The flight time on Virgin is longer on some dates I have discovered. It will be a special trip for me and DS before he goes to Uni so maybe I’ll just pay the extra. I won’t be booking for a while anyway.
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I got a schedule change from Virgin for my August flights. The outbound flight departed earlier but arrived at the same time.
I wonder if they’re essentially giving people extra time to do things like COVID testing.
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Could be. I’m hoping all that is over with by next summer!
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Yes we did the special trip in 2017 for DD A-level passes and getting into Uni. Last September’ (moved twice to this September) trip was to celebrate her getting a 1st and her 21st birthday (what a disappointment) but hopefully we will make it this year.
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Aw I hope so!
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BA keep changing my flights. For last September moved from LGW to LHR not flying directly into MCO move to LHR to Miami to MCO got bumped up to first! Then flights cancelled and we moved them to May this year (got a 50% refund 
) flights moved and cancelled! Just as well I booked backup flights for this September for a small deposit just in case (same price as the May flights - bought last day of BA January sale £700 JER -LHR-MCO £700 MCO-LHR-JER for each of us in Club Europe/World. We get lounges all the way and a really comfortable cabin on the long haul sectors.
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Can’t help on the Aer Lingus bit, but we normally fly to Miami instead of MCO as it’s usually a lot cheaper (like, £1000 cheaper). That’s from London though so not sure if VAA do from Manchester. And of course depends on your view of driving and how well you can stay awake 
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Thanks, I will only book direct to MCO personally but that’s a good tip for anyone who isn’t scared of driving over there! £1000 is some saving!!
In 2015 we were diverted from MCO to Miami due to thunderstorms. 4 hour wait to clear border controls put in a hotel overnight, restaurant shut, nice breakfast and then an hour flight to MCO but landed as domestic. Not keen on Miami since
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We have flown Aer Lingus a fair amount but not Virgin. I wouldn’t hesitate to fly Aer Lingus! I think that Aer Lingus is comparable to Lufthansa which is the only other airline that we have flown regularly internationally. For us it is nice to clear customs in Shannon if we connect. If no additional direct flights to France are added for the summer we will likely fly Aer Lingus to France. Our only other option at that price point is TAP Portugal and THAT gets terrible reviews. Also the Aer Lingus refund/rebook policy looks pretty good right now as well.
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Their reviews for actually getting refunds on the other hand are awful! I’ve never flown Lufthansa.
Oh bummer then.
We think Lufthansa is nice! But for us flying internationally is always heads and tails above flying domestically in terms of service.
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I’m not too worried about the refund policy, I just couldn’t find many recent reviews on anything else! But I know Virgin haven’t been that great either.
Top tip: American Express have been AWESOME at getting refunds for me.
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I used to have an American Express card from MBNA and after about 6 months they changed it to a visa. I won’t be going till next year anyway so I’m not anticipating any cancellations. I hope!!!
I have no experience with the airline, but I use seatguru.com to check out flight configurations and seat recommendations before I book flights. It gives you all sorts of good info like seat pitch and width and also has a section for people reviews and photos.
Also as far as flight time goes, I have many direct options to MCO on 3 different airlines and their length varies depending on time of day. Cooler air allows them to fly faster so the flight length normally gets longer over the day. Also the amount of ground traffic at each airport will add time to taxiing to/from the runway. Up to half of my ‘flight’ time literally just riding around the tarmacs.
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I have a BA American Express card. Do as much shopping from it as possible - 1 avio per pound spent and bonus avios on BA.Com. You get a hep of avios on an initial first few months spend if you hit the target and a companion ticket if you hit 20K in the year - not too difficult if your normal spend goes through it but make sure you pay it off by deadline otherwise not worth it. We used the companion ticket to go to New York last year 
. If you want one, the application is in BA.com - you may need a BA executive club membership - it is just the BA rewards scheme (which also gets you extra avios) which gives access to reward flights and companion tickets.
Thanks, I’ve never looked at that.
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Honestly we don’t fly that often and when we do it’s usually package holidays so it’s probably not worth it but thanks.