Virgin PE - the bubble?!

[alibeau]

Hi Guys,

Having flown UC for our last two trips we are having great difficulty justifing the amount of money we would have to pay to fly UC again for our next trip. TBH as nice as UC is, the novelty has worn off a bit when we consider the amount of money now involved......

For our first time in UC DD2 was under two so we only had to pay taxes for her. Since then the price has risen quite a bit per person and so we are now going to book PE for our next trip.

Can anyone give me any tips on how to get the best out of PE? I've read a lot about 'the bubble' on here but have a few questions...

Can you pre-book seats in this area or only request them? Can you pay a premium to guarantee a specific seat? We fly from MAN, is 'the bubble' available on this route? At what point in the online booking process do you get to see which seats are available if at all???

Any advise would be greatfully received

Ali

 

[wickesy]

You can only request seats in PE and there is no way of paying extra to guarantee the seats you have chosen. The 'bubble' is available from Manchester and if I remember rightly you can view the seat map and choose seats (if available) once you have paid.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Yes, the planes are the same used for manchester, Glasgow or gatwick, all 747's with the top deck being PE seating
As with all classes of Virgin travel you can only pre request your seating.
The front half of the upper deck is held for Virgin holiday bookings only and the emergency exit seats upstairs only become available at checkin

 

[Netty]

and the best seats are at the back-rows 79 and 80
well thats where we sit!

 

[pampat]

We have booked for next February flying from Manchester and we have confirmed PE seats in the bubble. There is a disclaimer of course, saying that these can be changed at any time, but they do show up on our confirmation so I'm taking it as read1

Pam

 

[JohnnySharp2]

The seats you actually 'pre-book' are definitely not guaranteed.
We booked the same seats upstairs for both flights for our April holiday, outbound was no problem we got the seats in row 79 as we expected.

However, the return journey was different, and despite booking several months in advance, at DTD check-in we were informed our seats had been allocated to somebody else.
Apparently we had put in a special request for downstairs bulkhead PE seats for Joshua, which is just not true - don't know how Virgin suddenly 'invented' this requested. Maybe they couldn't think of a better excuse/explanation.

I would suggest if you do pre-book any seats to check-in online the day before, something we didn't do for the flight home.

Does kind of make you wonder why the option to book in advance is available, if in reality there is a chance you will be sat somewhere else.

 

[ClareH37]

For my recent trip (early May) my parents flew PE, we managed to select seats for them on the way out but coming back there were not pre-selectable seats left. However, I was told by the very nice agent I spoke to at Virgin Atlantic that the front half of the bubble is held back for online/on the day check-in, that's about 20 seats.

Going out we did twilight checkin (online check in was not working) and they kept their pre-selected seats in the bubble, coming home I checked them in online and their seats had already been allocated for them by Virgin, again in the bubble. When I booked their PE flights the agent did ask me if they were 2 adults which I'd never been asked before, not sure if that had something to do with their allocation in the bubble?

 

[scarletlancer]

Just out of curiosity what is the average overall spend on a holiday for you guys who regularly fly PE or UC? I only ask because our three weeks in Orlando this August (we have to go then as both my wife and I are lecturers and our daughter is in school) flying bog standard economy on Virgin and staying at SSR is costing us the best park of £6000 without spending money and we were quoted another £1000 simply to go ton PE. It would be interesting to know if that is about par or if the folks who fly in the higher classes have got better deals.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Just out of curiosity what is the average overall spend on a holiday for you guys who regularly fly PE or UC? I only ask because our three weeks in Orlando this August (we have to go then as both my wife and I are lecturers and our daughter is in school) flying bog standard economy on Virgin and staying at SSR is costing us the best park of £6000 without spending money and we were quoted another £1000 simply to go ton PE. It would be interesting to know if that is about par or if the folks who fly in the higher classes have got better deals.

At the moment we haven't booked next years holiday, having only just returned last month.
Just for information on what we were quoted recently, something which we are not going to book, but did get a price for the cost of our usual fly-drive with Virgin for next August, we are in a similar situation having to go during school holidays.
With 15% discount and Premium Economy, minivan car hire & all extras it was just over £4000.
We don't need park tickets as we have plenty of days left over from this years holiday, also have $1100 so figuring on adding approx £1200 more onto this.
Accomodation, usually stay in a villa so that will be at least £1000 depending on how long we are going for.
Was hoping for a few nights at Bay Lake Towers which would cost approx £900 (maybe more).

So that is just over £7000! Though we could save a bit on that if we don't stay at BLT *that opens another debate as I am not sure I want to go if it's just a villa holiday again*
Flying PE for Joshua is a must do I am afraid, but adds around £1600 to the cost.

At present we are awaiting flights to be released from Virgin Atlantic so we can use miles & money, so that will be a few months before we can check.

As ever flying Premium Economy has it's plus points for sure it's just deciding on whether it's pushing the price to crazy levels - to be honest at the moment for us it is doing just that.
It is difficult to do a cheap holiday & PE, if you shop around for cheaper flights/accomodation you can trim costs down. Though that could depend on whether you want indirect flights, or fly into Sanford perhaps - neither of which appeal to me with Josh's needs in mind.

 

[scarletlancer]

At the moment we haven't booked next years holiday, having only just returned last month.
We worked out the cost of our usual fly-drive with Virgin for next August, we are in a similar situation having to go during school holidays.
With 15% discount and Premium Economy, minivan car hire & all extras it was just over £4000.
We don't need park tickets as we have plenty of days left over from this years holiday, also have $1100 so figuring on adding approx £1200 more onto this.
Accomodation, usually stay in a villa so that will be at least £1000 depending on how long we are going for.
Was hoping for a few nights at Bay Lake Towers which would cost approx £900 (maybe more).

So that is just over £7000! Though we could save a fair bit on that.
Flying PE for Joshua is a must do I am afraid, but adds around £1600 to the cost.

At present we are awaiting flights to be released from Virgin Atlantic so we can use miles & money, so that will be a few months before we can check.

Bottom line is cost of going is getting out of hand, hope to go next year but not guaranteed.

Cheers for that, I hope I wasn't being too nosey. Hey, there is no need to be 'afraid' about flying PE, my question was not meant as a criticism as I would certainly fly UC every time with my family if our budget allowed. Hope you have a great time if you do make it back next year

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Cheers for that, I hope I wasn't being too nosey. Hey, there is no need to be 'afraid' about flying PE, my question was not meant as a criticism as I would certainly fly UC every time with my family if our budget allowed. Hope you have a great time if you do make it back next year

No problem .

Never entered my head about the criticism bit. I have a habit of droning on and on in my posts something which you will have to excuse!

We are stuck with PE due to Joshua being autistic, it just really bumps up the overall cost. I am 'quietly confident' we will be going next August though.

I am sure Ali would enjoy PE, the level of service we received in the 'bubble' recently was very good.

 

[alibeau]

Thanks for all your feeback guys

I was going to ask about online check in and whether you would be able to select a 'better' seat at that point?

So, would the best course of action be to book the best seat I can find when booking the flights but then do online checkin asap and see whats available then?

Also, the other thing is that as we are so flexible on dates I would pick to go on a date where there were seats free in the bubble and so is there anyway of finding out if there are any free before completeing the booking?

Seems a bit of an odd system to me?? I'd much prefer to choose the seat I want at the booking stage and pay whatever the appropriate price due and then you know where you stand........ Perhaps it's the control freak in me

Thanks again,

Ali

 

[alibeau]

Just out of curiosity what is the average overall spend on a holiday for you guys who regularly fly PE or UC? I only ask because our three weeks in Orlando this August (we have to go then as both my wife and I are lecturers and our daughter is in school) flying bog standard economy on Virgin and staying at SSR is costing us the best park of £6000 without spending money and we were quoted another £1000 simply to go ton PE. It would be interesting to know if that is about par or if the folks who fly in the higher classes have got better deals.

Hi,

We went to WDW many times as a young couple and then we had a long break, started our own business/family etc On those early trips we flew economy mainly but PE on one trip.

One day my DH suggested to me that we return to WDW and I 'jokingly' said that there was no way I would do over a 9 hour flight with two young children. As good as they are it was just my idea of a nightmare and so he said we would fly UC On that occasion we only had to pay taxes for our youngest as she shared my seat and so the flights for the four of us worked out at around £3.5k - the whole experience was out of this world and worth every single penny!!!

On that trip my Mum and Dad came with us and so they paid half towards the villa, car hire etc and so I would say we paid around £6/7k for our dream holiday.

UC was supposed to be a 'once in a lifetime' but we found ourselves wanting to go UC again in Feb. We had savings as we were supposed to be moving house but that fell through. I cannot even begin to think about the amount of money we spent on that trip, we paid for all the bits seperately and so I stuck my head in the sand and got on with it. To this day I would hate to and be embarrased to sit down and tot it all up, I just remind myself that we had yet another trip of a lifetime.

We are now at the point where we just can't consider paying out that amount of money for just one trip. We would rather put the money towards an extra week in a villa and go for three weeks and fly PE and we would still be making a saving.

Also, if we want to go to WDW more often there is absolutely no way we could sustain flying UC nor would I wish to given the rise in prices....... I think as good as UC is, we do not have an endless pot of money and it's just got to the point where you have to draw a line on spending and unless we could get UC seat in at a greatly reduced price, we will now fly PE, just can't justify the money involved with UC.

Ali

 

[JohnnySharp2]

Thanks for all your feeback guys

I was going to ask about online check in and whether you would be able to select a 'better' seat at that point?

So, would the best course of action be to book the best seat I can find when booking the flights but then do online checkin asap and see whats available then?

Also, the other thing is that as we are so flexible on dates I would pick to go on a date where there were seats free in the bubble and so is there anyway of finding out if there are any free before completeing the booking?

Seems a bit of an odd system to me?? I'd much prefer to choose the seat I want at the booking stage and pay whatever the appropriate price due and then you know where you stand........ Perhaps it's the control freak in me

Thanks again,

Ali

I would assume you would have to ask Virgin at the time of booking what seats in the 'bubble' were free.

We booked our seats shortly after we had booked the holiday and they were allocated to us for months, for our flight from Manchester we checked in online the day before and had no problem getting our reserved seats.
However, on the return flight although we did pre-book the same seats we didn't do online check-in - hence I assume someone who did so nicked them off us!
Though as I said earlier apparently we 'requested' bulkhead downstairs seats...dunno where they got this from because we didn't.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Thanks for all your feeback guys

I was going to ask about online check in and whether you would be able to select a 'better' seat at that point?

So, would the best course of action be to book the best seat I can find when booking the flights but then do online checkin asap and see whats available then?

Also, the other thing is that as we are so flexible on dates I would pick to go on a date where there were seats free in the bubble and so is there anyway of finding out if there are any free before completeing the booking?

Seems a bit of an odd system to me?? I'd much prefer to choose the seat I want at the booking stage and pay whatever the appropriate price due and then you know where you stand........ Perhaps it's the control freak in me

Thanks again,

Ali

The problem is that virgin have three different configurations of gatwick based planes, plus two heathrow based configurations, so as they won't really know more than 24 hours before a flight (Planes go bust, s4ecurity etc etc) they cannot gaurentee a seat even if you paid extra.

When are you going?
Certainly if the seats are available, they come up at 24 hours plus so yes, it is worth doing On line checkin uless you want the emergenxcy exit seats on the upper deck

 

[oceanscape]

I've got a question. Some people on here have said that they checked in online EXACTLY 24 hours before but STILL didn't get seats in the bubble. How does that happen? Surely if 50% of the upper cabin is "held back" for online check-in SOME seats should be available to pick from when you do online check-in, as long as you do it straight away when it first opens up?

 

[alibeau]

The problem is that virgin have three different configurations of gatwick based planes, plus two heathrow based configurations, so as they won't really know more than 24 hours before a flight (Planes go bust, s4ecurity etc etc) they cannot gaurentee a seat even if you paid extra.

When are you going?
Certainly if the seats are available, they come up at 24 hours plus so yes, it is worth doing On line checkin uless you want the emergenxcy exit seats on the upper deck

We would like our next trip to be around Easter next year. For our past couple of trips we booked well in advance as we were aware that there were only 12 seats in the UC cabin and also were happy to book in advance.

Things are different this time as we are currently haggling over a house. If the house comes off we will be doing a last minute trip. If the house doesn't happen we will know in the next 4 weeks or so and will get something booked.

If we cannot get PE seats around Easter we may look to go around Feb instead......

All this leads me to one more question, if we are unable to book soon and do leave it til nearer the time, do PE seats ever get discounted in a sale at all??

Thanks again,

Ali

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I've got a question. Some people on here have said that they checked in online EXACTLY 24 hours before but STILL didn't get seats in the bubble. How does that happen? Surely if 50% of the upper cabin is "held back" for online check-in SOME seats should be available to pick from when you do online check-in, as long as you do it straight away when it first opens up?

Not sure where you heard that 50% were held back until 24 hours before the flights take off time.
Only 22 seats are available for non Virgin holidays passengers on the top deck and thats before 24 hours. 20 other seats are held for sale to VH passengers and then there is the emergency exit seats.

For example, our flight in November, there is only one seat upstairs available now outside the VH take up. PE is very well subscribed.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

We would like our next trip to be around Easter next year. For our past couple of trips we booked well in advance as we were aware that there were only 12 seats in the UC cabin and also were happy to book in advance.

Things are different this time as we are currently haggling over a house. If the house comes off we will be doing a last minute trip. If the house doesn't happen we will know in the next 4 weeks or so and will get something booked.

If we cannot get PE seats around Easter we may look to go around Feb instead......

All this leads me to one more question, if we are unable to book soon and do leave it til nearer the time, do PE seats ever get discounted in a sale at all??

Thanks again,

Ali

yes, they have just been on sale for our trip in November, but they do sell quickly it seems. In reality thereare now only 22 seats available on the top deck now due to this agreement with Virgin holidays.
As you can see, our flight out near the end on November is already showing virtually full, our return flight, in the lowest demand period is only showing 5 seats total free upstairs!

 

[oceanscape]

Oh, so if you haven't been able to pre-request a seat on the upper deck then there is no chance of sitting up there???? We were told that upper deck seat requests are all taken for our flights, but that if we use online check-in 24 hours before we should be able to secure them???? Is this not true?

Can you check our flights? December 27 VS27 and January 6 VS16

Thanks!!