I recently used a one-world award ticket to visit Africa during last June’s solar eclipse. I wanted to try as many different airlines.The routing was as follows: BWI-DUB-LGW Aer Lingus, LGW-LUN & JNB-LHR-MUC British Airways, MUC-MAD-OPO-MAD-MIA Iberia, and MIA-JFK-BUF-ORD-DCA American Airlines.
Not being a frequent biz traveller, I was open minded to what the various airlines offerred. There were variations of services among the airlines but were not consistent. Iberia has garnered strong negative reactions that are not entirely valid. Aer Lingus seems to be overwhelmed. No American Airlines intl segment due to scheduling problems.
BWI-DUB: Aer Lingus uses a 3rd party lounge at BWI airport. Pleasant and small. Beverages were complimentary, but served by a bartender even soft drinks. Nice array of packaged snacks, cookies, and sliced fresh fruit. Only foreign newspapers were English, not Irish. The A-330 plane had a large biz class section, but only 12 passengers. A new premier class seat and entertainment system had not yet been installed, but the seats reclined well and very comfortable (slept about 3 hours on this short trip). Food and service were OK. 4 choices for dinner, chose the featured baked Irish salmon (dried out), but the rest was fine. Lots of plates and cutlery with the Premier logo. I would hate to be the dishwasher. Don’t know about the wines since I was taking medicine that precluded alcohol. There was a wine list, but no indication of what was available. Skipped breakfast. Dublin airport is undergoing major renovations, so the terminal was confusing. Clear skies flying into Dublin for some great views.
DUB-LGW: Not expecting much. The EI domestic lounge was good upstairs, but crowded downstairs. Mainly soft and hard drinks, no snacks, but view of runways. Long way from boarding gates though. No special boarding scheme for elite status passengers (true for all of the European flights). Full dinner meal for a short flight, 3 FA’s in premier class. No jetway for a 737, and there were rain showers while climbing the steps up to the aircraft.
LGW-LUN: The terrace lounge concept at BA is impressive. Too bad the AC was broken during a sunny, warm day in London. And 4 PC’s with free INTERNET access. Very handy as I was e-mailing my friend in LAX who was leaving the next day to meet me in LUN. The wine and coffee bar was amazing. The snacks were also pretty good. One can eat in the lounge and skip the onboard meals (maybe if flying first class). Upstairs on a 747 in the older cradle biz class seat. I did not enjoy it as much as the EI seat. I just could not adjust it to my desires. The food was top notch and wines were same as in the lounge (wanted something different). The 2 FA’s were good, but a bit bland as they rushed the in-flight service a bit, especially for breakfast. Had to store a carryon in the locker by the steps, which later was moved so that I had to move most of the items to reach my bag. Deplaned in LUN by stairs, a lot of them, with carryon was awkward.
JNB-LHR-MUC: Though smaller, the lounge at JNB was as nice as LGW. Real food, 10 S.African wines at the bar (only 3 or 4 that I would actually buy though), 2 PC’s, lots of snacks. Hard to find and no runway views. I think it is in a cellar. Many people were waiting for the Qantas flight to SYD before the 8:30 PM departure. This 747 had the biz beds and I got one upstairs. Just using it as a seat was enough for me. It is a tight squeeze though as a bed. The ottoman which folds down from the bulkhead was 1 or 2 inches lower than the seat extension. It took a while to get used to that. But only 20 passengers upstairs. The 2 FA’s really like that. This flight had the friendly in-flight service that BA is known for. The purser, or whatever they called them on BA, stopped by to chat with me since I am AA platinum (one world saphire). He did seem a bit confused about what lounge facilities exist is terminal 1 at LHR. The FA’s told me to use terminal 4 arrival lounge, then go to terminal 1. I had a 3 hour stop, so that would work. As I arrived in the arrivals lounge it was a bit crowded with folks waiting in line to use the showers. I went upstairs and noticed the Morton Brown spa was empty and signed up for a head/neck/shoulder massage. Keep your showers. The massage is better than any shower. I used the ‘public’ showers at JNB since the BA counter was closed when I arrived. No line and no rush. The hot breakfast bar was too good to be true. I skipped the on-board breakfast since I knew that the arrivals lounge had the food buffet. Heathrow express to terminal 1 and waited in the BA biz class lounge. Really geared towards the business person. Not as opulant as in terminal 4, but still nice. More PC’s, but also more persons wanting to use them. 2 of the PC’s were stopped and could not be used. The flight on to MUC was delayed almost 45 minutes due to late arrival and the gate was a very long walk from the lounge. The biz class section of the Airbus 320 was not completely full so I had no seatmates. A large hot breakfast was served en-route though it was a rather short flight. Too much food, especially after eating at T4 in LHR. MUC has a nice modern airport with direct access to commuter trains going to the main train station in the center of the city.
MUC-MAD-OPO: The 1st of 4 flight segments on Iberia. Were they going to be dreadful as many people believe ? Yes and no. Check-in at MUC was uneventful. There is a shared BA/Duetsche BA/IB lounge. Way too small and too many smokers. Also just good German beer, mediocre wines and junk-food type snacks. No PC’s, and only a few newspapers. 30 minutes before departure, passengers start a line for boarding. If I were flying coach, that would be a problem for me. One of the last to board. This Airbus 320 had video/audio entertainment and 2-2 seating. It seemed that the plane was being pushed back before everyone was safely seated. Printed menus with 2 choices for dinner (fish and turkey). Food was tasty, wines so-so. The crew seemed to try hard but at times looked confused. Left about 10 minutes late from the gate but arrived 5 minutes early into MAD. Easy subway ride into central Madrid, though the station is a long walk from the terminals and you must make at least 2 transfers to go anywhere. 35 minutes later I was at Plaza de Sol and 2 blocks from my pension. The next morning, repeat the subway trip back to the airport for the short hop to OPO. The check-in counters are flight specific and the flight to Porto was at the very end of a long bank of counters. I don’t think it was the biz class counter, but no one was waiting so I used it anyway. The ground services at MAD are not good. The terminal (#2) for European departures is very modern looking and the upstairs lounge is large and has a good view of the airport. The usual soft drinks and Spanish wines, but only packages of cookies or nuts. No PC’s and no place to leave luggage since the lounge is so large. Same boarding chaos as in Munich. This flight was 30 minutes late in leaving because everyone got on buses and rode from one end of the airport to the other end at least a mile or more. Then we had to climb steps to the Airbus 320. There were empty gates where we walked down the jetway to board the buses. The flight is only 50 minutes, but the 5 or 6 of us in biz class received a pleasant cold snack/lunch. The approach into OPO is along the coast and with clear skies a nice view. Another airport under construction, so we deplaned to busses that drove us to the gate. An easy bus ride to the center of the city and more constuction among medieval streets. But delightful sunny weather during the annual wine festival.
OPO-MAD-MIA: Almost a repeat of the MAD-OPO flight. Check-in at OPO was easy and I got my boarding card for the onward flight to MIA. The IB boarding cards never print one’s oneworld status while the EI and BA always did so. Tiny lounge at OPO, but nice since I did not expect one to be there. Again, the same chaos boarding and again IB was late in departing even though the monitors kept showing an on-time departure. When I tried to board, I was told that the biz class would board later in a separate bus. I just wanted to get on the plane. Same food/drinks as the outbound flight from MAD. Upon arrival, parked the plane at the far end of tarmac beside the 747’s, 767’s, A340’s for international flights. Rode a bus back to the terminal to board a 2nd bus that would take us to the international terminal right past the plane which we had just disembarked from!! Security checks, passport checks, up a lot of stairs. Doesn’t seem to be well organized. The lounge in this terminal was awful. Poorly maintained, lots of smokers, worse snacks and drinks than the lounge in terminal 2 and a very long walk to the long-haul international flights. As I am walking to the gate, I enter a very new terminal thinking that I could have used a better lounge nearer to the gate. No such luck. So far it seems that IB is good in the air and not so good on the ground. That impression continues with this flight. I chose it because of the 5 PM departure and the fact that it was an airbus 340. The interior of the plane is very nice. The seats were the best biz class seat that I had except for the flat bed on BA. In flight entertainment was similar to BA and EI. The food was very good, as good or better than BA’s. The wine selection seemed good, but the crew just asked if you wanted red or white even when there were 2 choices for each type. What I liked was the fact that the main courses were on a cart so that one could select by pointing. This flight was full because it was a Monday and the pilots were doing their every Tuesday is a strike day. But I and many other folks were allowed to visit the cockpit after dinner. Alas, there were a few negatives. The crew insisted on lowering all the window shades even though each passenger had a personal video screen and it was daylight the entire flight. Most of the FA’s were were indifferent, especially when I tried to use my limited Spanish to make a request. The amenity kits had socks with holes in them, and products that smelled like a cheap prostitute. At least the flight was on-time.
MIA-JFK-BUF-ORD-DCA: These AA flights were smooth and uneventful. The MIA-JFK-BUF segments were originally MIA-ORD-BUF, but weather forced a reroute. Got to fly 1st class on a 762, though not sure if it was the intl configuration. The amount of space seemed to be more than any of the biz class seats, so maybe I got lucky. Because I ordered a special meal for the domestic flights, no comments on on-board food service. All of the FA’s were pleasant and efficient. Really no complaints. I would only state that the domestic 1st class on AA’s 2 class planes is really equivalent to business class in Europe. And the wines are better in Europe.

In summary, BA’s business class can be very good, but it depends on the route. The ground staff for IB seems to fall short, and EI tries hard with mixed results.

Thank you for this very detailed report! There is a lot of great information here. How many OW miles was this itinerary and what did it "cost" for this Biz class award?

How was the eclipse?

I find IB to be much better on their domestic/intraEuropean routes than on their long haul international flights. The inflight staff are younger and not the older "jaded children of the privileged classes of Spain" who use their jobs to jet set and shop. Passengers come a distant third or fourth in their infight priorities. Seats also have better pitch on the smaller jets versus very tight pitch on large intercontinental ones. IB lounges and ground facilities leave much to be desired, and smoking is a major issue. [But at least they have banned it inflight after a silly "smokers on the left, non-smokers on the right side of the aircraft" arrangement favoured by many non-NAmerican carriers in the olden days.]

I have never found the iMacs in the BA lounge at JNB to be in working condition. And the lounge is in the basement, or lower level, of the departures hall, though not really that difficult to find. Actually preferred the older version which had a separate room for First Class before they adopted the Terrace redesign. There are also showers, which are useful. The lounge in the Domestic Terminal is actually nicer and more roomy. One of the best in the system!

But thanks for your report and observations. Just curious about what type of oneworld ticket you got, and what it cost in the program you are a member of?

I used an AA oneworld business class award ticket. It cost 130K miles, good for 20K miles in the itinerary. The regular AA-BA award to Africa would have cost 150K miles. What I liked was the ability to create my own routing with as many stopovers as I wanted. A hidden plus is the fact that mileage can be less than adding up the segments when one does not make a stopover (connection less than 24 hours). The mileage from JNB-LHR-MUC was determined as an amount of the direct line, ie 5300 miles instead of the 5600+725 sum for the two segments. The only drawback is that routing or carrier changes cannot be made once ticketed and no BA across the Atlantic Ocean. And eclipse day was completely clear skies and terrific.

[This message has been edited by headinclouds (edited 09-06-2001).]

[This message has been edited by headinclouds (edited 09-06-2001).]

I am a tad CONFUSED. I had no idea American had awards with UNLIMITED STOPOVERS. I thought all awards allowed only 2 stopovers in total. Is it because you are a Platinium/Gold member or whatever that you get this privilege? Thank you.

Hmmm.. does that mean you can take a flight from the US to JNB via HKG without a stopover and it only would count as the trans-Atlantic (shortest) distance?