Today I took my first flight in ET for many years (I normally travel CE) so thought I would report on my experience

Firstly, I was expecting to drop to Bronze as I was 120 tp short of silver renewal. However, I received an email telling me I am being renewed as silver anyway which came as a big surprise.

The lounge was quiet and there was a hot meal option, champagne on request and some nice Talisker.

I declined the £89 upgrade offer on the basis that it wasn't worth it as a silver member and in any case I was interested to see what ET would be like.

We were delayed by an hour which considering the weather forecast was not bad and I had been fearing cancellations. We boarded at gate 24 which is a much better expeience than the gates further down that they often use. Groups 1 and 2 were called forward to a separate area with seats to wait. I noticed that the ground staff in the lounge and at the gate were not wearing BA uniforms but what appeared to be their own cloathes (not that it made any difference of course}. The fare for this was £76 HBO booked about 10 days ahead. Given the silver benefits I thought this was good value.

On board I had exit row 16 on the A321 and an empty seat next to me. This gives more legroom than CE. Water and pretels were served immediately after take off. The announcement said that we could order items online on board. However, I didn't see anything being delivered and there was no trolley service. I was surprised at how little there was for the 3 crew members to do aprart from the safety duties. So it was a perfectly pleasant and uneventful flight.

Completely off topic, but I travelled up not in CE but on National Express, just to experience it. £19.70 got me a comfy leather seat with more leg room than the plane, advance seat selection and 2 hold bags of up to 20kg each. Coach was spotless including the toilet and we left on time and arrive 9 hours later 15 mins early. Driver was very professional and politely enforced all of the rules about no smelly food, using headphones etc.