jcm9000

Canny mind when my first BA flight was, but definitely in 2005 when I moved to GCM on my first ever proper long haul flight (athens was the furthest previously). Booked after walking in to a TA, they suggested if I fancied paying £400 more I could get in business class and put me in 2A. It was a 767 with old cradle seats and very old F being sold as J just prior to the 767 refit with no F, and TA knew to put me in 2A. New life, may as well go in style. Didn't realise that until I was on board, asked cabin crew if my BP was correct, got a huffy response about yes please sit down. Then had some DYKWIA going to the Bahamas huffing and puffing while literally hanging on to my seat back how he had paid many thousands and was promised club world, giving me (a scrawny speccy clueless 25 yr old at the time) the evil eye for obviously sitting in 'his seat'. Same huffy cabin crew came over and he got the full huff treatment, with a quick comment from me just to stick the knife in about how I only paid 400 quid for my seat (new work paid the Y portion). Guy nearly went purple, but sit he did with lots of muttering in his cradle seat. First experience with the kind of jumped up self-important ex-pats often seen in that part of the world. Secretly I know they all just wished they were back in the UK, I was one of them for 9 years...

After 2005, one or two trips back home, but then stuck around GCM for a few years in a new job doing a fair bit of AA flying around the North and Central America, getting plat etc after finally finding FT.com to learn more about AA's program, and it was about then I found I would do anything to avoid Y, including paying the fare difference for all my work trips to get into domestic F on AA, which was usually only a couple of hundred extra from GCM for some reason (if only I had kept putting flights to BA account....). To this day I have still never flown Y long haul (I did W a few times and wanted to scratch my eyeballs out, I think I have mellowed now thanks to AA domestic F which is the same basically). First long haul F was with AA during the Iceland volcano when bumped up to F from J on a rebooked sector, liked it, spent many airmiles on more TATL Fs with AA on the 772, great seat. First BA F was new F in the 747 and I did not like the cabin crew at all, the lady working my side of the cabin had a thick put on 'I am a Queen' style posh accent. No way was it real. Put me right off. I did a couple of other BA Fs after that and the staff were much much better (and down to earth) and I switched back to BA's program after earning about 500k lifetime miles with AA (small by many standards) a couple of years ago. Earned 3,000TPs in 2013 jumping straight from blue to Gold (had to get 4 sectors..), last year moved back to Scotland and dropped to Silver as little flying last year. Just need one flight to get back to Gold coming up in July and that is me. Still working for Cayman but now based in Scotland, want a new job, finding that challenging, so I guess I'll continue flying 3 or 4 times a year for work for now until someone takes pity on me as my experience is all US based the last 9 years. When that happens I expect flying for work to disappear and I will as well from here I suppose.

I now always do Ex-EUs in J as that guarantees about 1,600 TPs per year. I don't really care about the various Exec Club devaluations, I want a comfy seat and free booze. I typically book on AA.com because BA.com is useless for multi-tool booking with AA sectors (it just won't work) but try to fly BA metal as I really like the crews now, but often end up on AA's 77W as it is curiously often the cheapest ex-EU price MIA-LHR sector - no hardship there. Looking at flying US/AA's A330s for my upcoming flights unless something on a 747 upperdeck opens up (still my favourite place, I love flying on that old bird), but will still credit to BA as getting status is easy if flying J.

I come on here to learn (subsequently forget) and occasionally give advice, usually I just get confused and talk nonsense and get abused for it, I like it, so I come back for more. I now have a family so my mid-life crisis is wishing I could attend more Dos / do real TP runs as I like flying, and I definitely like sitting down and drinking until I pass out (which can also be done while flying on BA) like I used to do in Cayman out of boredom. Which probably explains the general confusion.

And that is that.