Our disgraceful National Airline
Discussion
I have used BA (Business Class) a few times recently and think it is quite good, my problem with BA is the cost.
As I fly from Aberdeen I have to go through Heathrow, Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam to get to Luanda, BA are by far the most expensive (twice KLM price), Air France next and KLM usually slightly cheaper than Lufthansa, with regard to seat comfort/service there is little to choose between all except KLM which have by far the worst seats, at least on that route, though a recent flight to Bangkok had great seats.
However the cost saving (I buy my own tickets)and flight times mean I usually use KLM, if BA pricing was better I would use them every time.
As I fly from Aberdeen I have to go through Heathrow, Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam to get to Luanda, BA are by far the most expensive (twice KLM price), Air France next and KLM usually slightly cheaper than Lufthansa, with regard to seat comfort/service there is little to choose between all except KLM which have by far the worst seats, at least on that route, though a recent flight to Bangkok had great seats.
However the cost saving (I buy my own tickets)and flight times mean I usually use KLM, if BA pricing was better I would use them every time.
Quick question - Mts Cyclone and myself are emigrating to HK from the UK on BA in April (one way ticket, which is quite an odd thing to buy!) and I was wondering if anyone knew if BA have an increased baggage allowance policy at all for this sort of thing?
I'm only a blue member (had reached Silver a few years ago but alas no more) so nothing to be gained from that route.
I'm only a blue member (had reached Silver a few years ago but alas no more) so nothing to be gained from that route.
Matt Cyclone said:
Quick question - Mts Cyclone and myself are emigrating to HK from the UK on BA in April (one way ticket, which is quite an odd thing to buy!) and I was wondering if anyone knew if BA have an increased baggage allowance policy at all for this sort of thing?
I'm only a blue member (had reached Silver a few years ago but alas no more) so nothing to be gained from that route.
You can pay (and pay handsomely!) https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/b...I'm only a blue member (had reached Silver a few years ago but alas no more) so nothing to be gained from that route.
iphonedyou said:
tvrolet said:
Plus my 'lucky upgrade shirt'. Works maybe 50% of the time on long haul.
I'll happily call bulls
t on free upgrades on > 50% of your long haul flights.Unless your sample size is two - and even then.
I fly around 4 transatlantics each year on BA - sometimes up to 6, sometimes as few as 3, and usually to the West Coast. I class these as long haul. If I get an upgrade on a flight within a booking (as per last week LHR-SEA upgraded, EDI-LHR, SEA-LHR and LHR-EDI not) then I'm saying that's a long haul 'with an upgrade'.
And so on 9 other moderately recent long haul trips I can quickly recall - the same LHR-SEA flight last year got upgraded, a SFO flight outbound last April upgraded, the LAX-HNL leg of summer trip actually upgraded to first, and also an outbound to Vancouver if I remember rightly. There were no upgrades on 2 trips to Florida (MCO), another 2 trips to Vancouver and an LA trip - so if my memory serves me right that's 5 upgrades over 9 trips in maybe 18 months? It was much the same before that too...so business as usual.
I am always booking in WT+ and not economy, and of all the upgrades I've ever had it's only happened twice when I wasn't a single traveller, and on these 2 occasions my wife was a silver card holder. The 'lucky shirt' was a but tongue-in-cheek, but I make a point of not dressing like a slob.
And for your express benefit I just checked by BA account and I count 31 booking in the last rolling 12 month (all they show), of which 4 were long haul. They were all returns, and in a couple of cases multiple trips, so counting bookings with flight connections I'm estimating my bum was on a BA seat around 80 times in the last 12 months; and it will be on a BA seat twice on Friday (EDI-LCY return), again next week EDI-LHR Monday, LHR-EDI Tuesday, and then another long haul EDI-LHR, LHR-SFO next Friday...and so it goes on....
The BA 'My Flightpath' says 380,178 miles flown; but most of that is in the last 5 years; before that I flew Star Alliance so BMI domestic/European and Continental out of EDI to the US; and I never ever got an upgrade on a Continental/United flight despite being a Gold card holder.
So I trust you get the point. a) I fly BA A LOT; b) I don't bulls
t on forums.rhinochopig said:
AdeTuono said:
t400ble said:
Does it really matter where you sit?
Of course it does.
1. Over-rotating on take-off and smacking the tail in to the runway is about as common an accident as collapsed landing gear on landing. Neither tend to result in in serious injuries - though it was the root cause (incorrectly repaired) of Japan Airlines flight 123 in 1985.
2. When you're falling out the sky pilots tend to try and pull up and avoid hitting the ground. This puts the nose high/tail low so it's the tail that hits the ground first.
3. Technically a sub-set of 2. but some crashes are caused by pilots pulling up to try and gain height. When htis fails rather than looking for other issues they try pulling up more, eventually putting the aircraft in to a terminal stall with the nose high/tail low and no forward momentum. This means no airflow over the wings to give either lift or control, a situation where gravity tends to win - tail first.
All that said it doesn't mean the back is more dangerous and the front/middle is any safer. Someone ran a meta analysis of injuries and deaths vs seat location across a huge set of accident investigation data and found you could increase your chances of surviving a crash based on where you sat...but only if you knew exactly how you were going to crash at check-in. And you were still more likely to die in a car crash driving to/from the airport than on the flight.
iphonedyou said:
tvrolet said:
Plus my 'lucky upgrade shirt'. Works maybe 50% of the time on long haul.
I'll happily call bullst on free upgrades on > 50% of your long haul flights.Unless your sample size is two - and even then.
so called said:
iphonedyou said:
tvrolet said:
Plus my 'lucky upgrade shirt'. Works maybe 50% of the time on long haul.
I'll happily call bullst on free upgrades on > 50% of your long haul flights.Unless your sample size is two - and even then.
swerni said:
Puggit said:
Never been upgraded 
I've met you, I can understand why 
It's hard to get SA gold on economy. I'm a 1 star Senator but the firm said "no more business class" two years ago. :-(
I'm a mixture of economy and premium economy and get to about 200,000 status miles per year.
Back on thread topic, I just instructed the travel agent to forget the FlyBe flight they advised and put on LH.
As I mentioned earlier, they keep charging me £stupid excess baggage charges.
so called said:
Never met either of you but had to laugh at that.
It's hard to get SA gold on economy.
Don't encourage him It's hard to get SA gold on economy.
SA gold was achievable with bmi. 3 returns in economy to JNB/CPT from LHR was all that was needed for silver. I think Gold took just over double what silver needed. Each airline sets its own rules, and I believe LH are pretty tough.
Many moons ago our Easy Jet flight was cancelled ex Geneva to Newcastle, I rang home and got 3 seats booked for the same flights but via Heathrow on BA these cost £250 each for the next day.
The BA desk opened about 6am and I enquire do about checking in on an earlier flight for which they wanted another £1000 ! Even after protesting the girl wouldn't budge on the price.
We eventually went to the check in desk , when the lad behind the desk asked if we wanted to go on an earlier flight free of charge , when the plane took off it was less than half full.
Still sticks with me after all these years later , robbing bds.
The BA desk opened about 6am and I enquire do about checking in on an earlier flight for which they wanted another £1000 ! Even after protesting the girl wouldn't budge on the price.
We eventually went to the check in desk , when the lad behind the desk asked if we wanted to go on an earlier flight free of charge , when the plane took off it was less than half full.
Still sticks with me after all these years later , robbing b
ds.tvrolet said:
so if my memory serves me right that's 5 upgrades over 9 trips in maybe 18 months? It was much the same before that too...so business as usual.
You should simply count yourself as fortunate, rather than it being "business as usual" or believe that BA are rewarding you because you are "loyal" or fly with them "A LOT".I think a large factor in upgrades is giving customers a taste of the premium cabin "crack" so they will buy cash tickets in that cabin later. There's little business sense in endlessly giving customers upgrades and thus dissuading them from purchasing expensive revenue tickets.
I fly a similar amount to you by the sound of it, and had a similar period of upgrades some years ago but in the last couple of years, not a thing.
Buster73 said:
...booked for the same flights but via Heathrow on BA these cost £250 each for the next day.
The BA desk opened about 6am and I enquire do about checking in on an earlier flight for which they wanted another £1000
Still sticks with me after all these years later , robbing bds.
The bThe BA desk opened about 6am and I enquire do about checking in on an earlier flight for which they wanted another £1000
Still sticks with me after all these years later , robbing b
ds.ds! Anyone would think we lived in a capitalist society where companies role was to make money or something...//j17 said:
Buster73 said:
...booked for the same flights but via Heathrow on BA these cost £250 each for the next day.
The BA desk opened about 6am and I enquire do about checking in on an earlier flight for which they wanted another £1000
Still sticks with me after all these years later , robbing bds.
The bThe BA desk opened about 6am and I enquire do about checking in on an earlier flight for which they wanted another £1000
Still sticks with me after all these years later , robbing b
ds.ds! Anyone would think we lived in a capitalist society where companies role was to make money or something...//j17 said:
The bds! Anyone would think we lived in a capitalist society where companies role was to make money or something...
Paid £250 each for the flight then BA wanted an extra £333 each to get on a flight about 3 hours earlier , no issue with a company making a profit , if they'd said another £50 each I'd have paid it , it's about companies giving value for money.ds! Anyone would think we lived in a capitalist society where companies role was to make money or something...Would you have paid the grand extra ? , I thought not.
Puggit said:
GT03ROB said:
Never will be if you always fly the highest class available!
I wish.
I managed to get Star Alliance Gold flying 'cheapest economy' - which is why I never got upgraded!
Now flying on a 'donated' BA silver... Let's see if luck changes
Nicely nestled in my WT+ seat looking forward to a horrid overnighter, along comes a steward & quietly says "Mr GT03ROB, would you like to collect you belongings & follow me." Off we go.... and it's "I assume you'd like upper deck, so just take the seat you want." The best upgrade there is..... WT+ to Club on an overnighter.
Apparently somebody was making a fuss about not having a bassinet seat in economy, so they had to do some onboard reshuffling & I got the long straw!
Gassing Station | Holidays & Travel | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff