[Anonymous]

[VintageKrug]

Virgin America has won the Travel + Leisure “Best US Domestic Airline” Award for the second year running.

Sadly, doyenne of international travel Thorsten of Seven Stars and Stripes has yet to grace them with his presence. It cannot be too much longer before he darkens their jetways. His site is always a ripping read:

http://www.sevenstarsandstripes.com/about.asp

Fleet-Wide on Board WiFi.

A terrific First Class seat.

Proper in flight food in all classes.

A Modern Airbus fleet.

Temptingly youthful crew.

On top of all this, one of the world’s most sophisticated in flight entertainment systems paired with reasonably priced fares (starting at $49) makes Virgin America a nice little airline.

The route network has expanded recently, and there are transcontinental services from Washington DC, New York and Boston to San Francisco and LA, with connecting service to Las Vegas, Orange County, San Diego and Seattle.

Perhaps BT might consider a trip report of this carrier (perhaps in concert with other airlines in the Virgin Group?) in a forthcoming edition?

Well worth checking out in favour of the tired legacy carriers in the US when next you are across the Pond.

http://www.virginamerica.com

[SOLITAIREPLATINUM]

Since Virgin America started flying a couple of years ago, I have used them whenever possible. Their standard is way above the usual US domestic carriers: Friendly check-in agents, really nice FA’s and a wonderful inflight product. First Class seats are really sleeper seats, and even the economy seats are quite comfortable.The IFE is perhaps not a match to e.g.SQ or EK, but rather varied and now all planes have wireless inflight internet and electrical outlets (in all classes). This is an airline you can recommend to your best friend without any hesitation.
I have flown about 50 flights with them (mostly LAX-JFK and v.v.), and never had a bad flight.
Their website is very easy to use.

[Airpocket]

Does anybody know if Virgin America have a frequent-flyer program and whether it is in any way connected to Virgin Atlantic’s? For instance, can one fly on Virgin America and collect miles/points on one’s Virgin Atlantic account?

[SOLITAIREPLATINUM]

Currently, Virgin America (VX) only has its own program called “ELEVATE”. As of now, they do not partner with Virgin Atlantic or any other airline, but they announced that new partners are going to be added soon. But even the stand-alone program is good- they reward mileage corresponding to the fare paid, and free tickets come without any blackout dates or restrictions.
More info on their website.

[BusinessTraveller]

Just a quick note to say that after years of requests by several posters, Business Traveller has finally taken a flight with Virgin America between Los Angeles and Seattle, and will be posting a Tried and Tested review in due course.

[VintageKrug]

This is tremendous news.

I note VA have recently launched service to Puerta Vallarts and Palm Springs; with a significant fleet order they are set to move from being minnow to major with some speed.

If only such and airline could be launched in Europe…. 🙂

[PerthWA]

They are BRILLIANT. Flew them LAX/NYC return connecting with V Australia. Could not fault one single thing.

And the ‘points’/status credits were added to my Velocity membership so I presume it all works if you are booking connections with them across the US network on an international ticket.

[PerthWA]

P.S…. a few weeks ago someone mentioned in one of the forums about Virgin Australia’s status match promotion. Just to let you all know, I’ve just received my platinum status match from Virgin. Very nice of them 🙂

[VintageKrug]

The status match ends tomorrow (Friday).

[VintageKrug]

BusinessTraveller – 28/09/2011 13:23 GMT

Just a quick note to say that after years of requests by several posters, Business Traveller has finally taken a flight with Virgin America between Los Angeles and Seattle, and will be posting a Tried and Tested review in due course.

—–

I don’t recall seeing this review; how did it go?

[BusinessTraveller]

Hi VintageKrug – the review is published in the March 2012 edition of Business Traveller, which will go live on this website tomorrow.

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