I flew CW to SIN on Tuesday February 10 night. As we all know, BA flights to SIN, BKK and SYD still leave from LHR T4, which looks more and more like a third-world airport terminal these days.

Only two F check-in desks were open, one of which initially unmanned. After waiting for over 10 minutes at the front of the F check-in queue, an agent finally arrives and sits at the empty desk. The following conversation ensues:

Agent: Are you flying First?

Me: No, I am in CW but I am a Gold Card holder.

Agent: In that case you have to go back in line, I will check in F passengers first.

Me: I'm sorry, but as a Gold Card holder I have every right to check in at this desk with the same priority as any F passenger.

Agent (pointing to people in the queue): Those F passengers have paid much more than you for their tickets (!!!!) and I will check them in first. I know my job and I am not going to start an argument over this.

Me (speechless, starting to get really pi$$ed off, and thinking that I don't have time to start a futile argument with this stupid cow): I disagree, I have been Gold for 13 years and this is the first time I've been told this at F check-in.

This continues for a couple more minutes. Eventually seeing that I was not going to budge the agent grudgingly checks me in. The process took no more than 3 minutes, i.e. less than half the time we wasted in the pointless argument above.

This is not the kind of attitude I expect from a BA employee and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I would have taken this up with a supervisor that night if not for the fact that I had a number of urgent phone calls to make before boarding the flight.

Finally T4 looks a shambles now and the Gate 1 lounge was extremely crowded and totally inadequate to handle all the premium passengers on the three sold-out BA and QF flights to SIN and the flight to BKK, all leaving between 9pm and 10pm.