indirect flights from london

Hi, we usually go to Vegas from Gatwick with Virgin as I like a direct flight, however I LOATHE Virgin- its always fine on the way out (the ground crew are great, and the air crew are probably looking forward to a 3 day stopover) but coming home is always a nightmare and the staff couldnt give poorer service. (the same girl at Mccaren has ruined our trip home at least twice now!!) and there have been a whole host of other mess ups by them.

So I want to get away from them and I am prepared to do an indirect as all our other direct options from UK seem to have disapeared. BMI have or are soon to stop their direct from manchester flights. Although we need to travel from London.

Has anyone got any experience of the best indirect flights, ie the shortest layover times and which airports are best, to come through or avoid etc? are we better going to LA and getting an internal seperate flight or what?

Honestly I am this desperate to avoid giving VIRGIN ATLANTIC another penny of my money! they neither deserve it or appreciate it. For those in UK who have seen their Anniversary Advert - that is the truth its all about looks and appearance, if you need their staff to actually do a good job, then forget it!

indirect flights from london

Hi

We have used Continental twice and were happy with their sevice. That was with a connecting flight in Houston. We have also used KLM/Northwest and would not choose them again. Other times we have used BA,United and Air NewZealand and have flown into LA and just driven to Las Vegas. Out of any of the airlines we have used by far the best was Air NewZealand, then BA. Both of these companies will do a flight to Las Vegas with LA as the connection.

Clive

indirect flights from london

We went with Continental on Dec 27th. We flew from LHR to Houston leaving London at 11.40 am. We arrived in Houston at 4.30pm Local time conecting with a 5.30pm Las Vegas flight. You have to go through customs and collect your bags. It was a breeze because there was dozens of border officals on duty. If your London flight is delayed you will not make it ,however continental will put you on a later flight there is one at 7.30 pm and 9.30 pm or you could just choose the later flight. The first flight was fine with video on demand movies (over 350) the 2nd was a basic internal flight with overhead monitors. I saved £600 going this way (between 3) I have conected at LAX and JFK and will never do so again now that I have used houston.

Have you tried American Airlines?

Hello Jameser

I would be intersted in hearing why and how your Virgin experience was ruined.

BMI have a seat sale until Jan 31 using United from Heathrow very reasonable fares.

Thanks

mpo

I am interested in hearing exactly what Virgin has done though.

Please could you add this to the thread?

(I%26#39;ve always preferred BMI to Virgin anyway though :- ) )

On my last trip we went with British Airways and changed at LA onto an internal flight with Southwest would recommend this. In 2007 we flew with KLM/NWA the service was fine but i prefered BA. For my next trip we are looking at Continental or US airways.

Couldn%26#39;t agree more. I also LOATH Virgin.

We now fly to LA and hire a car there, or you could just get an internal flight.

Flights to LA seem to be about £80-100 cheaper.

thanks for the ideas, with the bmi sale I must check it out, but dont think they will still be doing direct in Oct.

With regards to Virgin, where do I start, I will say its only on the Vegas flights that we have had these problems. We have flown with them to other places without any of these troubles.

one time one of their pilots came back to the galley and heard a phone ringing, he shouted at me to switch that phone off! - it was on the film, and instead of apologising to me - had a great laugh about it at my expense with the crew very indiscreetly. I was horrified and felt really humiliated even though I knew I had done nothing wrong at all! you can imagine how embarassing that was.

another time on a return journey they booked several seats several times over so that we had a ridiculous situation whereby at one point there was about 6 people with the same seat, and the on board staffs method of sorting it out was apallingly rude and almost lottery like. All they kept saying was %26#39;its not our fault%26#39;, as a customer I dont care whos fault it is, just sort it out calmly and quickly please! They even congratulated a couple that got married in Vegas and then announced their seat numbers in different parts of the plane! the irony, It was chaos.

on another journey we upgraded but due to limited seat availability we said that if the only 2 seats left were by the toilets we wouldnt bother thank you as the plane wasnt that busy in economy and it would be spread out anyway. We were assured and promised no..but of course we got on board to find we had paid £500 to sit by the loos, and to add insult to injury there was an electrical fault that meant the lights didnt work. I went to get a torch to see the film guide with - the girl made me wait while she stuffed her face and then had a chat with a colleague, whilst I, a customer was standing waiting. Then she told me they didnt have a torch! thought that would have been fairly basic saftey equipment.

This is just a snapshot there always seem to be something happening that makes their staff fed up and then treat the passengers like rubbish frankly. I have never travelled with an airline where so many of its staff so obviously are more interested in what is happening when they get to their stopover, or home, and so obviously find their passengers an irritation.

Problems happen, but they just cannot handle them and I have had enough of them. By the way, they refused to refund us the upgrade charge, saying it was our word against the girls...who else gets a witness when checking in! They lied to us and cheated us out of £500 in my book that doesnt encourage repeat business not even the vouchers they sent, which I threw away as I knew I wouldnt use them. So although we go fairly regularly to Vegas it wont be with them anymore I will try anything - we even had enough airmiles to go with them, but I wouldnt do it out of principle!

thats me off my bandwagon now - hope I didnt sit on the fence too much!!

I think you are actually off of your soapbox now! LOL

That sounds incredible and I agree I would have trouble flying with them as well. Sometimes making a connection is a nice break as well as long as everything goes smoothly.

Totally agree with your opinion of Virgin. We always have a short layover on our Vegas trips and prefer it that way. A good site to have a look at is Kayak -they search all airlines and you can check out the layover times and prices of all the airlines quite easily.