Norwegian to increase flights between London Gatwick and New York

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• Anna says:

  7 May7 May 05:57

  Is there any reason why Norwegian couldn’t start flying from Manchester? The North is woefully served for US flights. Prices are very high for the few services that do exist; it’s quite common for northerners travelling to the US to fly via LHR with BA simply because the prices are so much lower, even though it’s extremely inconvenient. New York and Florida are hugely popular destinations and lack of availability pushes prices to ridiculous levels – a colleague of mine has booked flights to Orlando 15 months in advance to get affordable fares for a family with school age kids!

  • Matt says:

    7 May7 May 10:28

    3 direct flights a day to NYC is reasonable on 3 different carriers (Virgin, Delta and Thomas Cook) to provide competition? That seems to reflect in the price where looking across the rest of the year prices for economy return range between £350 to £600 which seems pretty in line with the prices I see from London. (Most prices were around £400, and prices only went >£500 on peak August dates).

    Thought you could only book flights around 11 months in advance?

    • Anna says:

      7 May7 May 17:20

      Some travel companies (I think it was Thomas Cook) allow you to book further in advance.

      Not everyone wants to go to New York though (and prices can hit £800-900 in Economy) There’s a very long list of US cities you can’t get to directly
      from Manchester. Also for such an in-demand destination, there are very few flights to Florida, which is why the airlines can charge £1000 pp as standard for an economy seat at peak time. When we went to Orlando a few years ago BA was far and away the cheapest option (that was when there was still a connection to Gatwick!)

      • Andrew says:

        7 May7 May 21:10

        Don’t forget Singapore to Houston from Manchester

        Priced from £389 including 2x23Kg hold luggage as standard. Even with overnight stays at Houston airport to ensure connections, that’s still pretty good.

• marc shorter says:

  7 May7 May 06:07

  I clicked the link but the ‘new’ morning flight didn’t show. Only one flight per day – pm

• Jonathan says:

  7 May7 May 06:20

  Quick question for the churners here. People talk about the benefit of taking gold and upgrading to plat for additional MR points. Has the benefit been reduced or is the normally just the 1k? Seems like all in Gold to plat with referral is 49k vs. 48k for the direct route (assuming there’s no referral for an upgrade).

  • Anna says:

    7 May7 May 06:35

    Not sure what benefit you mean, the required spend on the upgrade is £1k for 20,000 MR points. Though I haven’t seen anything definitive to say you can upgrade to Platinum charge from Gold credit card yet.

    • Jonathan says:

      7 May7 May 07:10

      Thanks, essentially I mean the benefit of churning via Gold vs. churning the platinum card directly. If you are a recipient of the referral points through getting your spouse to refer you, etc, it didn’t seem wildly different in terms of the rewards. Let me know if I’ve got this wrong.

      I guess you’re likely to incur lower fees with fewer months with the higher Plat card given it’s a only a 1k spend via the upgrade route.

      • Genghis says:

        7 May7 May 07:20

        If you’re nifty on Excel, why don’t you build a model where you can find the best routing for you, building in different points earned, how fast you spend money, likely fees etc

  • Genghis says:

    7 May7 May 07:09

    Direct to Plat is: 35k + 2k = 37k for £2k spend
    Gold then upgrade is: 22k + 2k + 20k + 1k = 45k for £3k spend
    So delta of 8k for an extra £1k spend, a decent deal.
    Question is though, can it be done with the new Gold credit card? If anyone has it and is interested in upgrading, please report back.

    • Genghis says:

      7 May7 May 07:14

      You’ve also got the additional supp numbers, 5k for direct plat vs 3k + 5k for upgrade route, increasing the delta to 11k

      • Jonathan says:

        7 May7 May 07:18

        Thanks Genghis – understood.

      • John says:

        7 May7 May 10:26

        Lucky Jonathan. All this ‘delta’ has me spinning.

    • Genghis says:

      7 May7 May 07:15

      It’s been like this for a while. The person doing the referring receives 18k whether Gold or Plat, ie no delta

• meta says:

  7 May7 May 06:26

  O/T A new Colloseum inspired Plaza Premium lounge in Rome just opened last week. It looks impressive.

  • Anna says:

    7 May7 May 06:33

    Colloseum inspired? That sounds a bit grim ????. Are they serving dormice on the buffet?!

    • meta says:

      7 May7 May 06:42

      Am flying back tonight, so will report back. From what I’ve seen online, it has 6 shower rooms, huge bar, and a large amount of seating. I am quite excited as I thought I’ll have to settle for one of those horrible other lounges!

      • John says:

        7 May7 May 10:28

        Nice bank holiday in Rome?

      • meta says:

        7 May7 May 17:52

        Yes. Very nice. Stayed at Aleph Rome on Hilton voucher + points as no availability at Waldorf and it was great. Plaza Premium lounge is opposite BA lounge and they do cooked to order pasta and pizza! @Anna, no dormice! ???? Lots of space and relatively quiet. Although the staff are not that friendly! We’re in Italy after all.

  • Alex Cohen Goldstein says:

    7 May7 May 08:10

    Didn’t realise it was new! Was there yesterday in the morning and it’s very impressive like other PP lounges, so spacious and comfortable with not many people there. Staff are friendly and someone is constantly cleaning. There are indeed lots of shower rooms and a bar, not sure it was coliseum themed though

• John says:

  7 May7 May 07:38

  It’s BA standard practice to deny almost everything on your first contact

  • Anna says:

    7 May7 May 08:07

    Their CS is atrocious! Last year they cancelled 3 flights I had booked and would only offer alternative flights to another destination. When I pointed out their legal obligation to re-route our party to the original destination, their response was that this might be the law but it’s not their policy!

    • Yuff says:

      7 May7 May 09:22

      BA cancelled my outbound flight, on Thursday for May half term, and within1/2 hr I had called up and re-booked all 3 passengers, on a new flight, from a more convenient departure airport. These are RFS flights and I couldn’t book the airport, we are now departing from , as there was no availability. No issues with changing the flights whatsoever 🙂

    • Matt says:

      7 May7 May 10:35

      Did they actually say “this might be the law but it’s not their policy” or is this your hyperbole? If they actually said that I’m sure the legal ramification and PR damage will be enormous for a company like BA to vocally acknowledge they don’t follow the law.

    • Anna says:

      7 May7 May 17:25

      Do you actually know what hyperbole is?

      The actual conversation went:
      Me: “It’s a legal requirement that you re-route me on a comparable method of transport.”
      CS rep: “But that’s not our policy.”

      In the end I opted for an alternative destination as the route wasn’t served directly by another airline in any case so I would still have had to take two flights which was even more inconvenient than changing the city!

    • Evan says:

      7 May7 May 17:59

      I know what hyperbole means and I would say that your own response shows that Matt does too.

• Danny says:

  7 May7 May 07:43

  Why are you keep plugging this pathetic, dodgy and sub standard so called blog?

  • Rob says:

    7 May7 May 08:26

    BA has paid 2 x EU261 for Anika and 1 for my brother in the last year, all within a week and all with no discussion.

  • TripRep says:

    7 May7 May 13:55

    Danny – I have no bias or agenda to plug LL, the story interested me as it clearly does others, I advise you skip on by, simply ignore my comments and links if it rattles you so much..

• VJ says:

  7 May7 May 08:50

  O/T – Any one aware of extra/bonus points for adding a supplementary card to Amex Nectar!

  • Peter K says:

    7 May7 May 09:09

    I think my wife got 1k nectar points for doing it earlier this year.

• Ant says:

  7 May7 May 08:58

  OT:planning a trip to Malaysia and Singapore next Easter. Have enough points for a Marriott Travel Package. Any recommendation for a beach hotel/resort?

  • Matt says:

    7 May7 May 10:41

    Haven’t stayed there, but the St Regis Langkawi looks stunning.

    In Singapore, I’ve stayed at the Ritz Carlton Millenia which was ok but a bit too big and busy for my liking to feel like a luxury 5*, and worst of all you could hear the traffic from your bedroom even on the top floor! Also stayed at the St Regis Singapore which I adored but realise not everyone is keen on the location compared to being down on the bay.

    Enjoy!

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