Not really First Class....
Apr 18, 2019, 5:01 am
#16
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: HKG
Programs: BA GGL & CCR
Posts: 600
Arriving T5 from OSL yesterday, 4,5 hours to kill at LHR before the F-flight to YVR. My boarding card got rejected at Fast Track security, and I got to learn - after some dicussion with the CSM - that since my YVR-flight is leaving from T3, I can not access T5 and the Concorde Room. What???
BA has marketed and sold me a First Class experience, including the CCR, but I have never read or been warned about this limitation (T5/T3). Frankfurt and other major airports have different terminals, but there is no restriction in what lounge you can access (as long as your ticket type or status entitles you to enter).
The CSM told me I was not the first customer to be surprised and complain about this, and appologized on behalf of BA for the lack of information.
BA obviously need to align their marketing to the product they deliver.
The F-flight itself: No power working in 1K, had to ask the person i 1A to charge my phone. Barely got some wine, took 2,5 hours before food was served (I told them I wanted to eat asap when they handed out the menu), finally got a salad and chicken, just to get food poisoned. So, now enjoying canadian bathrooms....
BA has marketed and sold me a First Class experience, including the CCR, but I have never read or been warned about this limitation (T5/T3). Frankfurt and other major airports have different terminals, but there is no restriction in what lounge you can access (as long as your ticket type or status entitles you to enter).
The CSM told me I was not the first customer to be surprised and complain about this, and appologized on behalf of BA for the lack of information.
BA obviously need to align their marketing to the product they deliver.
The F-flight itself: No power working in 1K, had to ask the person i 1A to charge my phone. Barely got some wine, took 2,5 hours before food was served (I told them I wanted to eat asap when they handed out the menu), finally got a salad and chicken, just to get food poisoned. So, now enjoying canadian bathrooms....
I don’t have to read anything below yours to know it will be people asking you how do you know and to prove it was BA that poisoned you.
As for the CCR you’re really not missing much. CX and QF are better, quieter, cleaner, less shabby, better food, you actually stand more of a chance of getting a spa mini appointment in T3... minus possibly some specific expensive label booze you may have been hoping to load up if you’re that sort.
Apr 18, 2019, 5:22 am
#17
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 1,197
(Almost certainly not, but you never know!)
Apr 18, 2019, 5:47 am
#18
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: London
Programs: BA GGLfL, WoH Lifetime Globalist, HH Diamond, SPG Gold
Posts: 711
Apr 18, 2019, 5:52 am
#19
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GGL+GfL, ALL Plat, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 30,536
As far as I know, the limitations to the terminals that you can visit without a BP for a flight from the same terminal is not in any way a choice by BA and I struggle to see how BA missold anything on that one. Different airports and terminals just have different lounges, and there are in fact, quite a few European airports where you would not be allowed to enter a lounge in a terminal/part of the terminal that you are not flying from.
I'm hardly a BA apologist, but First Class does not mean that you get anything that you want. Things such as security and airport infrastructure are largely outside of airlines' control. Plus as others have said, you have both a BA F lounge and several other F lounges to use when flying from T3, and that includes much better showers (and some would say better food) than what you could get at T5, though the drinks quality in the CCR is unmatched at LHR (but is still very good in the BA T3 F lounge).
I'm hardly a BA apologist, but First Class does not mean that you get anything that you want. Things such as security and airport infrastructure are largely outside of airlines' control. Plus as others have said, you have both a BA F lounge and several other F lounges to use when flying from T3, and that includes much better showers (and some would say better food) than what you could get at T5, though the drinks quality in the CCR is unmatched at LHR (but is still very good in the BA T3 F lounge).
Apr 18, 2019, 5:57 am
#20
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Effectively grounded
Programs: BA GGL for a little while longer
Posts: 844
Apr 18, 2019, 6:06 am
#21
Join Date: Aug 2004
Programs: Meh
Posts: 2,598
Apr 18, 2019, 7:23 am
#22
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: Germany
Programs: BA GGL, CCR - TK G
Posts: 809
The OP sounds very harsh .. But I do see his point .
I remember how much I was excited and looking forward to my first special experience
Let it be the first club flight.. The first first.. Or the first time I was excited to use my ccr card only to be turned off at exactly the same spot as op when trying to enter t5 with a t3 departure
Today I laugh about it of course . And yes. For all of us it's clear and easy..
But to be excited to use the ccr for the first time.. And then being turned down is a sad experience.
I remember how much I was excited and looking forward to my first special experience
Let it be the first club flight.. The first first.. Or the first time I was excited to use my ccr card only to be turned off at exactly the same spot as op when trying to enter t5 with a t3 departure
Today I laugh about it of course . And yes. For all of us it's clear and easy..
But to be excited to use the ccr for the first time.. And then being turned down is a sad experience.
Apr 18, 2019, 9:28 am
#23
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Argentina
Posts: 40,211
Apr 18, 2019, 9:38 am
#24
Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club, easyJet and Ryanair
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: UK/Las Vegas
Programs: BA Gold (GGL/CCR)
Posts: 15,927
If he can get in to the CX lounge, every visit I've made there this last 9/12 months I've found the place to be crowded with many if the seats just topo close to each other. People keep telling us here the food is great in there, but with one or two exceptions I've found it pretty average.
Apr 18, 2019, 10:00 am
#26
Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 698
If he can get in to the CX lounge, every visit I've made there this last 9/12 months I've found the place to be crowded with many if the seats just topo close to each other. People keep telling us here the food is great in there, but with one or two exceptions I've found it pretty average.
Apr 18, 2019, 10:17 am
#28
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GGL+GfL, ALL Plat, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 30,536
I do like the mocktail offering too and the decent grapefruit juice (unlike the CCR which has ditched its previously good grapefruit juice for an inferior version a while ago). On the other hand the wine and Champagne menu is much better in the CCR and the coffee is better too (though the QF lounge has - perhaps unsurprisingly given the Australian general coffee quality - much better than both of them).
Apr 18, 2019, 11:19 am
#30
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Cumbria
Programs: BAEC GGL/CCR, Hilton Diamond, Starbucks Gold
Posts: 4,510
Don’t know what you were expecting... that’s pretty typical.
I don’t have to read anything below yours to know it will be people asking you how do you know and to prove it was BA that poisoned you.
As for the CCR you’re really not missing much. CX and QF are better, quieter, cleaner, less shabby, better food, you actually stand more of a chance of getting a spa mini appointment in T3... minus possibly some specific expensive label booze you may have been hoping to load up if you’re that sort.