Hilton gains an attractive new Paris hotel option – Maison Astor

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

• Alex Sm says:

  11 Oct11 October 08:03

  Re bad airlines, especially one particularly BAd airline: despite living in London, I coinciously stopped flying with them unless it’s 1) 241 Amex voucher 2) Vitality-discounted or 3) employer-imposed. You can’t believe how many good choices you have beyond BA: from Aer Lingus and Aegean to Aeroflot and Turkish on short-haul to literally every airline on long-haul!

  • John says:

    11 Oct11 October 08:24

    So basically you’ll put up with the BAd airline when it’s cheap.

    • Russ says:

      11 Oct11 October 09:36

      Everyone has their own internal click point of what represents value to them; a low cost carrier to get them to CDG to pick up a long haul QRA380 may be perfectly acceptable whereas just getting to CDG seems like hard work on the same carrier. Just done a trip on Level and really unimpressed and not suitable in my view even for a quick hop. Others may find it perfectly ok. Defining value for others is hard.

    • Louie says:

      11 Oct11 October 10:07

      For me, BA only when very, very cheap, in fact probably only with a 2-4-1. In general, I will happily pay more to avoid BA. I really don’t want to contribute to the bonuses of the management unless I would be daft to avoid flying them.

  • Darren says:

    11 Oct11 October 10:30

    Living in London surely your carrier options are pretty high. So why fly BAd?

    • Chris Palmer says:

      11 Oct11 October 14:48

      To some destinations, at key times, BA remain the only choice. Personally speaking, on the London to Venice route, I’ve never had a problem.

• Sussex Bantam says:

  11 Oct11 October 10:18

  Can anyone help me with lounge access options in Barcelona. Travelling on BA with my family so not enough status to get us all into BA lounge. Can my AMEX Plat or Priority Pass access anything useful ?

  • Chris says:

    11 Oct11 October 11:44

    The only lounge in the BA part of BCN is the Sala VIP Miro, there are no others. Your BA ticket/status will get you in here under the normal rules. Priority pass is accepted but may be restricted – the lounge usually sells tickets but has stopped doing this temporarily as they say they are at capacity, so I wouldn’t like to say if they will accept your PP.

    Note also it is being refurbished from 15th October until next summer, so I expect they will be very tough on access rules, restricting to airline led entry only.

    • Sussex Bantam says:

      11 Oct11 October 13:21

      Thanks Chris – appreciate the info

• ollie says:

  11 Oct11 October 11:43

  OT – Missing Amex SPG – On Amex Chat yesterday told the points should turn up in 2-4 weeks. Asked for some kind of compensation and was offered 3000 Starpoints.

  • KevMc says:

    11 Oct11 October 14:32

    My wife’s points for this month have swept across and actually arrived in her Marriott account today!

    …she is still missing her August and September statement points, however.

• Chris says:

  11 Oct11 October 11:53

  The ‘why bad airlines are profitable’ article should be called ‘why lack of competition leads to poor service and the ability to charge slightly more’.

  There are at least two factors that have not been considered which mean that the study cited neither proves or disproves the claim. 1- fuel costs, aka the biggest driver of one half of the profitability calculation. 2- competition, aside from a few markets, there is simply no realistic competition from other airlines (or rail) domestically, meaning you can restrict seats enabling you to price fares/fees slightly higher.

  Causation vs correlation….

• Peter K says:

  11 Oct11 October 17:12

  In the industry I am in most customers go to the large company that is generally cheaper, is certainly perceived as cheaper, but has the worst customer service. Other companies have also reduced their prices, and quality, to match.

  The airline industry is not alone in this sad state of affairs.

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