Is the new British Airways Club World business class seat the old Emirates seat?

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• Phillip says:

  6 Jan6 January 05:29

  Minor, but 2005 was when the A380 first took to the skies. First delivery to launch customer SQ was in 2007 with EK receiving their first A380 in 2008!

• Lumma says:

  6 Jan6 January 07:42

  Surely, other than having awful fake wood, the Emirates business class is very similar to Iberia’s seats?

• Catalan says:

  6 Jan6 January 08:11

  Perhaps IAG will standardize the seats on all their longhaul fleet to the type already installed on the Iberia/Aer Lingus aircraft.

• Martin says:

  6 Jan6 January 08:20

  I know we’re always banging on about the poor quality of BA Club World, but I think other airlines have realised just how little value we get for our money. The seat density, poor food and often no direct aisle service together with circa 90 CW passengers without an obvious increase in crew means reduced service compared to most carriers. Yesterday I was booking a LHR-MIA-KIN, SDQ-MIA-LHR open jaw business class – the choices were BA and AMERICAN – I select AA over BA always (efficient service, better food,121 configuration, better seat). Two things emerged, you can make a KIN connection to MIA unless you fly BA – they have the earlier flight and also if I used BA transatlantic it was almost £400 cheaper – there is a supplement for using AA! I would be interested to know if all the 121 configuration (which is most of them) airlines are going to introduce supplements for a proper business class product?

• Anna says:

  6 Jan6 January 08:36

  OT – if you use the Lloyds upgrade voucher for a flight beginning from one of the regions, is the upgrade applied to the connecting flight as well as the main one? And do you have to use avios for the connection like you now have to do with an ordinary connecting flight? The upgrades don’t seem to apply to any of the direct BA flights from MAN, so it looks like I’m going to have to use it to fly from a London airport.

  • Genghis says:

    6 Jan6 January 08:50

    Applies to all sectors for the one way (or return for 1 person), yes. Not sure why it wouldn’t allow you to use it on one of the direct from MAN flights. One ways need to be booked on the phone anyway. Perhaps give avios a call up?

    • Anna says:

      6 Jan6 January 09:56

      Thanks Ghengis, I assume it’s because they are CityFlyer and these seem to be excluded in the T & Cs. ????

      • Nick says:

        6 Jan6 January 10:05

        Yes, the lloyds Avios vouchers are for Mainline flights only.

      • Genghis says:

        6 Jan6 January 18:32

        Thought it was ex-LCY specifically excluded? I burned one on BACF in Oct ex-EDI

      • Genghis says:

        6 Jan6 January 18:37

        “Upgrade vouchers can be used to upgrade either 2 one way flights for 2 people travelling at the same time and to the same destination or 1 return journey booked on a British Airways main line service. British Airways codeshare flights are excluded. Flights from London City airport are excluded.”

        It does indeed specify “main line”. I booked mine as a one way over the phone. Perhaps @Anna should do the same. Plz report back.

  • Liz says:

    6 Jan6 January 16:05

    I just used my 2 Lloyds vouchers and was told I couldn’t use them for domestic connections which I hadn’t factored in to my calculations. So we got less value for the voucher but it was either that or not use them at all – I couldn’t do that as Lloyds have fully funded our whole Tallin and Helsinki trip!

    • Cate says:

      6 Jan6 January 20:06

      Way to go Liz! We’re down for Helsinki to on a stop over.

• Paul Hickey says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:07

  here’s my view having flown BA 777 & A380 Club World and Emirates 777 & A380 Biz in the the last few months.

  A380 – Emirates wins. The Bar makes a nice difference, loads more privacy, food is better, IFE / Screen (inc WiFi) is miles better, much more space overall and much more storage, lounges are a lot better too.

  777 – about the same. Wouldn’t want to be in the middle seat on Emirates but the seats are comfy to sleep in and the IFE screen is good.
  BA is ok if you get the rear row window seat with direct isle access, although the IFE screen is the poorest quality I have ever seen. I used 3M sticky pads with my iPad and stuck it over the top!

  Price – I usually fly to south east Asia and on these routes BA is nearly always cheaper. In my own mind, £1500 is about as much as I feel comfortable paying for a biz seat and these days, Emirates rarely comes in below that, whilst BA often does. I often start my journey from Amsterdam to get these prices.

  £1300 is the cost of my next BA flight to BKK (plus £40 to AMS) Emirates was £1800.
  My concern is, as BA moves to a proposed new seat with direct isle access, I don’t really see how it can be anything other than a 1-2-1 config, meaning less Club World seats and surely an increase in price. So for me, as daft as it may sound – I’d like them to stick with what they have and keep prices affordable (to me). The fact that I can collect 20k (40k + inc my g/f’s ticket) AVIOS per trip and an annual 241 voucher is also a huge bonus!

  • Dwadda says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:32

    I agree with this poster that the price will increase because BA will want to protect its revenue and with fewer J seats the only way they do so is to increase the price.

    The big problem for readers of HfP is that reward availability will be less making redemption proportionally harder thereby reducing the value of avios and the 241 in particular … Imagine having to ring the US call centre to use a 241 just to fly to JFK…

    To my mind the value of avios is enhanced by BAs J density. The only way I continue this 241 game we all pay thousands a year to play with BA if they reduce the density is if BA Golds get improved reward availability as we currently get in Y. BA could do this by increasing the availability of R booking class (2 per flight in addition to the 2 award seats BA policy currently dictates) and letting Golds book into this with Avios. Better if it were I booking class but I expect that would be too generous..

    ..avios are worth much less to me if I cannot use them to fly CW. Even with this proposed enhancement, I suspect only Golds would be able to use two 241 for a gamily of 4.

    • Rob says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:40

      I agree, but you don’t need to reduce density. The Qsuite has the same density as the rubbish old 777. Put feet in cubby holes and you save vast amounts of space to create mini-suites.

• Iain says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:36

  Is etihad sale any good?

  • Nick says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:07

    When is the QR one coming?!

    • Andrew M says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:13

      QR are doing a good job of building up the anticipation for this. I presume they have a fair ammount of excess capacity due to the blockade but they certainly havent dumped it into the market all at once. Fares have been very good recently, especialy to Aus and NZ but I’m hoping for some real treats when the big sale finally comes. Maybe even better than last year?

      • Rob says:

        6 Jan6 January 11:36

        Not sure. It has a different name. I also have a discount code for UK bookings.

      • Cate says:

        6 Jan6 January 15:05

        Qatar have waited too long for us and we’ve booked else where. I think they’ve stretched it out too long and should have remembered long haul night stops in Doha aren’t everyone’s cup of tea plus, there’s the whole Middle East thing going on.

  • Rob says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:41

    Average – £1800 to Bangkok, £3k to Oz. Will mention it next week.

  • Talay says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:46

    Etihad’s “sale” is underwhelming to say the least.

    I think their is a problem with their IT in that they are attempting to manipulate availability but their coding it imprecise and errors are being seen in end prices with zero availability when all logic dictates that you would code from availability out to price rather than have algorithms pick a price and try to shoehorn in availability.

    They have also raised fares to move the goalposts for redemption margins ahead of the 15th January devaluation. I notice this as I am less than 2000 miles short of 75% of a redemption and thus cannot buy the remaining miles.

• Sandra says:

  6 Jan6 January 10:21

  OT-for anyone who took advantage of the Sunday Times Travel Magazine/Avios offer in 2016. I did and cancelled it with my bank early September 2017 in plenty time to prevent them taking payment for the next year. They sneakily reinstated it with a different reference number without my authority in November 2017 which I just noticed recently, claiming it was an IT glitch when they changed systems! Refund on its way, and if you have to contact them use the number in the magazine as the number on the original confirmation is defunct. From the conversation I had with them I am far from alone. Worth checking if you think you cancelled.

  • Liz says:

    6 Jan6 January 16:09

    I cancelled my direct debit last year but didn’t contact them to cancel it and I am still receiving the magazine every month – latest edition arrived a couple of days ago.

    • Liz says:

      6 Jan6 January 16:33

      And I definitely haven’t paid again as I check our transactions every week and I’ve just double checked my bank statements again.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.