Originally Posted by
PablitoCA
I'm booked on a BA reward flight LGW to Madrid arriving at 10am on Friday morning and then Iberia to JFK at 12:40 on a separate ticket with checked baggage.
Both business class flights, am a British national, fully vaccinated.
Is this realistically doable or should I junk the reward flight and fly to Madrid the night before? I'd rather avoid that as have an event I really don't want to miss the night before but if I'm leaving things in the lap of the gods otherwise would have no choice.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
The problem is your luggage. If you can do hand luggage only, it's fine as you'd only stay in T4S and not go through passport control or anything. You'll be in departures area in 15 minutes. But luggage at MAD is notoriously slow and can easily take an hour on a bad day as well as having to get back to the main part of T4 and then make it back to T4S. Basically there's zero room for delay. You could use sendmybag or a similar service to get your luggage delivered and not check it on your flight.
Another tip is that if legroom is much of a concern, be sure to get an exit row. Iberia Express seats are really very tight.