Virgin FF'ers experience on Qantas

[oz_mark]

I would be interested in those views.

I recently had a chance to experience both Virgin and Qantas on the SYD-BNE route,I flew Sydney-Brisbane on Virgin and returned a week later on Qantas,
if my views are of interest to anyone here I am happy to do a post similar to the OP's.
Cheers
N'oz

 

[Mal]

Sorry, the difference is that Virgin gave up their great marketing edge (Premium and Foxtel) to become the same as Qantas.

Good point, however I still think DJ are getting better and better by the day. Some staff are there, some staff aren't, hopefully things will tip back into DJ's favour in the future.

 

[Nigelinoz]

I would be interested in those views.

OK,I will write a short summary of both my Virgin and Qantas flights and post it in the next day or so.
Cheers
N'oz

 

[33rpm]

My impression is that more often than not, there are posts with complaints regarding Qantas product, planes, service etc etc. it is very interesting hearing an impression from a DJ flyer taking a QF flight and reporting on the differences. My personal experience when the overall packages are compared is that there are not striking differences between QF and DJ when everything is taken into account. I am just grateful that we do not have service with attitude and insincerity plus old planes (eg MD80s and DC10s) etc that are not uncommon in the US. Intercontinental flights within Europe are not much better. We have relatively little to complain about.

 

[pshepvic]

My impression is that more often than not, there are posts with complaints regarding Qantas product, planes, service etc etc. it is very interesting hearing an impression from a DJ flyer taking a QF flight and reporting on the differences. My personal experience when the overall packages are compared is that there are not striking differences between QF and DJ when everything is taken into account. I am just grateful that we do not have service with attitude and insincerity plus old planes (eg MD80s and DC10s) etc that are not uncommon in the US. Intercontinental flights within Europe are not much better. We have relatively little to complain about.

Well said. I'll take any QF or DJ flight, even on their worst day, over a flight in the US on their best day (I exclude VX from that comment however).


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[Princess Fiona]

A little OT but if I may, I have been fairly impressed by VA as the competition at my home airport NTL is essentially JQ.
I took up the status match and am more than likely to retain it this year ( admittedly thanks to a mixture of Double SC's, family pooling and Credit Card).
I will still maintain my status on QF as the OW network works for me but I will ( hopefully) finally be able to never set foot inside a JQ aircraft again and for that I am truly grateful

 

[Daggs01]

My last experience on a QF flight was great, however the two thIngs that I'm entitled to as a SG with DJ is row 3 and priority boarding.

If I could have both of those with QF, id fly more.....

However I will be retaining My DJ SG status with 8 months to spare and may head back to the red roo, just to see if I can get to SG before the renewal date.

 

[medhead]

My last experience on a QF flight was great, however the two thIngs that I'm entitled to as a SG with DJ is row 3 and priority boarding.

If I could have both of those with QF, id fly more.....

However I will be retaining My DJ SG status with 8 months to spare and may head back to the red roo, just to see if I can get to SG before the renewal date.

You'll only get row 3 on QF if you pay for business seats.


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[nlagalle]

My last experience on a QF flight was great, however the two thIngs that I'm entitled to as a SG with DJ is row 3 and priority boarding.

If I could have both of those with QF, id fly more.....

However I will be retaining My DJ SG status with 8 months to spare and may head back to the red roo, just to see if I can get to SG before the renewal date.

Well row 3 would put you in J on QF! Mind you i used to snag row 4 quite a few times as a SG..

 

[drron]

As a dedicated one worlder Row 3 on VA sure beats row 4 on QF.3 out of 3 now in row 3 with an empty middle seat on DJ.Sure beats QF.However my major travel is OS in J.OW still wins here.

 

[samh004]

Mind you i used to snag row 4 quite a few times as a SG..

I’ve had it probably 90% of the time as SG, so I’m sure I wont get as lucky as a WP

 

[Nigelinoz]

Not sure if this belongs here - mods please move if required.

My Virgin and QF flights January 2012.

I recently spent a week in Brisbane and decided to split the travel from Sydney and Brisbane between Virgin and Qantas, here's a short summary of each journey.


DJ 943 Sydney to Brisbane,Friday January 20.
The flight was the 1:00PM service from Sydney to Brisbane and being a Friday I was expecting it to be fairly well booked and I wasn't wrong, in fact it was fully booked, I was a little surprised to see it being operated by an E190 but from speaking to the person next to me this flight is always an E jet, I had initially thought about booking J class but was put off by the high fare so I was glad I went Y, would not have been impressed to pay for J and get an E jet without proper J seats.

Anyway even though I wasn't travelling J, I observed that priority booking seemed to work well, Virgin seem to have perfected this and the boarding went smoothly, I had 23B. One thing I did notice was how tatty this particular plane was looking,the leather on the back of the seat in front of me was torn around the edges and the reading light above me didn't work, I guess the workload these planes have had over the last few years are taking their toll. Anyway the flight took off almost on time, pushback was at 1:04 and wheels up was at 1:11, not too bad considering it was lunch time on a Friday. I had already had lunch so did not bother ordering anything from the menu but my seat mate ordered the New Yorker sandwich and said it was very nice, it looked good too, probably fair value at $10:00. Complimentary coffee and tea were offered and I noticed that many passengers took up the offer.

The flight was smooth until we started our descent into Brisbane when the pilot announced that due to some bad weather we would be diverting right of track and there would be a short delay to our landing, we seemed to actually by pass Brisbane and then make a left turn and approach from the North, despite the pilots announcement that there may be a little turbulence I didn't notice anything too disturbing and we landed only 7 minutes late at 1:37 local time.

All in all it was an 'ordinary' flight-ordinary in the sense that it wasn't good but wasn't bad either,the crew seemed to enjoy their jobs and performed professionally. Generally an acceptable experience but I will be interested to see whether Virgin replace this flight with a 738 if they are planning to continue selling J on this service.


Flight 2 QF513 Brisbane to Sydney Friday January 27
This is the 8:25AM service and generally is fully booked and this was no exception, I checked out of the hotel early and arrived at the airport at 6:45, the early arrival gave me chance to try out the next generation check in system for the first time and I have to say I was impressed, I found it easy to use, swiped my ff card, printed boarding passes and bag tags and dropped my bag at the bag drop counter, all done without fuss and plenty of QF staff around to help if anyone needed it,so my view is that QF gets a tick for it.

I made my way through security and grabbed a quick coffee while waiting to board,the flight was departing from gate 22 so I didn't have far to walk, boarding soon started and I made my way to seat 34K on 'City of Port Augusta', 34K is an exit row and I had selected my seat online the day before, as a silver frequent flyer I was half expecting to lose my selection to someone with more status but this time I was lucky, I was welcomed on board by a lovely young lady who greeted me with a cheery good morning and offered me a glass of cool water, so far this flight was going great - I was receiving J class service in Y! Things actually got even better because at the conclusion of boarding it became apparent that I had two seats to myself as 34J was empty, I settled down in my seat and another FA came around offering complimentary newspapers, this flight was starting to remind me of the Qantas of old-cheerful crew providing great service, not everything was smooth though, we were delayed due to a discrepancy between pax numbers and bags so we had to wait while a head count was done,this delayed our departure by 20 minutes however the problem was sorted and we pushed back at 8:47 with wheels up at 8:53.

Takeoff was smooth but the climb was anything but,there was heavy rain about and it was fairly bumpy but you can't blame the pilots for the weather! We reached cruise quite quickly though and breakfast was served, cereal, dried fruit, muffin, oj, coffee or tea, all served by the happy yet professional crew.

Seat 34K is definitely going on my favorites list,it was just great,plenty of leg room and even if 34J had been occupied it would still have been one of the most comfortable seats I have ever chosen. After the initial bumps the rest of the flight down to Sydney was highly enjoyable although ATC delays meant we didn't touch down till 11:02 and by the time we made it to the gate at 11:13 I was in for a run to make my transfer to T2 for my ABX flight.

This was probably my best ever QF flight,the service was great, in fact I think it was even better than the flight I took in J from SYD-MEL in October. If every Qantas flight I take was as good an experience as QF513 on 27 January then I would be a happy man.

To summarise the two flights-Virgin was ok, no complaints but they still have a slight LCC feel to me, but I won't write them off just yet. Qantas, well this flight was a reminder of why I have been a QF loyal flyer for so long, happy yet professional crew providing a great standard of service. The 767's are looking a bit long in the tooth but City of Port Augusta seems to be hiding her age fairly well and even the bumpy climb didn't produce any noticeable creaks or rattles.

QF gets 8/10,Virgin 5/10.

 

[MadFairlane]

I'll get to experience QF for the first time in a long time in March.

Work has booked my colleages and I on QF to Auckland... I was sorta bummed they didn't go down their normal VA/AirNZ path...

No lounge access for me that day, looks like Coffee Club will be the go for breakfast hahaha

 

[GCC]

As a dedicated one worlder Row 3 on VA sure beats row 4 on QF.3 out of 3 now in row 3 with an empty middle seat on DJ.

Reading this thread with interest, as I've had a few VA flights in the few weeks after a bit of an absence.

I flew the "new" VA as a Velocity Gold (via my company and the accelerate program) a few times pre status match, and I was pretty well always in row 3 or 4 aisle, usually with an empty seat next to me. The VA lounge staff would actually block a seat for you at check in. On a few occasions when the row was full I was discreetly tapped on the shoulder and moved to PE or J.

Since my "upgrade" to Velocity Plat via status match I have consistently ( 6 out of 6) been in seat 5C, and always with the seat beside me taken. My requests at the lounge for "a better seat" have all been responded to with "I'd stick to that one if I was you". No one's discreetly moving me to PE or J.

That row 3 seating with a shadow was a big part of why I started moving some travel to VA. However my experiences recently just don't gel with all the reports of op ups and great seats over on the VA thread. I can sit in row 5C on QF, so I'll be heading back to them for what remains their huge advantage - more flights more often to more places.

 

[777]

Since my "upgrade" to Velocity Plat via status match I have consistently ( 6 out of 6) been in seat 5C, and always with the seat beside me taken. My requests at the lounge for "a better seat" have all been responded to with "I'd stick to that one if I was you". No one's discreetly moving me to PE or J.

Have you actually been checking in yourself and trying to snag the good seats or are you just expecting them to allocate them automatically? VA changed the system around that time so you can select your seat up to 2 weeks out. If you're not doing that, chances are you're just getting beaten to the punch by other Plats and golds.

 

[drron]

Even as a humble gold on VA by selecting my seat as soon as it is available I am 4 from 4 in 3C.3 from 4 with a vacant middle seat.The 4th flight was last night on an E190 so no middle seat.

 

[GCC]

VA changed the system around that time so you can select your seat up to 2 weeks out. If you're not doing that, chances are you're just getting beaten to the punch by other Plats and golds.

I frequently book flights less than 2 weeks out, so I guess that's exactly what's happening.

So the old system - where the lounge angels would allocate you row 3 on check in and block out the middle - worked better for me than being a Velocity Plat in the new one.

 

[pshepvic]

But you've got not much better an option with QF - their seats are available to select anytime, and row 4 is blocked for CL - you've got a better chance of getting row 3 on DJ. Exception is at T-80 where QF open it up so you may be able to select row 4 - but it's a small window of opportunity.

On DJ row 4 actually seems to have more room than rows 5 and beyond, and rows 3/4 are blocked for Gold and Plat with no such thing as CL. I'd say the odds are much better, also considering there are a lot less elite tier members on DJ.


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[nlagalle]

But you've got not much better an option with QF - their seats are available to select anytime, and row 4 is blocked for CL - you've got a better chance of getting row 3 on DJ. Exception is at T-80 where QF open it up so you may be able to select row 4 - but it's a small window of opportunity.

On DJ row 4 actually seems to have more room than rows 5 and beyond, and rows 3/4 are blocked for Gold and Plat with no such thing as CL. I'd say the odds are much better, also considering there are a lot less elite tier members on DJ.


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Every flight on a 737 in the last 12 months I have always had row 4 on QF. Never an issue for me.

 

[munitalP]

But you've got not much better an option with QF - their seats are available to select anytime, and row 4 is blocked for CL - you've got a better chance of getting row 3 on DJ. Exception is at T-80 where QF open it up so you may be able to select row 4 - but it's a small window of opportunity.

On DJ row 4 actually seems to have more room than rows 5 and beyond, and rows 3/4 are blocked for Gold and Plat with no such thing as CL. I'd say the odds are much better, also considering there are a lot less elite tier members on DJ.


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Rubbish. I am seated in 4a or 4f nearly every time I fly on a qf 737. I'm not CL and have frequently a spare seat next to me.