Downgraded by BA from reward First to business on LHR to ATL flights

[horseman]

My wife and I have been travelling to Atlanta from LHR twice a year (Covid excepted) and usually manage to get Reward First seats. For our April and October trips in 2023 our First has been downgraded to business. On looking at the seating plan it appears that the quoted 777 must have the new business suites due to the configuration. I cannot find the seat plan on SeatGuru that displays this.
Is this a mistake by BA on their seating plan or has SeatGuru not updated their plans.
Do you know if the loss of First is a permanent change? We will miss the Concorde lounge at LHR but the lounges at ATL are the same for business and First and are appalling.

[ed_fly]

For a start don’t use seatguru. Use aerolopa instead. In terms of the equipment change, it could be swapped again between now and travel time. Others will be able to advise better of what your options are

[strickers]

There’s a lot of shuffling going on from what I can see. My flights to Chennai next month are showing 788 going and 789 coming back, the latter matches the 3-class 789 but there is no F availability, more worrying is that J availability is zero for the return flight. BA and ExpertFlyer both match in which aircraft type as does the seat selection page.

[horseman]

Thanks for the advice. Aerolopa is much much better than seatguru. Will keep open my rewardflight finder for First availability.

[supergraeme]

Our July ’23 ATL-LHR flight was downgraded on the 9th of November, and it seems to be the middle of the year (end of March to end of October) with no First from what I’ve seen on Seatspy. Someone brought this up in the Chat thread a couple of days ago as well.

If you don’t mind me being a little selfish and hijacking the thread – you seem to really like Atlanta! What should we fill our weekend with?

[Anna]

I think it’s mainly due to ATL being a very well-connected hub. We had a day there years ago between Delta flights home from Hawaii, the Martin Luther King Centre was interesting. The aquarium is supposed to be world class but I don’t think there’s an awful lot else. I do remember there was free Coca Cola from machines in the airport (it’s made there), but I don’t know if they still do this!

[AL]

Anna wrote:

I think it’s mainly due to ATL being a very well-connected hub. We had a day there years ago between Delta flights home from Hawaii, the Martin Luther King Centre was interesting. The aquarium is supposed to be world class but I don’t think there’s an awful lot else. I do remember there was free Coca Cola from machines in the airport (it’s made there), but I don’t know if they still do this!

ATL is a good hub for SkyTeam because it’s DL’s home base (and you can get some good deals when going via it). As for the city itself, fly in, maybe do a day or two, then leave. I don’t find it a place to regularly return to. It’s a sprawling metropolis, but it does have some things going for it.

The Museum of the Centres for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/museum/index.htm) is interesting, as is the Center for Puppetry Arts. There is a 747 museum, and a paper museum. No trip to ATL goes without seeing where Coca-Cola is from, and the vault that allegedly houses the recipe is visible to the public. The Consulate restaurant on 10th has a huge and varied menu, with an eclectic interior. If you have an evening to kill, ten bucks at the Starlight will let you re-create the fifties drive-in movie experience with your own rental (of course, for the proper experience, rocking up in a Suburban isn’t advised).

At the airport, the Delta Flight Museum is worth going to. They run a monthly surplus sale, with all sorts of Delta-branded tat on offer at low, low prices.