h20poloman2
04-08-2008, 09:55 AM
So I got the chance to fly up to SF this past weekend on the new service from Virgin America. I scored an intro offer for $99/round trip which even beat Southwest. If you have ever stayed at a W Hotel I would say flying Virgin America is like a W hotel for air travel. Even arriving at the airport I felt like a rockstar as the line was empty, has really nice computer screens for easy checking in, the flight ticket is a nice small square (fits perfectly in your pocket) and also is your baggage claim ticket if you check anything. Very nice service, I had my ticket and baggage checked in about 2 minutes. They try to spice up their airport area some by having nice flower arrangements,etc. and bottom line...you feel "hip". Everyone in the packed Frontier line looked over in envy.... Even though the line was empty the flight was pretty much full. You had an option of paying an additional $50 for first class seats which recline and are massage chairs. I passed since it was only an hour flight to SF plus each chair has a tv/media center called "red" which was the best I've seen. I listened to a score of music ranging from NIN to James Brown. They have live tv, pay per view movies, and you can order food/cocktails from your seat (they only take credit card which swipes into the red media center). I believe right now they only fly into SD, SF, LA, Vegas, Seattle, DC and NY but are supposed to be expanding to 30 cities by the end of the year. Obvioulsy Richard Branson has some money to spend in a tight market so we'll see how they do. I doubt the nice intro price will continue to stay at such a value but nice to see an airline trying something new for a change.