British Airways lounge in San Francisco to close next week for refurbishment

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• Aneesh says:

  28 Dec28 December 05:22

  Regarding the Dubai flight closing: isn’t that slot going towards the second daily BOS (which launches the day after DXB ends)?

  • ChrisC says:

    28 Dec28 December 12:24

    Yes

    And the A350s (12 due) are replacing the 747s (8 in current fleet) and the A346s. (7 currently) so even with ex Air Berlin A332s (4) they are only one plane up. And the A332s are really covering for 787s.

    And that assumes the 787 issues get sorted out soon to be able to use the A332a for expansion, Once the 787s are back to 100% THEN they will have some planes to allow for additional expansion.

    But as to Tel Aviv it really dosen’t fit with current VS strategy which is to move flights to TATL rather than the east.

    Still waiting for Rio and that flight to Harare & Victoria Falls than the Zimbabwe media said was coming!

• ROBERT FREUDMANN says:

  28 Dec28 December 06:57

  Virgin’s plans are to start the route from September, but would like to do a soft launch in May, and fly an A330 brining Eurovision fans over for the contest taking place in Tel-aviv next year.

  Not that I think it’s going to have much of an effect on the high prices BA and LY demand on the route (all the LCCs flying it haven’t made the slightest difference in that respect), but it would be nice to have the option to fly VS on the route.

• Alex says:

  28 Dec28 December 07:10

  Harry, can you please remind if I can use the offer twice on the account (but different cards)? Thank you!

  • Shoestring says:

    28 Dec28 December 07:17

    This one, once per a/c. But same Amex card can be used on multiple family Amazon a/cs. there’s no age limit for Amazon a/cs so your kids can also benefit from all that Amazon has to offer including free Prime months etc.

    But this offer *and* the everlasting £15 off £25 Amex/ Amazon offer can both be used on the same Amazon a/c.

    & round about Jan 24th, Amazon BIGTHANKS will be back for 1 day only (£10 off £50).

    • Jay says:

      28 Dec28 December 09:20

      Harry, can both offers be used in a single purchase?

    • Shoestring says:

      28 Dec28 December 09:43

      @Jay – yes

    • GRIMZ says:

      28 Dec28 December 13:53

      I take it the accounts must have been set up for a period of time before you can use this offer?

    • Shoestring says:

      28 Dec28 December 15:33

      @GRIMZ – yes, it’s normally a rolling date about 3 months previous to whichever Amex promotion is current. BIGTHANKS will be open to all a/cs, though (new ones included). So you might want to get the kids an Amazon a/c.

• Nigel the pensioner says:

  28 Dec28 December 07:26

  Dont forget the Centurion lounge too from AmEx ……. and yes dont panic, Platinum card holders are very welcome too! It is accessible from the BA international departures wing.
  We were also given an expensively packaged pair of Master and Dynamic ear buds too as a first time guest pressie 😁!
  We will try out the HKG version tonight rather than the over large and impersonal Qantas offering…..

  • Polly says:

    28 Dec28 December 07:33

    What about the Wing or the Pier? QF too impersonal, agree.

  • Matt says:

    28 Dec28 December 07:35

    I haven’t been to HKG but if you’re flying oneworld, the stand out lounge is presumably Cathay Pacific Wing or Pier?

    • Kai says:

      28 Dec28 December 07:40

      If you can get in F, been to The Wing Business and I prefer Centurion.

      • Polly says:

        28 Dec28 December 07:41

        Really, must try Centurian next month then…

      • Polly says:

        28 Dec28 December 07:43

        Kai, or anyone please, another question. We have never found an arrivals lounge that alliqs BA F pax into CX always say no! Just thought it would be so nice to trwat ourselves even more! On arrival…any thoughts?

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:

        28 Dec28 December 08:31

        I can’t decide if this read better with the R removed or with a shuffle and an E added.

      • Matthew says:

        28 Dec28 December 10:38

        Polly, the CX arrivals lounge has closed down now. I gave the Plaza Premium arrivals lounge (diagonally opposite where the CX arrivals lounge used to be) a go earlier this month using one of my 2 free lounge visits from lounge club (courtesy of Amex gold) and found it to be better than the old CX lounge (more food in the buffet selection albeit no a la carte menu for breakfast, though I believe the noodle bar opens after 11am).

        For me, I rank the HK CX lounges in the following order (I regularly lounge hop across all the CX lounges, both F and J, most recently 2 weeks ago):

        – The Pier F
        – The Wing F (The Wing F lounge has a smaller a la carte menu than The Pier F. The cabanas are nice but there is sometimes a long wait for them.)
        – The Pier J (food is probably not too far behind the Wing F lounge IMHO)
        – The Bridge (the right side usually has more food – egg or Portuguese tarts, Chinese style soup, sometimes pizza, good buffet selection, but the left side is usually a lot more quieter)
        – The Wing J
        – The Deck (there is a serious overcrowding problem here, otherwise it would be quite nice).

        I’ve only been to the Qantas lounge twice, and it wasn’t as nice as I thought it would be, so now I leave it out of my lounge hopping plans. I will do another lounge hop in HK in 2 weeks’ time so if anyone has any specific questions let me know and I can check it out then.

      • h2d says:

        28 Dec28 December 11:01

        The Pier F lounge is the real standout in my view – substantially better than the Wing F lounge. It has the ambience of a high-end hotel

      • Genghis says:

        28 Dec28 December 18:09

        +1 for Pier F but I find the service in the restaurant a bit weird.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    28 Dec28 December 07:41

    The Centurion lounge is in T3, accessible from the G gates side of the international terminal, but BA flights are (always?) from A gates. Doable but you’d have to re-clear security to get back to the A gates.

    • Polly says:

      28 Dec28 December 07:45

      Yes, just realised that. Bur we are on CX to DPS so maybe they leave from G gates?

      • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

        28 Dec28 December 07:48

        Doubt it. The CX lounge is after security on the A side.

• Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

  28 Dec28 December 07:45

  The China Airlines lounge is tiny! No chance they’ll fit an A380s worth in there. I thought it was okay, not terrible. Catering much the same as the AF/KLM lounge below (which is the Priority Pass option, and alright if it’s quiet). Nice selection of Anchor beers at least.

  • Lady London says:

    28 Dec28 December 18:32

    JAL lounge was pretty small but visited awhile ago. CX lounge opening hours were aligned to their flights pretty much.

    BA’s right though the BA lounge got very overcrowded due to its small size relative to aircraft size. Everyone I talked to was a BA passenger not one world. The lounge seemed very well run in the circumstances however.

• Liz says:

  28 Dec28 December 07:56

  OT how long are MR transfer taking to Hilton. I want to cancel my Plat card today and I transferred on 17/12 but the points haven’t arrived yet – only received the email saying in progress. Everything is taking so much longer going in to HH since their “upgrade”.

  • David says:

    28 Dec28 December 08:34

    I transferred a chunk last week to take advantage of the targeted 50% bonus. The base points posted after 2-3 days, still waiting for the bonus.

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      28 Dec28 December 08:36

      I followed up with them on the bonus and was told 6-8wks. Not sure if anyone elses have posted but I’m waiting until Feb to chase again.

      • David says:

        28 Dec28 December 08:44

        The T&Cs of the offer were spectacularly unclear:

        “Points may take up to 8 weeks to be bonused from the time of submission. The additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points will be awarded at the time of transfer.”

        So is it “at the time of transfer” or 8 weeks later? Seems to mean 8 weeks later…

    • Robman says:

      28 Dec28 December 13:17

      I did the same but as the base points only posted and no bonus within 5 days of the transfer, I contacted them via online chat and got the HH points manually added to my account. They were updated within an hour.

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    28 Dec28 December 08:35

    I moved points last week of Nov and they went through in the usual 2-3 days.

    If the transfer was initiated during membership and you have written confirmation of such I would have thought you were safe to cancel.

    • Liz says:

      28 Dec28 December 09:45

      I wasn’t targeted for the offer so just a straight forward transfer out. Email says 10 working days so might wait till next week and then phone. Wanted to reset the clock for next years churn. I did a test one in Nov and it worked ok within a couple of days.

      • Liz says:

        28 Dec28 December 10:11

        Phoned Amex and it is showing as issued but not completed – it appears to be stuck in limbo – the person who can authorise a cancellation and reissue is not in today so I am no further forward.

• Mark says:

  28 Dec28 December 08:11

  A word of warning on the CX lounge at SFO. We tried using it back in August when we flew home BA CW, and were turned away even though we could see that the lounge was nearly deserted. The reason given was that there were 2 Qantas flights that evening and the lounge would get overcrowded. It was particularly frustrating as a) we only had about 45 minutes before boarding of the BA flight b) the QF flights were much later that evening and c) QF passengers can also use the KLM/AF lounge!

  I hope they get this sorted before the (dreadful) BA Lounge closes.

  • James says:

    28 Dec28 December 08:41

    I’ve had arguments getting into the CX lounge at SFO before too – very rude staff also.

  • Darren says:

    28 Dec28 December 09:29

    That’s not good, used the CX lounge before and it was pretty good, showers were nice.

    • Jovanna says:

      28 Dec28 December 10:04

      I used the Cathay lounge when returning on BA286, earlier in the year.

      The Cathay flight wasn’t until much later in the evening. Half the lounge was closed off. There was only one other couple in there. It was sandwiches and soft drinks only.

• HAM76 says:

  28 Dec28 December 09:02

  I got turned away at the JAL lounge due to capacity issues. CX lounge wasn‘t fully operating until closer to the departure of their flights, so no hot food for the earlier BA departure there. Part of the lounge was roped off, too.

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