Quite an anticlimactic flight, mostly because it mirrored the earlier trip from Bucharest. The crew were pleasant and efficient. A hot towel and small water was provided before take off, and a magical fermented juice appeared during the trolley run . No photos as I spent the majority of the flight chatting to the gregarious lady in 14A.

There was one difference in the service, it was slightly more restrictive, only cheese sandwiches, and the only alcohol was beer, although the lady next to me asked if they had wine and the crew member fetched her one from business.

Pilots announcement at 18:20 that we were currently over London and our ETA at Birmingham was expected to be 17:45 (got to love time zone changes)
On the ground at 17:35 landing with a mighty thump and now trundling around the airport

Next stop: the HIE

And I’ve made it! No Uber to end this trip just some picture of completely the wrong room booked by our OTA yet again! I always ask for a double and always get anything but. The hotel is completely booked tonight so no chance to change it. The thing I hate about the accessible rooms is the shonky socket placements





That’s it from me, time now to go to the Little Owl next door to say farewell to a dear colleague who is moving on to bigger and better things

Really? I could have sworn I read somewhere sometime ago, that the UK had the Cadillac of the world's best universal health care systems. Well it's good you have the ability to just hop over to another destination to get the treatment you desire.

Not a chance, The UKs healthcare system is crumbling. A recent article, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...tist-area.html

I moved house nearly 3 years ago and still cannot register with the dentist that is just around the corner.

Did you ever check the upgrade price after that? Having recently done TUN-CDG in AF J (a bit shorter than OTP-CDG) I found the food and service to be top notch. Vastly better than what one would expect on KL or BA. I probably would have grabbed the �207 offer. In retrospect, did you regret not taking this offer, especially after your runny nosed seatmate arrived?

I did, it was still �207 in the morning and as mentioned earlier, check in wasn�t open so I couldn�t check the Airport price.

I don�t regret not upgrading as it was my first time in AF Y and despite Mr Sniffy it outperformed BA almost across the board.

So your new home is SkyTeam, now?

Who knows . I have around 80 flights booked with BA/Oneworld taking me all the way out to December, plus 2 GUFs to make good use of somewhere along the way, so there’s a lot of BA in the immediate future. I’ve also got 6 LH flights in the diary.

With BA GGL, FB plat, VS gold, and soon to be *A SEN, I’ll be filling the rest of the year with whatever suits. As we have seen with the LH announcement, things are constantly changing, so I’ll just wait and see what 2026 will bring.

What I can say is that on these last two trips I was more than happy with AF Y, KLM J not so much, the on board F&B offering and the lounge were not great.

I will also do the M&M Match to *A SEN. I can use the status on my flights with NZ in August/September. I still hope for a status match to FB outside UK.

With 80 flights so you should be almost Gold again but not GGL anymore?

The vast majority of the 2025 flights are redemptions as I tore down my avios mountain. As it stands with the new BAC I’d never hit gold.

Ah well... For the more childish men on here, the demise of the 747 fleet also incurred the loss of *that* loo.

Loo with a view?

That one exactly