Check Out These Pictures Of Virgin Australia's Gorgeous New Business Class

Having moved to Australia again, I can certainly say these are the seats I am most looking forward to with regards to Business Class. They look great!

That's an impressive looking product.

I'm still waiting on your review from your last Australian trip (or did I miss it?)

This is essentially China Airlines's new biz class seat, which I can attest is very nice.

Australian Business Traveler seem to have already posted a review of this seat on SYD-LAX:

http://www.ausbt.com.au/virgin-australia-the-business-class-sydney-los-angeles-boeing-777-review?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=flipper&utm_campaign=home-flipper

Wish more airlines did the bar on 777

Agree with @Alpha - seat (including two pillows) is very close to China airlines and I'd argue their cabin design is nicer. Virgin looks great too especially the bar.

Hate reverse herringbone. Congested. Great for amends someone who doesn't like making eye contact. Bad for everyone else.

They have made some compromises to accommodate this, including losing 2 business class toilets. See http://www.2paxfly.com/2016/05/virgin-australia-new-777-interiors.html

Couple questions
1) How long do transfers to Virgin America take?
2) Is it "premium reward" that we are looking for? I see available on Virgin Australia but not on Delta - does that mean it's for velocity redemption only?

Have flown this style of seat multiple times on China Airlines and reviewed it on another blog. It's an absolutely fabulous seat and my favorite J class accommodation. My biggest complaint is that the tray table latch that keeps it int he forward position nearest the IFE monitor gets loose or stops working altogether. In two different seats I've had the issue where the table slid toward me during takeoff, or simply wouldn't stay in the forward position at all, meant I was constantly dealing with moving the table if I wanted to change positions in the seat.

As Nemme mentioned, I'd argue that China Airlines' cabin design and aesthetic is nicer. Their wood tones beat the pants off Virgin's hippy-dippy purple and shiny black/white modern look. It comes off as cheap to me. Just take a look at how Virgin America's planes have fared...not that well, to be honest. This kind of cabin seems nice for the first 10-20 flights before the shiny plastic shows scratches, pen marks, etc, and the leather gets wrinkled from multiple butts.

This is also the same seat as Air Canada's 777s and 787s. Quite nice.

Are you sure about 80,000 points round-trip? The screenshot of the DL reservation shows 80,000 points for one way.

Following up on @Dave's question -- if I'm reading VA's award chart right, one-way in business class is 95,500 miles. Am I missing something? https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/Redeem/Airlines/PointsTables/

@ Without Bacon -- That price is when booking through Virgin America Elevate, not through Virgin Australia Velocity.

@ Dave -- That pricing is if redeeming Delta SkyMiles. It's 80K roundtrip if booking through Virgin America Elevate.

@ Nai -- Haven't done a transfer yet, so not sure, but expect it will take at least a few days. The premium rewards wouldn't count -- you'd need the saver level ones, which should all also appear on Delta's site.

As Dave says, pretty sure you meant 80,000 points one way; that's what it cost me on a recent award LAX-BNE.

Question: Do you use the DL search because it matches availability for what Virgin America offers in terms of awards? Just curious.

@ TravelinWilly -- Virgin America charges 45K one-way or 80K roundtrip. 🙂 Availability matches what Delta sees, which is why I use their site. They also have an easy to use five week calendar.

I've got a flight from AUH-SYD in late July on the reconfigured J product so I'll keen to see how it looks. That bars roof looks very much like the skylights in their Brisbane and Perth domestic lounges which is very impressive.

Lucky, your team probably knows the answer to this question better than anyone: "isn't nearly as generous" seems like understatement with regard to Virgin bus. award availability trans-pacific. Last summer it went from being almost a gimme to flat-out gone. Currently, the only availability I can ever find for a single seat with VX or DL miles is for short notice bookings (10 days or less), which means confirming a return is impossible. Is Virgin a realistic option for someone hoping to plan award travel?

One interesting thing I noted is that VA's Premium Economy sales must be down the tubes, as they've basically halved the number of Premium Economy seats while expanding Business by 12%. This is the first time I've seen an airline be anything but bullish on PE. Wonder why it didn't work.

Ben, you said, "Virgin America charges 45K one-way or 80K roundtrip. 🙂 Availability matches what Delta sees, which is why I use their site. They also have an easy to use five week calendar."

Where do you find any partner booking engine on Virgin America? I see their calculator, but I've never been able to find a partner search engine on the Virgin America site.

So just to be clear-- you're looking at DJ award availability on the DL site, to use VX points to redeem on DJ?

What are you looking for-- dates with 80k DL availability (in other words, is that the "saver" space that VX can access)?

Thanks!

DJ doesn't exist any more, Rose. That was Virgin Blue. But yes, he's searching the DL site for VA availability to redeem VX miles.

Thanks, Josh. And are 80k SkyMiles each way the "saver" level that VX can see?

How have you not mentioned the citi prestige card or the amex platinum... are you ill?

@ Rose - 80k is saver level, yes (although I don't think the Delta site will show partner availability at any level other than saver, so it's probably a moot point?)

You're a mensch, Josh. Thanks.

Having sat in this seat on 2 PER - MEL flights (on A330), if I could afford it, I'd definitely be happy to sit in this seat from SYD/BNE - LAX...That on-board bar looks sweet and there are some very similar design traits that VA have put into their lounges as well (ceiling above on-board bar being the most noticeable).

Flying BNE-LAX on old product tomorrow....sigh. Booked with expectation of new product install no later than Q1. Oh well, will certainly beat QF J we had on the way over.

@ JDL - I know folks like to rag on Virgin Australia's old biz seats (and I don't know how often you've flown them), but a handy tip: if you can snag seat 5D or 5G, I had one of the most comfortable flights I've ever had, even in First. They pull a heavy curtain around row 5 so it's totally private, dark and secure. It's like a cubby house. Awesome. Enjoy the flight.

The bar area is quite well done. The seat is giving QF's new J some competition.

@Josh, Premium Economy sales not down the drain per se. VA is now pitching the product as a Business Lite rather than Economy Plus and as a result Premium Economy now has 41 inch of pitch, rather than the 35-36 that other airlines offer. Hence there are less seats in the cabin to accommodate for the bigger pitch.

It is not easy finding a business class award seat on Virgin Australia using Virgin America points. In April I was able to book 1 business class reward seat in July 2016 on an LAX-BNE flight. It was VERY difficult to find a day which had an open reward since Virgin Australia only makes a small number of these seats available to its partner airlines. When I found an open date the Virgin America agent told me that it had been a long time since she had seen an open business class seat.

@2paxfly : That link you posted about losing 2 toilets is very much CORRECT....However business NEVER lost 2 toilets....... They ALWAYS had 3 toilets in both the OLD config and the NEW config........ the 2 toilets lost were at door 3 which is in the economy Cabin....... Theres are still AMPLE toilets in Economy especially in the rear of the cabin....
As for China Airlines version of this....... Well each airline have their own aesthetics and this for Virgin is seamless alongside their Domestic fleet as well as their lounged and the whole branding........ The wood Veneer or fake wood on China Airlines would also outdate, makes for a very cheap look too.....so we can say any material would be good for the future because anything will date overtime. I mean take a look at Emirates cabins, they STILL have that wood veneer look, but its almost looking modernised because they have the money to splash on "GOLD" trimmings here and there and everywhere even on their coffee.......
Virgin Australias poduct is the one to beat over the Pacific. but while comfortability is very improtant, its the onboard crew that has made ALL the difference especially with Virgin Australia International, there is just a professional yet personable feel about their international crew!