wdcosta117

Morning fellow flyers…



Some advice please, flying to New York (either airport) from London (Gatwick or Heathrow) on the 09th July to 16th for 7 nights. Dates are pretty flexible just need to be there for the 13 July – World traveler is sufficient however may do World traveler plus just for the slightly added service and comfort. Both silver status if that helps. Cash booking.



As there are so many flights per day are they any preferable ones i.e. newer aircraft's. I’ve flown a few times on old aircraft's and the world traveler plus just wasn’t worth the added money. Should I consider a one world partner AA or Finnair.

Just in general - any advice or slight hacks anyone knows id be most grateful.

Cap'n Benj

My only consideration would be the most convenient schedule and when the immigration queue is likely to be shortest.

Personally I much prefer EWR to JFK but I’m sure you’ll have people saying the opposite.

re the plane in WT they’re all much of a muchness, a super J 747 may be your best bet for the guaranteed latest IFE, the other aircraft are more than decent though

You may want to look at AA as I believe you can still select Main Cabin Extra seats for free as a Silver, which would guarantee extra legroom

mikeyfly

On BA i'd avoid the 10 across 777 if it's showing, especially on the return. If WT+ is a couple of hundred more in the sale I would take that, at least on the return leg

tjcxx

You certainly can select MCE free of charge. It is the most cost-effective extra legroom there is.

AA MCE (regular economy fare, not Basic) is what I'd go for in your shoes, unless you can find WTP for less than say £200 more round-trip.

mikeyfly

Return LGW Y+ is £665 and LHR Y+ circa £700

I'd be happy to pay that

wdcosta117

At the moment WT+ is around £300 more than WT, seems reasonable enough.

Never heard of AA MCE so will investigate that now, seems like a good option.

How can i tell what plane is a super J 747?

mikeyfly

The seat map will look like this; do a dummy booking and cross reference the seat maps

14F86J30W145Y | The BA Source

wilsnunn

I would 100% suggest avoiding the 10 accross Y planes, I would also suggest FT from London to NYC and then WT+ coming back as it is often <£100 more for that instead of going back in WT and is significantly more comfortable (at least to me), gives you the chance to UuA to CW (or indeed have an OpUp to CW as I did last year) and you get vastly more TPs (if that is of any importance to you).

giorgio1712

AA will be from T3 if LHR which has (IMO) better business lounges than T5.

wdcosta117

Mikeyfly. How can i do a dummy booking without paying? Thought to get to the seat map (where you would choose seats) you'd need to pay for the flight first.

***EDIT. Apologies as did the dummy booking now, at final stage can choose seats before purchasing

Others thank you for some great advice and tips, looking into it as we speak.

krispy84

In your position, BAEC silver looking at economy, I would always chose AA with the free MCE seating that OW Sapphire gets you. MCE = Main Cabin Extra on AA, gives a mix of things, but the best for me is the 3 - 4 inches of extra legroom. Plus you get the LHR T3 lounges, far better than T5, and the AA Flagship lounge on the return. I don’t really value Premium Economy, so for me, I’d save the £200 extra and have a slap up lunch or dinner in NYC.

dwugson

I'd also go with AA in particular when going into JFK - immigration can be very slow in T7 used by BA. I'd avoid flying via Gatwick, that flight tends to get cancelled with some regularity which means transfering to Heathrow. Also check into prices booking a 'package' - even adding one or two nights hotel as part of your booking through a site such as Expedia can lower your costs significantly.

wdcosta117

AA option is looking our best option especially as advised with silver enabling us to choose MCE. Great shout about the lounges at T3 – I always seem to forget that these are available to us and end up in a very cramped BA business lounge.



Shame to hear about the Gatwick flights getting cancelled, these were in fact cheapest, so if we were going to upgrade to WT I was going to use LGW out and inbound.



Think for this trip and Airbnb was preferable considering how much time will be out - and then when in wanted certain a lounge for eating takeaways ��



Slightly off topic we found a great deal on expedia for an executive suite in (cough cough) Trump towers for £2000pp for the 7 nights including flights. When I tried to book the same room in expedia as just hotel it came up over £4000pp. Surely this is a glitch?!We didn’t book in case of it.

aztimm

It is always worthwhile to check the packaged vacations side of things, as it can work out to essentially getting free flights, and sometimes even more. However, I regularly see posts over on the AA forum about passengers having issues with Expedia (or other) issued tickets and AAgents not being able to (or unwilling to) help them.
AA has its own packaged vacations site; if you haven't yet, you can book through there. If you're flying AA anyway, it might help you slightly if the ticket is issued by AA, even if it is by AA vacations. (for those who credit to the AAdvantage program, it could work out better for EQD/EQM, but always best to estimate both versions).

Years ago, we flew PHX-LAS using a packaged vacation and stayed at the Bellagio. It worked out that the flights were essentially free -v- booking air + hotel separately (you can also add on tours and other options to the packaged vacation).

secretmachines

edited