Advice for Virgin Atlantic pre-book seats

[Tash87]

Just wondering what your experiences have been with pre booking seats?

We have always paid to pre book but last time the seat map was virtually empty but the flight was full! Is this due to people not paying to pre book?

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

I haven't paid to prebook with VA. We went in the school holidays and we got sat together. However, we are members of the flying club and this does mean you can book seats 72 hours before you fly for free. We also flew at Christmas and was fine.

 

[Scillycruisers]

We only pay to pre book if it is for seats in the upstairs economy bubble or if the seat plan has few rows of 3.
Otherwise we leave it to the free period and have never had a problem being seated together. But, there are only 3 of us.

 

[MaleficentUK]

Agree with the above. I have never paid extra to be able to book seats.

 

[Realfoodfans]

We have paid extra this time to be seated together as with 2 family names last time we were separated. The flight is fully booked.
I'm more concerned that for our return (in Premium) we chose our seats but there was not a group of 4 left for DD's family - but was assured by employee they will be seated together as a family - probably just not near us but I'm hoping we will all be getting some sleep - we will ask for them to be near us if possible.

 

[Tash87]

Thank you for your replies I'm now torn! Most of you don't pay ( we are member of the flying club ) but we fly similar dates next year to @Realfoodfans and their flight is full. I don't want to pay if I can help it

Think I will just keep an eye on it and hope for the best

 

[alibeau]

Hmmmm.... I paid to pre book our seats but that is because we wanted extra leg room seats. I think that even if this wasn't the case I would still pay to book our seats just for peace of mind that we will be sat together... I guess that's the control freak in me!!!

I keep checking our flight booking and yes, the whole economy cabin is showing as pretty empty but I now realise that this may be because people are not paying to book seats in advance. I'll be interested to see how busy our flight actually is when the time comes.

Ali.

 

[Tash87]

Yes, that will be interesting. All the previous times we've paid to prebook we have been pretty picky where we sit and always wanted to sit together. This time even if we end up sitting in 2 lots of 2 that will be fine, it might work out better to keep the kids separate

 

[Jon84]

I think if you're flying club members you'd all get sat together. If you're waiting till general checkin, you'll be in a huge online bundle to choose seats.

 

[catherine]

We pre book our seats as we like to have extra leg room! To be fair I probably would even if we didn't want extra leg room, just so that
I could choose where we are sitting in plenty of time!

 

[EllaEverAfter]

We have pre-paid but only because my husband and son had people kicking the back of their chairs the whole flight home and it drove them crazy. We have chosen to sit with the toilet block behind us. The kids will have the freedom to go to the loo on their own and we don't have people behind us. We may have restricted recline but we rarely recline when people are behind us because we are too nice lol