Virgin PE upgrade question

[Hilary]

Is it possible to upgrade just one of our party of four from economy to PE?

DH is 6'3" and lives in dread of spending the whole flight behind someone with their seat reclined, as he cannot physically fit his knees in! We can't run to upgrading all of us, so could either chance DH getting an exit seat on check-in, or could upgrade just him if it's possible. I have a feeling, though, that it would have to be for all of us.

I'll be ringing Virgin at the end of this week to try to book our seats, so can ask them then, but thought I'd ask here first! (The site search function is disabled at the moment, so apologies if this has been asked recently).

 

[Beejayjay]

Sorry, posted in error.

 

[pwwhitehead]

If you are booking direct through Virgin Atlantic I cannoit see the problem. After all they will be getting the extra money for the PE flight. I think the only difficulty will be the tickets. They now come via e-mail and have to be presented at check in with the credit card used to pay for the tickets. However I'm sure Virgin can sort this out

 

[susie2]

hi,our travel agent is going in two weeks with virgin, his is a party of eight people, only his brother in law is going in premium economy his wife and the rest of the family are all in economy, for the same reason he upgraded to premium economy, they booked through virgin holidays so i dont know if this makes any difference but its always worth a phone call, i am seeing him on friday if you need me to ask him any questions, hope this can help susie

 

[Hilary]

Thanks for the replies!
susie - that sounds like our scenario, so it sounds as though it definitely can be done!

We have booked through Virgin Holidays (taking a fly-drive), rather than flight only tickets with Virgin Atlantic, which is why I thought any changes might have to apply to the entire party.

I'll make a call to Virgin before Friday so that I know which seats to try to book for the rest of us to be near the PE section if DH is going to be there

 

[Daftman]

Sorry to gatecrash your thread Hilary!

Was wondering if anyone knew if I booked Virgin flights with say expedia for example,could I still ring virgin direct and upgrade too PE?

Thanks

Sean.

 

[Hilary]

Sean - no worries, you're not 'gatecrashing' at all!

I actually rang Virgin Holidays this afternoon and, guess what? there are no PE seats available for our dates anyway so that takes the decision out of our hands.

The agent did say that we could ask at check-in in case there were any PE seats available then, but said Virgin Atlantic wouldn't let us ask before check-in because we'd booked through VH. So, Sean, that sounds as though the same would apply to an expedia booking, but it's always worth a phone call to clarify it.

 

[kazzie]

It's always worth asking at the airport Hilary.Someone may be a no-show.I would have thought there is a pretty good chance of buying an upgrade for just one person.

 

[bubblefactory]

It's well worth asking on the day. There will be people booked in PE that want to upgrade to First class or Club. We are booked in PE homebound but want to swap to Club therefore freeing up 4 seats in PE ~ we are having the same problem, Virgin Holidays allocation for Club is full but VA won't release the extra seats yet, so we will try on the outbound journey once we have tickets in hand. It is possible for just one member of the party to upgrade no problem. It is usually more expensive on the day though than the brochure so be prepared!

Last year we had no problem upgrading 6 seats at check-in to PE during half term. Be warned though, you will never want to fly economy again

Alec

 

[peewakio]

Hilary,
I'm 6' 4" and have flown with Virgin 3 times in economy. On the whole he will be fine however you are right in fearing that somebody in front may recline.
Just make sure the person in front knows that your hubby is a tall guy by ensuring that they overhear him talking about how cramped he is.

 

[Hilary]

Alec, it's encourging to hear that you managed to upgrade during a peak time like half term - not such good news that it may cost more on the day than in advance!

Just make sure the person in front knows that your hubby is a tall guy by ensuring that they overhear him talking about how cramped he is.

LOL! Good strategy. We usually do this anyway, but haven't thought of it in terms of letting the people in front know all about it!

I phoned this morning to pre-book our seats outbound and found out that we will (subject to changes) be on an Airbus, which has a 2-4-2 configuration, so we've asked for 2 sets of the two seats in the hope that DH can at least be sure he's behind one of us and know that we won't recline on him.

 

[bubblefactory]

An Airbus? Where are you flying from Hilary?

Alec

 

[Hilary]

We're flying Heathrow to Miami as we are splitting our time between Orlando and the Gulf / Keys and we were able to get a much better deal for our Easter dates than flying Gatwick / Orlando.

I'm hoping the Airbus is good - do you know anything about it?

 

[bubblefactory]

Hi Hilary,

I haven't flown on a Virgin airbus. Here's the link to the Virgin planes, it may help with your seats: http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/our_story_our_fleet.view.do

Alec

 

[Bekki]

If you try and upgrade to PE at check in, do you get the seats any cheaper?

 

[bubblefactory]

Hi Bekki,

unfortunately, the answer is usually no. we upgraded at check-in and paid £312 one way - brochure price was £195 but they were the last seats in PE and were bulkheads very roomy !!

Alec