News in brief:
British Airways finally gets an airport lounge in Salzburg
Salzburg Airport used to be one of the few British Airways destinations without a lounge. Eligible passengers were instead given a voucher to spend in the airport restaurant.
In July this year, Salzburg Airport opened its first departure lounge. Reader Mark sent me a few pictures.
The lounge serves Austrian, airberlin, BA, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines. You can also pay €36 for access. Unfortunately it is not part of Priority Pass.
The Sazburg airport lounge entrance is BEFORE the main security area. You pass through a separate security channel to access the lounge and leave by a different door which leads directly to the gates.
It is not a huge facility and the facilies are not hugely sophisticated – but Mark says that it is a massive improvement on using the airport restaurant! Further details including opening hours can be found here.
What Richard did next ….
Back in January, we ran the most valuable competition ever offered on Head for Points – two return Business Class tickets to pretty much anywhere in the world, thanks to Qatar Airways.
The winner, Richard, decided to take full advantage of Qatar’s great route network and decided to head to New Zealand in October. He recently sent me a few photos just to make the rest of us feel jealous:
I’d also like to thank you again, we had a lot of fun on the trip and without the tickets my holidaying this year might have been limited to Wales and Hornsea!
Qatar Airlines were ultimately amazing in arranging the flights for us. You had warned me to be flexible so I rang up hoping to go to Melbourne some time in October/November ….. A very special thank you goes to Maria at Qatar who set about “waitlisting” us for our preferred flights. I add the quotation marks as within two hours she had us confirmed on the exact flights we wanted so I am in no doubt we owe her big time!
We got to try out both old and new business seats. We were on the A380 service to/from Doha and then a 777 for the Melbourne legs. There was much time spent in the lounge at London and we did enjoy our first experience of an onboard bar 🙂
About Head for Points
Good to see you on Apple News, although my main point of consumption will remain Feedly for now…
OT: is there a way to avoid the seat reservation charges without waiting until 24 hrs before the flight (I’m a blue BA cardholder unfortunately). Seem to recall reading something about using another one world frequent flyer number and logging in via their site.
P.s. Thanks Raffles for all the tips, have just booked my first ever business flights redemption using the 2:1 voucher.
P.p.s if anyone’s been waiting for their companion voucher to appear on their BA account, it’s not a case of having to wait for the date your points ping across. The delay is a system issue at AMEX which is preventing them issuing the vouchers. If you kick up a fuss they’ll speak to their liaison at BA and the voucher will appear in minutes.
No, no way around it.
I think you are thinking of when people had Cathay Pacific Gold from their Amex Plat cards…?
That got you free seat selection if BA Blue.
I did not get my 241 voucher due end of Nov i ll call them today to complain again.
That SZG lounge is going to be interesting. I’m on the new BA flight back to LHR shortly and CE goes back to row 10 – yet the lounge only hosts 25 guests.
I think the restaurant – especially on a Saturday when BA alone now have three flights leaving in an hour and a bit – will remain the saner option!
Still no lounge (or restaurant voucher for that matter) at London City, annoyingly.
With a max of 25 patrons allowed in the lounge it will certainly never be quiet!
Hi all – any update on the TESCO 20 % conversion all I seem to have got is 5 lots of 480 avios in my BAEC when I converted £500 TESCO from 5 of my clubcard accounts ? All seems very odd
Everyone got 480. Big Tesco screw up. Give them time ….
It actually looks good at this stage.
We did 12 x £100 & got a similar result to you at this stage.
It seems all conversions are getting recognised as worth the bonus.
Onboard bar in QR business class? I thought it was only for first class customers on the A380, unless QR afforded you complimentary access?
Reflections on old (B777) v new (A380) business cabins?
No business passengers get access. Which also means you can drink the Krug!
Terrible English there!
Business class passengers DO have access!
This year I have flown business on Emirates, BA, Qantas, Qatar, Malaysian and Cathay. Qatar was by far my favourite all round package. Although the Emirates pod was very private.
do you mean “yes” business passengers get access rather than “no” business passengers get access – the answer you gave appears confusing ?
As Alan says, the bar is for first and business – I didn’t get the impression anyone on the plane (or at the airport) knew we anything other than normal passengers.
The new seat is definitely better for tall people. I’m 6″3 and the headrest on the 777 didn’t go high enough to clear my shoulders sitting upright. It seemed a nice refinement, there were little things like the noise-cancelling headphones being powered from the seat rather than an almost flat battery. The 380 is 1-2-1 vs 2-2-2 so if you are travelling alone I can see an individual pod being attractive.
Most of the 777 flights were spent asleep and that was absolutely fine so I can’t grumble!
No, J and F – bar is actually behind business class on the A380 so F has to walk through to get to it, same as Emirates.
On our recent flights DOHBKK the bar was never particularly busy. We sat in it for an hour or so on the return trip, and it was really enjoyable. The hostess was very pleasant and was happy to take pictures of people behind the bar – she even roped us in! Loved the QR experience, and such a bargin thanks to HFP!