American Express Shop Small is returning in December

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• Jamesay says:

  6 Oct6 October 07:59

  I’ve had trolley service in CW in a good number of transatlantic flights this last year. Takes too long. Twas an attempt to revive the “glamour of the olden days of travel”. Spoke with someone training the crew on the service and it sounded like they (mixed fleet) were just not getting it.

  • Lady London says:

    6 Oct6 October 17:21

    Yes mixed fleet probably grew up with fast food restaurants. The concept of a fine restaurant with the dessert trolley being wheeled to the table and customers served from it, or the trolley with a beef joint carved at the table somewhere like The Savoy Hotel or Simpson’s, is probably not something the Mixed Fleet generation grew up with as aspirational. So it wouldn’t mean much as indicating a finer quality of service just more hassle for crew I guess.

    • Shoestring says:

      6 Oct6 October 17:26

      Didn’t the fine dining on planes concept die out 70 years ago? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3572879/Forget-beige-unappetising-plane-food-Vintage-photos-passengers-served-lobster-caviar-cream-cakes-golden-age-flying.html

      • Paul says:

        6 Oct6 October 20:12

        No, it died with BA and the introduction of beds in F. Till then beef was carved at you seat, silver service was the norm and this boy from a comprehensive school and council house in 70’s Glasgow, learned about wine and fine dining. The crews were superb, well travelled, superbly trained and treated well. They could even mix a cocktail. The current F is a shadow of the 80/90 product and club world is simply risible.

  • Doug M says:

    6 Oct6 October 20:19

    When they carved beef at your seat £££££ now £.
    Lot of remarks concerning mixed fleet, any factual basis for this, or just old school snobbery?

    • Shoestring says:

      6 Oct6 October 20:34

      I took 25 of my team to London for 3 days to say thank you (about 20 years ago). we’d had a fantastic P&L result. I got somebody else to pay for it, of course.

      We did Simpsons in the Strand as I wanted to get them to understand my version of London, the one I wanted them to present to paying consumers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_GhGgIOD5E

      Then we moved on. Some nightclub.

    • Rob says:

      6 Oct6 October 21:51

      BA does not have dedicated crew for cabins. Lufthansa does, for example, so there are crew who only do First and are trained appropriately.

      BA Mixed Fleet can literally be flogging Percy Pigs to Ibiza in Economy one day and doing First long haul the next.

• Simon says:

  6 Oct6 October 08:14

  test

• Michael C says:

  6 Oct6 October 08:25

  On the topic of BA wifi, is there any way of checking beforehand if your flight has it? (We have an Oct. LGW-Orlando in WT+.)

• Nick Jablonski says:

  6 Oct6 October 08:36

  I am a subscriber to e-rewards (it’s a good way to earn a few points which in my case are then converted to either Hilton Honors points or Avios).

  One of the surveys I completed this week was about the AMEX Shop Small promotion and it confirmed that it WILL be going ahead during the dates that you mention.

• Neil says:

  6 Oct6 October 08:39

  OT: I have been trying to migrate my Vueling account to Vueling Club for months and keep getting error messages. After a Twitter exchange with customer services, I have been instructed to call a number in Spain. Forget that – I will take my custom elsewhere. Has anyone else had a similar experience ?

• WF says:

  6 Oct6 October 08:39

  Experienced the CW trolley service on recent flight LHR-HKG. Took 3 hours and seemed overly complicated, plus made it almost impossible to pass through galley to washrooms etc. Crew generally annoyed that new arrangements were brought in without any input from them. Then flew bakc to LHR on CX who had similar service and it worked smoothly and swiftly!

  • Louie says:

    6 Oct6 October 11:32

    Been fortunate enough not to have flown BA for ages but I have flown CX who manage trolley service perfectly fine, as WF says. What is so difficult about it (genuine question)?

    • Doug M says:

      6 Oct6 October 12:04

      Staff to passenger ratio would be one answer.

• Derek says:

  6 Oct6 October 09:00

  I haven’t sampled the new (or should it now be called the old) trolley service, so working on assumptions here…

  How on earth should it take 2-3 hours when my logic suggests it’s a more efficient delivery method than Galley-to-Seat for each individual passenger?

  As the article suggests, the only change since the heralded ‘£600m relaunch’ is the new bedding and amenity kits. One can only assume the quoted expenditure includes the upcoming seat refresh with the initial introduction of the A350 version?

• John says:

  6 Oct6 October 09:07

  Am I right in thinking that a Plat self-referring would potentially get 18k MR?

  Would it not be better to self-refer for the Gold Credit card and potentially get the 22k sign up bonus as well as referral bonus?

  • Matt says:

    6 Oct6 October 09:23

    You wouldn’t be eligible for 22k gold bonus because the requirement is no MR card for at least 6 months.

  • Nigel says:

    6 Oct6 October 09:23

    Would a platinum self referal to BA Anex get the 18k MR and the BA signup bonus then?

    • Shoestring says:

      6 Oct6 October 09:40

      BA, SPG, Nectar, his ‘n hers

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