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This is today’s chat thread.
If you have specific questions about Avios, hotels or credit cards, please ask them in the appropriate forum and not here. This thread is a good place to post interesting deals you have spotted or your general thoughts on travel and all things miles and points. Thank you for contributing.
Good evening from Wicked Weeds brewery in Asheville NC, where I’ve just spent a happy couple of hours in the pinball museum which has tripled in size since I was last here in 2014. WW has also tripled in size and the beer is even better than in I remember it.
If you think Americans can’t make beer, come to Asheville or Traverse city in Michigan, or another of the incredible small towns that have a dozen or more breweries making some of the best beers in the world
A round of applause for BA IT please, which keeps failing and failing..
Got up early to book. At the last screen, the booking failed. Who knows why!Visited Asheville in 2023 and did the WW experience along with quite a few other breweries. Agreed that the beer is tremendous and food excellent. Have fun!
Good evening from Wicked Weeds brewery in Asheville NC, where I’ve just spent a happy couple of hours in the pinball museum which has tripled in size since I was last here in 2014. WW has also tripled in size and the beer is even better than in I remember it.
If you think Americans can’t make beer, come to Asheville or Traverse city in Michigan, or another of the incredible small towns that have a dozen or more breweries making some of the best beers in the world
BA flights from STN – noticed that only 2 seats released per flight for redemptions? 2 each in economy and CE. Even LCY flights offer more?
A round of applause for BA IT please, which keeps failing and failing..
Got up early to book. At the last screen, the booking failed. Who knows why!I had exactly the same experience yesterday. After the second retry, it worked. I wonder when they’ll actually start this promised investment in their IT? 🙂 (for the avoidance of doubt, that’s sarcasm)
@davefl Enjoy, I was at the Pacific Northwest beer festival in Astoria last year, the Americans have certainly upped their beer game over the 40 years I’ve been visiting.
The quality gap between lounges on the Priority Pass scheme is extraordinary.
Today I’m in the splendid Pau Casals lounge in Barcelona. Lovely fresh salads and high quality bocadillas, tortillas, cured meats, cheese and fruit all available for breakfast. Peaceful and quiet.
Earlier in the week I suffered the dreadful No 26 Aspire lounge in Amsterdam. Almost nothing to eat, and the little that was available was all ultraprocessed cheap muck.
The problem is that it’s really hard to know in advance which kind of lounge will greet you in an unfamiliar airport or terminal.
Today I’m in the splendid Pau Casals lounge in Barcelona. Lovely fresh salads and high quality bocadillas, tortillas, cured meats, cheese and fruit all available for breakfast. Peaceful and quiet.
It is one of the best ones! It’s the only lounge for non Schengen, meaning all the carriers have to put their status/business passengers in there. And that is a good guide – if there are several top tier airlines without their own lounges, then the one they use will generally be a lot better than your average PP.
A round of applause for BA IT please, which keeps failing and failing..
Got up early to book. At the last screen, the booking failed. Who knows why!Score! Took me 2.5 hours, but managed to book my ideal flights with the ideal cost.
After many online attempts, it seems that the saga is not over — I’ll need to keep an eye on my credit card in case they double charged me!
A round of applause for BA IT please, which keeps failing and failing..
Got up early to book. At the last screen, the booking failed. Who knows why!I had exactly the same experience yesterday. After the second retry, it worked. I wonder when they’ll actually start this promised investment in their IT? 🙂 (for the avoidance of doubt, that’s sarcasm)
It’s a nightmare. At least in olden days, you’d know that it won’t work and seek alternatives. Now, it gives the illusion that there is some hope that it’ll work. I tried thrice online, didn’t work. Had to call, took forever.
Wonderful customer service is so hilarious at BA [/s]. When I called at 8am, some young gentleman at BA CS, who sounded like I dared to wake him up, asked me point blank: “the reason why you didn’t book online?” [verbatim]. Zero politeness, arrogance and weird attitude. Hung up and called again.
I wonder how un-seasoned travelers can deal with this BS.Today I’m in the splendid Pau Casals lounge in Barcelona. Lovely fresh salads and high quality bocadillas, tortillas, cured meats, cheese and fruit all available for breakfast. Peaceful and quiet.
It is one of the best ones! It’s the only lounge for non Schengen, meaning all the carriers have to put their status/business passengers in there. And that is a good guide – if there are several top tier airlines without their own lounges, then the one they use will generally be a lot better than your average PP.
You’re thinking of the Miro lounge. I’m still in the Schengen area.
Good to know that BCN has two decent lounges, though.
Don’t suppose anyone was at the drinks reception for a certain law firm in Westminster Abbey Gardens last night? An absolutely spectacular location.
Unlike the..errr..Hilton Olympia. Potentially the worst in the city? 1970s grimly-carpeted room with aircon noise even with the aircon off?! Flimsy lock & chain which fortunately worked as the cleaner tried her luck not long after 8am! V glad I don’t have the family in tow.
At least the view from the breakfast area is lovely, and it’s within walking distance of Queen’s Club!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t
Flight from Ahmedabad to LGW, terrible news for all those affected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t
Flight from Ahmedabad to LGW, terrible news for all those affected.
Awful, too soon to know, but this certainly doesn’t look good. Some early pictures do not make for pretty viewing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t
Flight from Ahmedabad to LGW, terrible news for all those affected.
Just seen the video, looks horrific.
You’re thinking of the Miro lounge. I’m still in the Schengen area.
Sorry, yes, I always get them muddled up. But the same thing stands, only one lounge Schengen side too which means the top tier airlines send their passengers there.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/alaska-airlines-adding-first-european-route-20363057.php
Alaska adding SEA-FCO (Rome) next year using a 787-9 – nit sure when seats will go on sale but potentially some avios availability will be appear.
I’m June 12 JetBlue restartsLondon Gatwick from both Boston and New York JFK, with one daily fight – so an opportunity to use avios if booking via QR?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t
Flight from Ahmedabad to LGW, terrible news for all those affected.
Just seen the video, looks horrific.
i agree. Awful news. Looks like the plane just didn’t take off, looks like it was landing. The fireball and smoke plume make me think the there is very little chance of many survivors. Very sad.
The T5 Galleries First lounge has gained a Judes ice cream cart. Not sure it’s really an improvement on the self serve freezer from previous years as it means you have to wait for someone else to apply a scoop or three of whatever you want, but goes well with the large bowl of fresh strawberries available in the food section.
I wonder how un-seasoned travelers can deal with this BS.
Many of them don’t. I used to run a travel booking website. Slow the site down and bookings fell, sometimes precipitously. Whilst some people try and try again, some business will be permanently lost because of these issues. My kids, for instance, wouldn’t dream of calling an airline to book at ticket, if it doesn’t work online, they won’t be booking at all. They might try a phone and a computer, if they both fail, that’s them done.
Where I used to work falling booking rates were such a good indicator of site problems we ended up using this as a key alerting trigger. If bookings dropped over what was normal for that time period, even if the monitoring said all was well, we knew that (most often) something, somewhere, was busted. Even bad pricing decisions couldn’t drop the booking rate as fast as an undetected broken (but still running) application server.
The cost to BA must be staggering, and I bet it’s unquantifiable, as they never have a long enough run of perfect service to be able to baseline against time of day/day of week/seasonal fluctuations. They don’t know what good looks like.
The new website is slower than the old one … how did that get signed off and into production?
I just tried using Air Asia customer service which is basically a chat bot (named Bo).
I don’t think there is a way to speak to a human.
Frustrating as hell.I guess BA customer services are at least better then that lot.
Wonder if there’s a Virgin sale upcoming? Have an Amex cashback offer to use and I’m Gold so motivated to get my tier points, but flights I’m considering to JFK in December are £2350ish for Upper with VS vs £1600 or so with BA! I love a lot about Virgin, but there isn’t really an £800 difference in the experience for pretty short flights. Hoping they are motivated to price match
Don’t suppose anyone was at the drinks reception for a certain law firm in Westminster Abbey Gardens last night? An absolutely spectacular location.
Unlike the..errr..Hilton Olympia. Potentially the worst in the city? 1970s grimly-carpeted room with aircon noise even with the aircon off?! Flimsy lock & chain which fortunately worked as the cleaner tried her luck not long after 8am! V glad I don’t have the family in tow.
At least the view from the breakfast area is lovely, and it’s within walking distance of Queen’s Club!
eeek! I’ve got that booked for a couple of nights August… with kids in tow.
Afternoon all just listening to music and reading HFP
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