With my Silver requalification deadline looming and having only earned tier points on CX this year I've spent today doing my 4 sectors on BA metal: LGW-JER-LGW twice.

Just in case anyone else is daft enough to want to do this, a few hints'n'tips'n'musings:

• Ended up buying nested JER-LGW-JER inside LGW-JER-LGW on the BA site as it wouldn't let me buy them back to back (and I wanted to save a couple of quid via the shareholder discount rather than book elsewhere).
• Sunday seems to be OK at LGW in terms of security, although it was 0630!
• LGW club lounge limited to toast, fruit, cereal and micro-croissants... no sign of meats/cheeses (well, there was a sign indicating a 'selection', but no sign of the actual food).
• Flight goes from the domestic gates 55 where there is not much in the way of amenity except a small coffee outlet.
• Food on the first LGW-JER sector (0730 flight) was a wrapper containing a cheese straw, a sweet almond paste straw, a yoghurt drink and some kind of yoghurt cake confection. All very nasty... quite why BA thinks its clientele want to stuff themselves with sugar in the morning is beyond me.
• No hot drinks on three of the sectors: too much turbulence and a very short service window given the length of the flight (about 30mins).
• JER lounge is just to the right of where arrivals enter the building. It's a door very easy to miss since it is blank with a single sign next to it.
• Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc in evidence in the JER lounge.
• Turnaround pretty quick: only enough time for a quick drink and some crisps each time. No real food to speak of in the JER lounge.
• Food on the first return sector from JER was a cheese and ham croissant of a proper size. And actually quite tasty (could have done with one on my last BA F flight, to be honest)
• On returning to LGW you can stay in the domestic gate 55 area for your next flight if you have a boarding card but if you want to get back to the lounge it seems that you have to go out of UK arrivals and then back through security.
• Second time around (10:00 - 11:30) the BA Club lounge was rammed with, I presume, Caribbean pax. Or maybe it was all those Gold-Open-Doors Easyjet pax I've been hearing so much about. Still serving breakfast items when I left the lounge.
• Only on the third sector was my exit row (12) full - on the other flights the plane was fairly empty (and row 12 is definitely the best in ET on this flight).
• The exit via UK arrivals at LGW is hugely labyrinthine: along a corridor, left, right, left, down an escalator, right, down some stairs, through a building site, along a corridor, left, left and then right around the carousel then left and right and eventually out.
• Mobile phone boarding pass worked fine throughout, although it feels a tad daft showing it to the cabin crew when you enter the plane.

From leaving Chiswick at 0530 I returned homw just before 1545 having completed by 4 qualifying flights for my silver card. I really must remember to actually take some BA flights next year!

BC