blonde poker forum

Please could someone let me know from which airports in the UK i can fly direct to Las Vegas? Have been looking into trying to get a direct flight from Manchester but it appears a no-go at the minute. Also with it being the middle of the school holidays all the prices are a bit higher at that time of year. Is it better to book now or wait til nearer the time and get a last minute flight?

Last year we flew American Airlines (as a poker player it only seemed right  :D) but we went via Philly, it was too much messing aroung waiting for connecting flights, especially on the way home when all i wanted to do was sleep - so this year we want to try and go direct if possible.

Thanking you all in advance :)up

fly virgin from gatwick no other way we got their in just under 10 hours flight cosy about £350 return in Jan this year

Bmi fly direct from manchester and they let monkeys on!

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/index.aspx

Other than Gatwick the only one I know is Monarch somtimes fly from Manchester on a weekly charter and have seats for sale (I dont know if this is the still the case).Or you could try and taking a short flight this end to Paris,Amsterdam or Germany who I believe fly direct as well.

If you do go Virgin ensure you join there frequent flyers club the miles you get will be worth it and 2 more flights and you have enough for a fre upgrade.

Not sure about Vegas.. but they are run by monkeys  :D

http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~sueng/School/441/

They even have trained monkey pilots

LOL  rotflmfao

cheers Sark, as much as i'd love to travel monkey airlines and spend 10 hours sipping banana juice on ice whilst having my coat groomed i'll more than likely be travelling with BigArmo - i dont think thats his idea of a decent fllight though.

Thanks for all the other suggestions - i didnt realize that some airlines did direct flights but only on certain days of the week, something i'll look into further :)

Matt,  one of the things I do especially when travelling abroad for t he football is I try the flights coming the other way.  This tends to give me a better idea and sometimes more options.  I don't think this is making sense but here goes with an example, I would check out one of the American companies flying to say Manchester from Vegas and then give them a bell and discuss arrangements with them - its easier than it sounds and most times it works out a good bit cheaper as we get fleeced wuite alot by our UK companies.

Closer to the time there will be more chrter flights to Vegas from manchester, I got one of them last year from Manchester.

I'm going in a few weeks and flying with Virgin out of Gatwick.  According to my guidebook, the only other direct flights from the UK are with BMI from Manchester - book is fairly recent.

2 of us went to Vegas last July from Manchester with Airtours. Booked it through cheapestflights.com. It cost £450 return each. If we had booked with Airtours direct it was £300 more. Also, if you want to come up to cincins for a couple of hands, you can fly direct from Glasgow too.

Slipperyfish  ;fish;

I am having email correspondence with Virgin about this as we speak.

2 weeks ago, Virgin Dirct to Vegas (return) for the WSOP was £749. This week however, the price has dropped to £649

They have a "we wont be beaten" policy , so I have emailed them and asked that if I book it at £649 with them and they then reduce the price again, I am entitled to a refund, yes?

Still waiting for an answer...........................

good luck with that M3 - don't think you'll have any joy though.  i was booked with Virgin to fly to Chicago in October 2001.  After the September 11th attacks the prices dropped steeply, so I tried that tack and no joy.  In the end the flight was cancelled altogether, and they dropped the route, so we had to fly with another airline which would have been cheaper even at the time of booking.

Had a similar run in with lastminute.com over their hotel rooms - they have a price match policy too, and were selling the same room on their own site for £10 less - they said the price match policy only applies to other websites!!

Claw,

I have read Virgins Price Match policy and it states that if you find the SAME flight number cheaper, they will refund the difference - no small print from what I could see, so I fail to see how they can get out of it. But i suspect they will!

Travel city direct did it two summers ago, last summer we went with airtours for £340 through the airtours site - its a bit more expensive this year thou. (booked it 10 weeks before we went for the £340)

I leave on the 26th July.  Direct from Gatwick on Virgin.

All booked up today.  Just need a good hotel now.

I'm not surprised it didn't work.

"Hello Virgin. I saw those 3,000 people die on my TV last month and was wondering if I could have a couple of hundred quid off my plane ticket as a result? Hello? Are you still there?"

M3boy's list of tactics to get a refund just got a bit shorter.

Email them
Phone them up
Fly aeroplanes into skyscraper

ditto.
i booked 3 weeks before going last year and got it for about £520 direct from mancunia

One word of advice I can give through experience is if there is a remote chance you may want to extend your stay , make sure you book your flight for the longest possible stay.

Last year I booked a flight with BMI through expedia for a duration of 3 weeks, unfortunately I decided to extend my trip for a total of just over 5 weeks (gotta play the rush). In that extended 2 week period I put back my flight 3 times and it cost me about an extra £600. If I had originally booked the  return flight for a duration of 6 weeks and just rescheduled once to return after say 5 weeks I would have only paid once to change flights not 3 times saving about £400 . As you never know how long you are gonna stay in Vegas.

Also try and book direct with BMI because expedia havent got a help desk at Mcarron airport, so you have to phone your original agent which was in England and I returned home to a £1100 mobile bill, not all was expedia though, lol just about 60%

Thanks for even more information - certainly gives me something to be getting on with whilst things are quiet in work.

Upto now the plan is just to go for the main event so the only reason i'll be extending my stay is if i win - and if that's the case i dont think we have to worry about the occasional £200 rebooking fee :)

If i win a second seat on pokerstars then that may change things as then i will be using the $W10000 to play in some of the smaller events - but i'll cross that bridge if i ever come to it!!

If i see any bargains in the next few weeks i'll post them on this thread - after i've reserved my seats first though of course ;)

I had absolutely no problems last year with anything, though it helped the fact that the plane was the only thing i needed to sort out myself. Up to now its the same this year but i want to try and get a direct flight if possible.

Virgin Direct website price now BACK upto £763 :(

The price is probably dependant on how Richard Bransons stocks and shares are doing at the time - when his shares go up the plane prices go down and visa versa!

he's got to make a living somehow ;)

lol - that wasn't quite how the conversation went - I just pointed out that the prices had gone down substantially since I booked and wondered if their price match policy covered their own site - it didn't!

have you tried lastminute?  I booked my flight and hotel package with them, and the flight-only options were slightly cheaper than through Virgin direct.

I think that airlines also measure which flights are enquired about the most...which then helps with the old supply and demand to reach a price.

I paid a little bit more than that for one of the nicer seats upstairs.  Saved a few quid on the hotel though.

I always check

http://www.airline-network.co.uk/

Their newsletter is worth registering for as they have access to some very good deals. There are not great options for direct flights to Vegas, but as an example price Airline Network were recently doing Gatwick - Vegas as a one stopper with North West Airlines for £263 return!

coupla years back managed to pick up two seats direct to vegas from manchester for 150 quid each. It was last minute (about 3 days beforehand), but those bargains are out there if you dig for them.

yeah i know, trouble is it was only last year that they moved the WSOP to July so i think that the prices will never go as low as that again and to be honest i'd rather not leave it quite that long before booking 2 tickets - knowing my luck it would be the first time Manchester airport sees no cancellations from any of its flights!!

Orbitz - class travel site.

What was that like? I've been looking at Vegas flights and, as I'm 6'2", I'm a bit wary of sitting in standard economy seats for ten hours. Would you say the extra is worth it? Exactly how much room is there in the standard seats for a lanky sod like me?

Andrew, the extra in my opinion aint worth it!!

Its only a 10 hour flight, and if you reserve the seats near the emergency exit doors, you have LOADS of leg room ;)

9 hrs.. if the winds strong and behind ya.... 8)

What if the strong wind is sat next to you rather than behind you?

It tends to make the plane circulate, thus adding hell of a long time onto flight hours.. 8)

thanks for the tip - i'll be sure to book BigArmo's seat at the back of the plane then!!  :D

I don't know yet Andrew as I haven't flown with Virgin in that class.  I've read good reviews, that it is better than BA Club, but I guess I'll find out in summer for sure.  I fly BA Club quite a lot when the price is good.  I just fancy arriving in Vegas being able to walk, I'm only a little guy, God knows how 6ft+ people cope.

There are seat reviews for most airlines around on the web.

 Average Leg Room in Economy Class * 
 
  Monarch Airlines 28   Singapore Airlines 32   
JMC 28 Lauda Air 32
Gulf Air 28 Emirates 32
Britannia 28 British Midland 32
Airtours 28 Austrian Airlines 32
Air 2000 28 Aer Lingus 32
Ryanair 29 Cathy Pacific 32
Go 29 Alitalia 33
Easy Jet 29 Malaysian 34
Virgin Atlantic 30 Lufthansa 34
Qantas 30 Japan Airlines 34
Delta 30 American Airlines 34
Caledonian 30 Air New Zealand 34
British Airways 31 Thai Airways 34
United Airlines 31 Air France 34
KLM 31 Air China 34
Iceland Air 31 Air Canada  34
 
Minimum distance required by Civil Aviation Authority is 26 inches.
 
* Airlines measure legroom as seat pitch - the distance from the front of the seat to the back of the seat in front.
 
 

Close window

 
   

Some real person reviews here:

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/vir_atl.htm

you could always try visiting the site that Sark left earlier in the thread


Apparently there are no seats at all on our planes, they just have branches sticking out at various points of the plane with the occasional rope swing.

Should leave plenty of room for your ample frame  :D

I have travelled Direct with BMI & Airtours from Manchester. BMI I prefer, but for budget Airtours can be  very cheap if you shop around. The leg room wasn't great but opposed to changing at O'hare it and a much shorter trale time I coped fine. Mr Nun aint no shorty and he does have quite a serious back complaint, he coped too. Flights cost us usually very little, i think the most i payed to travel with Airtours this way was £240. Obviously if you want space you pay for an upgrade.. depends what your personal require ments are. Mine are get there fast, cheap & spend spend spend ...(NOT SHOPPING I MUST ADD)...

After doing a bit of digging around it would seem that the Economy seats on Virgin are fine as long you are one of Snow White's seven friends.

More research required - thanks for all your help, people.

I also booked my flight yesterday with Virgin - The price dropped again to £650 (Usually £750) Also managed to 'reserve' one of the good seats.

You can reserve specific seats this far out?

Might give that a try.

In Vegas now, I flew out Virgin direct from Gatwick.

First time I've flown directly and it certainly is worth it. I'm 6 feet tall and had plenty of space to stretch, food and drink nice and only 276 quid for the flight.

aye - £276 at the end of march, dont think they'll be as generous at the end of july thru to the middle of august right smack bang in the middle of the summer hoildays!! :(

enjoy your stay you bugger  :tikay: watching the reruns of the main event of last years WSOP, it bringing back all the memories and making me realize i cant wait another 4 months to go!!!! :'(

I got back today - my flight was 315, cheapest in 6 visits - think it was a "January Sale" - enjoy Simon, play Caesars (see earlier post)!!!

I went with Northwest to vegas 3 years ago, wouldn't recommend it to anybody
have probs with my long legs and ended up with bruised knees as the seat infront of me
slammed his seat on my knee :( 

Not good :(

I am 6ft 3in and would say that unless you can guarantee yourself an exit row seat the extra money to fly the premium economy section in Virgin is well worth it.  Sitting in Virgin economy for people with long legs is not a pleasant experience and not my idea of how to kick off a nice holiday/experience!

I'm 6'3 / 6'4 - flying Virgin economy to NY next week...looks like it could be a long 8 hours!

<NOTE TO SELF: Leave legs in luggage for duration of flight for extra comfort>

Matt, you'll be fine though. You can just attach your bars to the overhead locker and swing from there for the flight.

This is quite a good flight search site - www.cheapflights.co.uk (http://affiliate.cheapflights.co.uk/blsqpoker2006).

It seems to pick up spare seats being sold on charter flights as well as scheduled flights.

Cheers,
RR 8)

If your flying Virgin make sure you join the frequent flyer club.New York is worth about 5000 points and you only need 20000 to upgrade. so if you fly 2-3 times a year its worth it....and its free.

I'm in the BMI club so I'll be adding them to that. Not too far off a free flight to Vegas!