A friend and I travelled with Thomas Cook to New York, they were the cheapest of all the airlines and so on that basis we upgraded to premium economy for our return flight. It was a fairly new plane A330 Airbus, with the toilets in economy actually situated downstairs (in the hold although obviously blocked off from the baggage area!) This made a nice change from people queuing in the aisles to use the toilets and the smell you often get especially if you are unfortunate enough to be seated near them. There are toilets at the back of the plane also to accommodate passengers who would find it difficult to use stairs.
The journey going was uneventful, good food for airline food, ice cream mid afternoon and then a lovely afternoon tea including scones and clotted cream an hour before landing.
The return journey we had expected to be exceptional as we had upgraded. It started well with priority check in and boarding at JFK, amenity packs, blankets and pillows provided, more seat and leg room, food even nicer than economy and free drinks. Unfortunately it started to go downhill when you tried to watch a film the screen kept freezing and you had to keep re-booting it, then if you put the light on you couldn’t switch it off! When I asked the staff about it and said I couldn’t sleep they were very apologetic and said there was nothing they could do but suggested I use the eye mask provided! After not much rest we arrived in Manchester, we didn’t get to get off first as they only opened one door for everyone and our luggage despite having priority labels on was last off so we had an awfully long wait in baggage reclaim.
Overall I would fly with them again but don’t think the upgrade was worth the money.
