

Boeing 737-700 business class??

hi, can anyone comment on Virgin's boeing 737-700 aircraft and business class, according to an article in australian business traveller (Australian Business Traveller - Unbiased business travel news, reviews and advice. Your essential resource for flights, airports, hotels and frequent flyer rewards) back in February apparently 737-700 aircraft were not being sold as business class, rather simply economy.

have the seats been upgraded or do you just get a business class meal and that's it?t

thanks
(am thinking of taking the Cairns -> Brisbane 20:00pm flight on a sunday which states 737-700 as the aircraft)

 

[Bolthead]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

I believe that 737-700 don't have any business class offering including meals. If you want to guarantee J then I would find a 737-800 flight. I recently flew Launceston Sydney on a 737-700 and it was the old config and I was in row 1. No premium service, (or wider seats) no business class. (I am Plat) so I guess that is how I got row 1 but no extra service. I also believe the the 737-700 are being phased out. (there are other threads that mention this)

I am happy to be corrected.

 

[serfty]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

Bad news - see this thread: <now merged>

I have been caught up in this for Friday - booked "Premium" last year - that at least guaranteed a convertible seat extra width seat, but they don't even do that any more.

Still waiting for my 'phone call and offer of compensation. :evil:

 

[eastwest101]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

danielt25 - as others have said - take a good look through their linked threads as its been discussed a lot. I would simply add that if you want real J class and are paying real money for it book a B737-800 for CNS-BNE. If you do end up on a VA B737-700 or an E190 you are effectively getting an old PE product. If the ticketed prices are priced at PE prices and you are happy with PE then OK - if its priced at J class prices and delivering PE product then its not OK.

 

[Fruitcake]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

To each their own, but if you want the same business meal as you get on the 737-800 and an extra seat and tray table to call your own, then the E190 also has its benefits.

 

[eastwest101]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

To each their own, but if you want the same business meal as you get on the 737-800 and an extra seat and tray table to call your own, then the E190 also has its benefits.

I think the OP had a 8pm flight out of CNS so would miss the meal. But I was interested to hear your comments - are VA reliably getting J class meals out at the correct meal times on their E190's now? Or is it still a bit of a lottery?

I agree than for Y the E190 id great, and once they put in a proper 1-2 J class seating then the E190 could be the pick of the fleet in J class (except for the new A330 J class).

 

[MarkD]

I was on a 700 last week in row 2 saver fare, row 1 had the old PE tray setup, but they just had the usual y service. As a side note, the seats were recovered grey in the first 3? Rows and were as hard as nails, felt like sitting on the old wooden team seats, and my bum has plenty of padding


Excuse the typos, this was sent from my iPhone using Fat fingers

 

[Fruitcake]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

I've never "lost the lottery" with regards to catering - probably makes me one of the luckier ones on here but I'm a leisure flyer so I'm not out there every week which probably helps. My father has done J ex-CNS on the E190s about four times and although he didn't give specifics he said catering was what he expected. I've only done E190 J once, but received a similar standard meal to what I've had in my 737-800 J experiences.

For the OP, if the aircraft is timetabled as a 737-700 you won't be able to book J anyway. Or do you hold an "old" (ie pre-February) J booking on the flight? In that case you might want to call DJ to get the ball rolling on either another flight that suits you, or negotiate with them on your "compensation".

 

[medhead]

I was on a 700 last week in row 2 saver fare, row 1 had the old PE tray setup, but they just had the usual y service. As a side note, the seats were recovered grey in the first 3? Rows and were as hard as nails, felt like sitting on the old wooden team seats, and my bum has plenty of padding

Just got off VH-VBK. It had the grey seats in the first 2 rows only. Also LTA, which was put to good use watch the state of origin game. Queenslander.


Sent from the Throne

 

[Fruitcake]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

Just got off VH-VBK. It had the grey seats in the first 2 rows only. Also LTA, which was put to good use watch the state of origin game. Queenslander.

Given the game finished 11.5 hours ago, you must have been on a 737-700ER?

 

[serfty]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

Bad news - see this thread: <now merged>

I have been caught up in this for Friday - booked "Premium" last year - that at least guaranteed a convertible seat extra width seat, but they don't even do that any more.

Still waiting for my 'phone call and offer of compensation. :evil:

Well I received my call; offered other options but either to early or too late. Told I will be contacted in the next 7 days to discuss compensation.

... and no, they could not arrange the blocking of the E seat.

Look like I will need to discuss at the airport.

<PS Merged Threads>

 

[MarkD]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

Row one the other day definately had the divider in the 700 I was on. Both sides were in. Cant say whether its common or not, as its the first-700 I have been on in years

Well I received my call; offered other options but either to early or too late. Told I will be contacted in the next 7 days to discuss compensation.

... and no, they could not arrange the blocking of the E seat.

Look like I will need to discuss at the airport.

<PS Merged Threads>

 

[dandandan]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

Third picture down is what they should do with the remaining 700's

Planes booming, but will they crash?

Row one the other day definately had the divider in the 700 I was on. Both sides were in. Cant say whether its common or not, as its the first-700 I have been on in years

 

[lovestotravel]

Re: Boeing 737-700 business class??

Third picture down is what they should do with the remaining 700's

Planes booming, but will they crash?

LOL but keep the IFE, since it seems they don't want to spend any money on anything besides WiFI and use 4 screens to make one for J class

 

[Undercover Brother]

Re: Virgin Business Class Lottery - now 0 for 2. Pay for Business, get Premium Econom

Some good customer service today from the Velocity Platinum desk regarding this issue.

+1 and I are booked Per-Syd-Bne in the next week or so, with the new A330 Per-Syd and then 737 back to Bne
I booked flexi's and used 2 of my free platinum upgrades for the leg. Upon checking the seat map today, it is a 737-700 travelling Syd-Bne. Called up velocity to see what options were available, couldn't change to an earlier 737-800 flight due to the booking being "1 leg". Told the lady to leave it as is, and that I was happy to arrive at Sydney and use "Fly-ahead" to get the earlier 737-800 flight (there was time in the connection), everyone is happy.

Received a phone call back within 2-3 minutes and the consultant advised that due to the 737-700 they would re-instate my 2 free platinum upgrades used, with no change to the existing booking! Very impressed for the pro-active follow-up. Cheers Velocity.

 

[eastwest101]

Re: Virgin Business Class Lottery - now 0 for 2. Pay for Business, get Premium Econom

Received a phone call back within 2-3 minutes and the consultant advised that due to the 737-700 they would re-instate my 2 free platinum upgrades used, with no change to the existing booking! Very impressed for the pro-active follow-up. Cheers Velocity.

Agree - that is good service, it is nice when customer service is pro-active rather than reactive.

Regarding the comments about the scrapping of B737-700's - dosen't that say a lot about the disposable nature of airliners now? I guess they were high cycle frames but being more valuable as spare parts rather than operating airliners was interesting.

 

[Moopere]

Re: Virgin Business Class Lottery - now 0 for 2. Pay for Business, get Premium Econom

Called up velocity to see what options were available, couldn't change to an earlier 737-800 flight due to the booking being "1 leg".

Mmm. Sounds artificial. This would be to do with you having 4 'legs' or sectors worth of upgrades and only having to use one to go PER-SYD-BNE.

Received a phone call back within 2-3 minutes and the consultant advised that due to the 737-700 they would re-instate my 2 free platinum upgrades used, with no change to the existing booking! Very impressed for the pro-active follow-up. Cheers Velocity.

Great to see a decent result, but, I'd still be annoyed. Heres why: I book business class because I want business class, not a 'chance' at business class. I didn't change the contract of sale, VA did that, its incumbent upon them, in my view, to make good, and simply applying a 'break even' type compensation is not really good enough for me to feel well done by.

Why couldn't they move you to an earlier or later flight, on a 738, break the booking into 2 sectors if they really felt that they must (and I don't really buy this excuse), but then fling you a free upgrade sector ... which is essentially what they have done anyway. They've already broken the flight into an upgrade sector and a non upgrade sector and refunded your 'free upgrade'.

I don't really think they've done the best they could by meeting you half way on a product you don't want. Would you have paid the flexi price for the SYD-BNE leg if you didn't want to upgrade to J? I certainly wouldn't have ... I'd have booked a Saver. I reckon they owe you some money as well as the upgrade voucher.