Crossing to the dark side...easyjet in this case
Off to Milan this eve. Booked a return hbo fare a few weeks ago for £100 or so, arriving late evening. Then I decided to fly 4hrs earlier to dine with a client. Cost of changing was £330+. Yep, £330 to fly on the previous flight. In economy. Not complaining as the flight was quite busy and that's the rules on an HBO fare. As it transpires, if I'd paid the extra £25 or whatever it would have cost for the non HBO fare, I could have changed for around £100. So that got me thinking. I have had a busy year and am at 5,755 tier points. Therefore no particular incentive to fly BA before my year ends next month. So I cancelled my BA booking entirely and rebooked with easyJ out of LGW for the times that work for me. That cost about £85. Ho hum, what about getting a front row seat, albeit without a stale sandwich and a free middle seat. Well, that will be extra. Or you can by free unlimited seat selection, priority boarding, free changes to earlier flights on day if space available (to any LON airport or in this case, from any MIL airport), checked bag etc for £199 for a year. So I did. Won't really miss the lounge. I rarely use them for more than 20 mins and anyway, my Amex platinum will get me into the No 1 lounge at LGW which I haven't tried, but am told stands up well to the BA offering.
Haven't flown easyJ for a few years. Will be interested to see how it feels. Not sure they will keep me away from BA long as LHR remains my geographically preferred airport and I value my status on One World, particularly when flying AA in the US: they have really upped their game. Equally, please don't see this as a rant: BA's flights to Milan are super busy and the business is profitable so the model is working well for them and what do I matter? But was pleasantly surprised to see the vastly better value for money that Ej offers on this (and frankly, on most) occasions!