Another new British Airways route – Oakland – and Avios availability wide open

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• lammy52 says:

  2 Nov2 November 08:53

  We flew into Oakland on a recent trip to West Coast. Great for San Francisco, only 30 minutes on train and also did car hire there. Very convenient.

• sebastian says:

  2 Nov2 November 09:11

  I am liking more destinations opening up as it gives us more options to redeem, in particular New Orleans as this was a bugger to get too otherwise. My only slight issue is that all the new destinations don’t have any First cabins. For me, unless I am on a late flight in which I will sleep for most of the flight, I would prefer to avoid CW, owing to it’s cramped nature, and pay the additional avios to fly in First.

  • JK says:

    2 Nov2 November 17:00

    No use to me unless they release 4 seats in CW, which they never do

• Sarah says:

  2 Nov2 November 09:58

  Oakland is very handy if you want to drive up to Napa, and I would imagine there are far fewer international arrivals than at SFO, so hopefully good for immigration

• John says:

  2 Nov2 November 11:15

  You’ll be seeing a further burst of Willie activity in the next few days, Rob (so to speak).

  Under the terms of the takeover deal with the ROI government, EI has to launch another two transatlantic routes in 2017.

  Miami looks ready to go (perhaps somewhere like Dallas next?)

  With his mates at Qatar also busy, you’d wonder if WW is trying to establish dominance in Dublin as a hedge against LHR ever getting extra (competing against IAG) capacity!

• aliks says:

  2 Nov2 November 12:27

  Happy days! we wanted to go to California next Easter, but didnt get in early enough to bag Virgin or BA reward flights.

  We were looking at Bognor as an alternative, but courtesy of HfP we are now the proud owners of a couple of business seats on the Gatwick – Oakland express next April (BAPP 2for1 150k Avios plus £1000 “tax”).

  Anyone know if there is an Avios way to fly Oakland to Phoenix (for the Grand Canyon)

  • Keith says:

    2 Nov2 November 15:09

    I used to visit several companies on the east side of the bay, and had to fly into SFO. I then went on to other parts of the US, and always used Oakland – much more convenient for all the businesses on that side.

    Aliks – I’d be very surprised if you can’t fly to Phoenix from Oakland, that’s one of the routes I used to do. Too many years ago to recommend specifics, I think it was SouthWest when I last went!

  • Nick OCallaghan says:

    2 Nov2 November 15:10

    Oakland Airport is mainly Southwest but American do fly from there to Phoenix….

• Genghis says:

  2 Nov2 November 13:34

  Kind of on topic. HEL-LHR on AY, the A350 is flown on which services?

  • Yan says:

    2 Nov2 November 19:10

    AY832 and AY831
    search BA6032, BA6031 to ticket with BA

    • Genghis says:

      2 Nov2 November 20:30

      Thanks Yan, much appreciated.

• Simon Schus says:

  2 Nov2 November 13:52

  For a few months this year, I was living out about 1hour from Oakland in Sonoma, CA – Oakland and SFO are basically the same distance. Saying that, there is a much closer airport to Sonoma/Napa which is Santa Rosa Airport (STS). I think it might be domestic only but there are a few airlines that connect there from the hubs at a premium (Alaska, Delta, American) unless you want to take cheap cheap Spirit Airlines.

  A few little notes about Oakland though:
  – They have an Escape lounge opening soon; Escape as in MAG, as in the lounges in Manchester Airport. It was scheduled to open in the summer but has been pushed back; it wasn’t open at the start of October but I think it could be open now/soon. I don’t know if it is Priority Pass or not as this wasn’t listed when I spoke to them in October. Saying that, SFO has a few decent-enough lounges (including the AMEX Centurion Lounge that you can access in the United terminal).
  – They have Global Entry kiosks for entering the US via OAK (but note, there is no Global Entry enrolment centre so you can’t do interviews there).

  Re: Oakland-area to the Grand Canyon, we just drove from where we were living, stopping off in Los Angeles to see friends, as we were doing a crosscountry drive anyway. We ended up staying at a Holiday Inn Express in Williams, AZ which was perfect for the next morning drive to Grand Canyon (we got there at 8.30am, it was already getting busy when we left at 9.30/10am).

  I can understand why Oakland might be described as the New Jersey of the San Francisco Bay Area. It reminds me a bit of Luton or Gatwick vs SFO which is a bit more like Heathrow.

• Simon Schus says:

  2 Nov2 November 13:58

  Also agree about it being less congested at OAK rather than SFO, though this can depend on whether it is gameday in the local area. For me, OAK is much less of a confusing drive to SFO, especially when you are coming from the North (also, one of the routes from the North through San Francisco and onto SFO has a toll – I don’t know about OAK).

  • Nick OCallaghan says:

    2 Nov2 November 15:49

    There are tolls on both the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate bridge when heading into SF from the east bay (oakland) and from the north (marin) – therefore you can avoid these by heading over to OAK and not going through the city at all….

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