United Airlines

spender

Wondering whether the collective opinions of MSE'rs could help me. Does anybody have any experience flying long haul from Heathrow to West coast of America with United airlines. Are drinks included etc and generally how do they rate. It is a choice of United or Virgin and just would like your views before deciding.

_Andy_

Very average airline - much better off with Virgin (with the exception of direct into Vegas)

keithboy40

_Andy_ wrote: »

Very average airline - much better off with Virgin (with the exception of direct into Vegas)

I disagree, united are far better than Virgin. I have travelled with both and would definately travel with United.

M4RKM

United charge £3 / $5 for alcofrolic drinks, whereas with Virgin they are free....

depends on the price of the flight, if it is very very close, i'd go with virgin, but if united are a lot cheaper... i think the pitch on the seats will be slightly better than virgins atrocious 31"....

bagand96

United airlines seat pitch is 31" in economy, the same as Virgin.

Soft drinks are free, although as markymoo said they charge for alcoholic drinks. All drinks are free on Virgin.

Also consider inflight entertainment. All of Virgin's aircraft have personal TVs. And the vast majority of Heathrow flights have the fantastic V:Port system, which has a whole library of films/tv/documentaries etc to choose on demand to your seat. Not all of United's aircraft even have Personal TVs, and those that do, none of them have "on demand" in economy; they just have 9 channels to choose from.

They are both very good airlines. Virgin have more bells and whistles, but it all depends on the price difference and your preference to drinking/entertainment I guess!

JoseChungsDoomsday

I have flown both airlines, and I have to say I have a place in my heart for united.

I flew LHR-SYD with virgin and all I got was (very) young FA's talking about what a hard shift they had and the so called free drinks were hard to get your hands on!

SYD-SFO with UA and while it didn't have any personal IFE the FA's were very professonal, soft drink were a plenty (they left them at the back of the cabin so you could help yourself) and food was decent.

If it was me, I'd go united but it depends what you're after.

spender

Thanks for all the above, Continental is another option but they do not seem to have very good reviews. The reason I am asking is that I am booking a holiday with my Tesco Clubcard Vouchers which I have been saving over the past two years. (West Coast America tour the National Parks including Las Vegas, San Francisco and LA as well. Virgin obviously offer flights with themselves whilst Cosmos offer Continental or United. However Cosmos organise their own tours whilst Virgin use ATI tours (which I can not seem to find out much about).

I just can not work out what is the best option