Well folks - if I may add some comments...

I am an Olympic Airways Gold FF - the benefits I get from this, I have to say, are rather minimal.

Aside from lounge access (which I get anyway in Biz Class) - the only other benefit that I can use is the 'limousine' transfer between the aircraft and the terminal building (yes - a separate car picks you up rather than having to take the bus!!) - although I am not sure if I still get this now that the new airport has some air bridges.

Other than this - the supposed ability to make seat selection is the same in all classes, and I have never yet secured the seat of my choice, or been left in peace to enjoy the seat I selected (often I will be asked to move to allow the crew to have two empty seats at the back of the cabin).

I flew twice last year, long-haul between Oz and London. The food in Business was OK, but nothing special. All food is still served on plastic (hot food excepted), with the plastic wrap left on. There is no china whatsoever, except for glasses. I was only given salt and pepper shakers once, the rest of the time you have to open those little paper packets.

There were however a few benefits for choosing Olympic. The first of these is the seat pitch in Biz class which is 58 inches. Secondly, until the end of 2000, they allowed smoking on all flights, which I enjoy. Thirdly, the frequent flyer programme is reasonably generous - a return trip to Australia gives just under 37 000 miles (in Business with a 1.7 bonus). Two of these trips and I had enough for a return flight from London to Cairo, and then another flight Athens to Amman (this latter segment I combined with a free ticket from my parents from London to Athens - saving me £400 for the through LHR-AMM fare). Finally worth considering was the price - the fares used to be inexpensive from Australia (USD1650 Oz to Europe in C).

However, I have decided not to continue flying OA for three reasons in particular: the fact I can never get my reserved seat (as outlined above); that return flights to Australia (MEL) are routed via Sydney and that the only time I reserved a special meal, I was given an identical meal for both dinner and breakfast.

Anyway - to end on a positive note, my family recently travelled from Oz to Europe via Greece, and said that OA Y class was quite good - 34 inch seat pitch with personal TVs etc. Additionally they were allowed to reroute their ticket during transit in Athens so as to travel on a code-share service to their final destination, saving time by not having to take the train for the last stage of their journey.

(edited for grammar )



[This message has been edited by LHR/MEL/Europe FF (edited 06-26-2001).]