Struggling with more leg room flights to New York

totallybored

usignuolo wrote: »

No he is not super sized he is 15 stone and 6foot 1" with long legs. Needs more leg room or he invariably gets in a row with the person in front reclining their seat (he puts his knees on it at this point...sigh)

Have tried the various options suggested but struggling. Delta and United apparently offer extra legroom seats but not until you have booked the flight first (you can view seating when booking on line but not actually select it until you have booked) and there is no indication which is reserved for "Premier" customers - some seems to be. So you could book flight and still not get the extra leg room seats. Plus there is no indication how much it costs.

Anyone actually booked any extra leg room seats recently to NYC and can tell me how to do it and how much it costs, on United or Delta.

Still struggling to understand why BA economy for the date we want is £444 but the Economy Plus is £2270.....does not seem to be any particular pressure on flights or hotels in NYC the week we are going.

Ok, it's really easy to book economy plus with United. Cost around $100 each way (which seems more than last time I flew from the east coast).

Choose your flights, you can see the seat plan at this point and all unreserved economy plus are in blue. There will normally be lots.

During the booking process you select your seat and it adds the upgrade fee. So you choose your economy flights, enter your names and continue with booking. The next screen should be the seat plans (make sure you click on the return flight too to select a seat for that). Click on the economy plus seats and it tells you the price in $. Once you have selected your seats you get to the total price page and it'll add the seat fees to the fare and you can continue to payment.

angelil

AirFrance is €50 each way, so this seems to match roughly with what others say. Can you not do a booking by phone? Could be easier if you want to select seats during the booking process and get a preview of the price.

coral

Are you not staying a Saturday? Flights are generally cheaper if you do.

If not you'll get a better price if you use ebookers. Go to the "flight only" search, select Premium Economy and then press "flight + hotel"

Then order the results by the cheapest hotel (usually the Harlem YMCA) and you'll need either a BA or Virgin flight. Of course no need at all to go to the YMCA ;-)

This is a completely separate class with a wider seat with more leg room, upgraded food, luggage allowances etc.

If you want to stick with economy then American Airlines will be a good option. On their brand new aircraft (which are very nice) it's called "main cabin extra" which is about 6" of extra leg room and is £80 each way

Flights are usually AA101 or AA107 going and AA100 or AA106 back. Needs to be the 77W aircraft type. You can select the MCE seats from the seatmap during the booking process.

coral

United also offers something similar but the aircraft are mainly the 757 which is a single aisle and in my opinion has a generally more cramped feel about it

usignuolo

Thanks for all the advice. Was about to try and book when I discovered my Esta has expired so have to renew that first.

We are staying Saturday did not notice it made a great difference to the prices. Tried AA but on the day we want to go all theAA flights seem to be code shares with the flights being BA flights so no cheaper leg room seats on their planes. (I looked again at the BA Premium Economy and it seems to have come down from £2270 to £995 in line with Virgin. Do not really want to pay £500 extra just for a bit more leg room though.

Murphy_The_Cat

If it helps at all, I'm 6ft 3in tall and I've just done an 11 hour jouney on a Lufthansa 747 (same set up as a United 747) with a 31" seat pitch and the journey wasn't unpleasant - even when the chap in the row in front of me reclined his seat fully.

claire16c

What dates are you going? AA fly to New York everyday it seems odd you are only getting BA ones showing up?

Like coral said on a few planes they have the new main cabin extra seats.

usignuolo

Well managed to book United flights and Economy Plus seats online, paying with my Barclaycard as usual (visit USA at least once a year to see family there). Confirmed identity twice, at booking with Verified by Visa and just afterward via automated phone call from Barclaycard. Went on line to check it had all gone through - no seats booked. Phoned United. Card had been declined for seats. Phone Barclaycard, who confirmed this, because it conformed to fraud booking patterns(?), card had been suspended. Tix had gone through but seats declined. After run around and hanging on for Fraud Team, spoke to someone who agreed I had passed all necessary tests to confirm my identity and it was a regular run of the mill booking and said would reinstate my card and I should try again to book seats. No apology. All this just to book flights and seats using regular credit card and I go to the States regularly. Starting to lose the will to live.

JCP

usignuolo wrote: »

Card had been declined for seats. Phone Barclaycard, who confirmed this, because it conformed to fraud booking patterns(?), card had been suspended.

Glad it worked out for you.
They seem to have updated all of the fraud detection systems recently. I've just gone through the same with my Mastercard getting declined for no good reason. I wasn't happy either, especially since it took them 3 days to sort it out by which time there was no availability left