SFO777

BA Lounges at Heathrow


After my wonderful time in the bowels of T5, I headed upstairs to the Galleries B lounge.





Pleasant enough Business Class lounge.

















With time to kill, I decided to head over the main concourse A gates and the First Class lounge.



Oh yeah, no train in that direction. At least it's good exercise.











My AA EXP status got me access to the BA First lounge.





















Nice enough lounge by BA/AA standards, although the cheese tasting was a nice touch.



And the Henriot very nice.

SFO777

British Airways A380 Club World to LAX


At T-60, I headed out for the train and the distant C gates. And kudos to Emirates for the massive in your face billboard just before T5 train.





Gate C57 at the far end of the concourse.







London LHR to Los Angeles LAX
British Airways BA269
A380-800
3:30p-6:50p
February 20, 2018
Club World
Upper Deck seat 58E

My One World Emerald status got me into the Priority Lane and I was in the first wave to board.









O.M.G. This is Business Class?? What a load of garbage this is. Since I was rebooked on this flight at the last minute, EF showed no available window seats. After the Galleries Lounge dragon confirmed a light load, I opted for a middle middle seat in the empty back of the upper deck, hoping that I wouldn't have cell mates, er rather seat mates to stare at.







What a stupid layout. Also seems like a pretty inefficient use of space. Pretty sure that one could put the same number of real Business Class seats in the same space.



A peek back into Premium Economy.



OK, I guess that the bulkhead is not bad if you have to fly Premium Economy.





My cell for the next 11 hours



Holy sheet. This the seat to the left??



And the one to the right. God forbid anyone would sit there and have stare at each other even if its just during take off and landing. Who was the idiot that thought that this would be a good idea?



My view. LOL.













Checking the seat map before we depart. Looks like the lounge dragon blocked 58D so I'm pretty sure that I be all alone in the middle. Hmm, row 57A and 57K are now open. Meh, I'm going to stay in 58 and shiut myself to the world.



Today's menu.



Gotta love the Brits... if I'm peckish?? Jeez, speak English.















My companion for the next 11 hours.



One of the (few) best things about BA is the cute pre-flight safety video, featuring a variety of British celebs.





























Once in the air, my walled in cell with dividers fully deployed. If you don't want to interact with people, this is a great seat. LOL.









One of the two forward cabin upper deck lavs.





Service was very good. Perhaps the crew feels sorry for the garbage hard product. A G&T to start.



And another one.



Showtime, BA Club World style.



Hmmm, looks a little like this morning's starter. The Chicken and duck terrine was very good, with fennel purée, hazelnut and carrot salad with walnut granola. Terrines must be a BA thing. In any event, this was better than most AA's starters.





For my main and from experience, a big No to British beef BA style. My Chettinad chicken with coriander rice and tadka dal was absolutely spectacular. I love Indian food and this dish was simply amazing.





Dessert was also delicious... a duo featuring carmelized orange tart and chocolate, almond and salted caramel crisp with caramel sauce.



Yeah, that'll work.





I slept for a good 5 hours, watched another movie and then felt peckish and decided to try to late-flight-snack. As good as the main meal was, the snack was... not so much.



The starter salad was surprisingly tasteless considering that it had everything but the kitchen sink.



But it was downright gourmet compared to the disgusting "warm sandwich of steak".



Completely and utterly inedible.



We landed on time and was only a few meters from the upper deck exit door.



And now off to baggage claim to see if I my bag (and my laptop and my life) had made it.





After 30 minutes and no more bags coming off the carousel, it became apparent that my bag did not make flight. That sucks. However, pleasant BA baggage rep was at the carousel and seemed to be expecting me as she had my name on her list. She confirmed that my bag was still in London but would be the first flight tomorrow arriving at 2pm. She promised to email a tracking number and an hour later, I did have my tracking number.

Shortly after I got confirmation that BA has my bag and will be on BA283 tomorrow.






And then the next afternoon, confirmation that my bag was at LAX and waiting for courier pickup. The courier delivered my bag at around 8pm the next night, or about 24 hours after I landed at LAX. The saga ends well as the entire contents were intact, just as I packed them in Cairo, and my laptop worked perfectly after I turned it on.

My impressions of BA...

I had dreaded this day but in the end, BA exceeded my albeit low expectations. Staff and service were excellent, and except for the late-flight LHR-LAX snack, catering and food were very good. But that dreadful A380 Club World hard product is simply inexcusable. If I had paid retail, I'd have been royally pissed. But then again, I paid next to nothing for the flight and it got me closer to BA Gold status. And colour me impressed by BAEC. Since my LHR-JFK-LAX was changed to LHR-LAX, I was concerned about not getting my carefully plotted Tier points. Kudos to BA though as within 24 hours and without any action on my part, my EC account had been credited with Original Routing Credit and I got my 350 Tier points for LHR-JFK-LAX.

thibderoc

As usual, great TR.

You mix bookings for each one of you trips! I don't know how you manage not to lost track ! Congrats

aquamarinesteph

I'm glad there's a happy ending for the trip, the luggage & the laptop! :-) Great trip report!

tedcruz

Fabullous tripreprt. Lovely read and nice pictures. You can always trust BA to put a dampner in a good trip!!

nwmgc

Terrific report, as ever. Thank you.

1P

Missed this one as I was on the road. Another great TR, SFO777! Those Emirates wine lists are just incredible —put everyone else in the shade. I'd have been under the table, trying them all. Hope you tasted the Guiraud Sauternes: one of the best.

SFO777

American's Flagship FIrst Lounge at LAX

A week later I'm back at LAX to continue my CAI-HNL roundtrip saga. Today it's a one day out and back same plane roundtrip to Honolulu. No many people in the PreCheck lane at Terminal 4.





My first stop was the T4 Admirals Club and Flagship Lounge to check out the new Flagship Lounge. The concourse level AAngel verified my BA Silver credentials and gave me a pass to the Flagship Lounge which occupies the old Admirals Club space.









































The best part of the lounge in on the other side of the main lounge area towards the lavs and showers.



With a gallery of wonderful pics of celebs from the glory days.













And at the end of the hall, the new Flagship First Dining, reserved for 3 class First Class passengers. Will try it out in a couple of weeks on my return to JFK, LHR and CAI.



LAX to Honolulu

At around T-55, I headed out for the long, ugly walk to Terminal 5 and the lovely Gate 53B.















Los Angeles LAX to Honolulu HNL
American AA 283
A321
9:45a-2:10p
February 28, 2018
Seat 3A


Upgrade requests today? Yeah, that ain't gonna happen.



Ugh. 6+ hours in this thing? If I was interested in a good flying experience or was travelling with Mrs. SFO777, we'd be on Hawaiian.























And we're off.



I worked most of the flight, although not quite as productive as I could have been if the advertised Wifi was available. I thought it a little odd that AA claimed Wifi was availlable on this flight.





But in the end, nothing... just the teaser telling is what we already knew.



And then there was the tray table for both 3A and 3C, which I discovered are connected and were not locked into position... causing them to both collapse and fall forward unless you used your knees to keep them in place. Apparently a roll of duct tape is SOP on AA flights and our FA and I were able to improvise to keep the trays upright for meal service.





I had pre-ordered my meal today going with the Chicken Katsu.






Showtime, AA style.





The chicken katsu was tasty especially with the BBQ sauce.



From the snack basket later in the flight.





On descent over Honolulu before turning back on a very cloudy day.



























We arrived 20 minutes early and I headed to the Admirals Club to do a little work before re-boarding the same plane for the return flight back to LAX.

SFO777

Merci beaucoup thibderoc. Sometimes, I do wake up wondering where I am.

Thank you aquamarinesteph. I was very relieved. Memo to self: No laptop to CAI when flying back on BA.

Thanks very much tedcruz. Don't know what it is with me and BA. I don't seem to have a lot of luck, but other than the missing bag, it wasn't a bad day despite the crappy Club World A380 seat.

Thank you nwmgc.

.

Thanks so much 1P. Emirates is such a wonderful airline. Mrs. SFO777 and I both can't get enough. We are planning Australia just after Christmas (amazingly found 2 LAX-MEL QF First award seats) and even she was warming to Emirates MEL-DXB-LAX all the way home.

offerendum

Well, I wrote 5 years ago: Tape saves the world....

710 77345

Glad you had some good flights. The AA flight to HNL was equipped with wifi, it was just broken - hence the notifications advertising its (expected!) availability.

Also, your BA seats were likely blocked by the BA super computer due to your status, rather than a lounge agent - it's a nice perk for status holders, especially with their high density seating and the fact the A380 seat dividers can be down for a l-o-n-g time (usually down when the in seat power is off, which covers the time circling in holds and taxiing on the ground - which can be high at Heathrow!).

Best part of the Emirates new suite has to be the temperature control - how hard would it be for other airlines to add this in?

kosy91

It will only happen if an airline chooses to introduce fully closed suites/bedrooms. Don't see too many airlines rushing to implement this

The Residence had the opportunity to introduce this. Anyone know if their bedroom has temp control?

apodo77

New FC on Emirates loooks amazing.

Glad to see you are a Jack Reacher fan. One of my favorite series of fiction books.

HMPS

SFO777 Thanks for drawing my attention to the Nouvelle Height Cuisine on BA Club World ! I ahave traveled some but never sampled it....Now after shunning BA for a very long time I must return to sample the "Height Cuisine". Wonder what would Julia Child or Gordon Ramsey would say.

We have done Petra & Wadi Rum. SPECTACULAR. Was during winter but was still very hot. Your photos are better.
How can we appeal to the Princess to let you have longer Hall Passes?

A beef with you...if I knew you were going to be at ORD, would have loved to host you.

thefilipinotraveler

Great trip report, as always. I also booked the CAI-HNL and will commence my trip in a few weeks so your trip report is very helpful. Safe travels. PS. Your lovely pictures from Petra makes me want to visit that place again