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In next 2-4 weeks aiming to book for partner and I, from UK, at least one leg in F.
Mexico – Feb 2024
Johannesburg – Nov 2023Have BAPP voucher and two virgin vouchers.
Aim is to minimise the surcharges and taxes. Looking at ITA Matrix fair to say J and F (and Econ) flights to UK have lower surcharges/taxes?
So could go out Econ/Prem Econ and return J or F to minimise fees.
The other option is booking F on Iberia from Madrid and using another booking to/from Madrid?
For Virgin – can i use both vouchers and points to mitigate fees? Pay Premium economy both ways 1 person and use one voucher for companion flight and second as upgrade both to Upper?
Have I missed alternative options for either route?
Any pointers to other strategies to research greatly appreciated.
I don’t think there is F on Iberia – you’ll also struggle on many BA routes as well these days. Have you checked award availability for your destinations? J’burg has been out for a few weeks. I think the only BA service to Mexico with F is Mexico City, but often that has good availability.
You can’t use 2 Virgin vouchers in the way you describe unfortunately.
Only BA has First, Virgin & Iberia have business as their highest cabin. It used to be said Virgin Upper was Business+ but that was in the days of onboard massages & free salon treatments in the Clubhouse. It’s still a decent product although to Johannesburg & Cape Town they use planes with their older seat.
You would minimise APD by leaving the U.K. in economy & returning in J/F but you would miss out on a significant element of the benefits this way in the shape of the Virgin Clubhouse which is still an excellent lounge & BA’s Concorde Lounge/First Wing. The lounges for all 3 carriers in Mexico & South Africa are nowhere near as good.
Hi, and thank you both.
Should’ve mentioned destination airport is Mexico City.
@anna checking the BA app’s reward flight finder availability is ok for Mexico City (destination of choice, not interested in Cancun flights). What’s odd is that there is the very odd flight that has F availability – all the research I found online is that Mexico City only has J – just wondering if the odd aircraft in the schedule is one that has F seating, and what that aircraft could be. Or how to find out, bar a long wait on the BA phone line.
@theGasman true, I’ve not had the pleasure of experiencing Club House or the Concorde suite – I guess I have to weigh up the value of them versus the extra fees from flying F from UK.I do have access to Amex Centurion lounges, only visited the one in T3 so far- enjoyable but appreciate wont be close to the Clubhouse or Concorde.
MEX has an F cabin but don’t forget there’s no guarantee of award seats being released, unlike CW, so you might want to set up an alert on Seatspy.
@JDB seems to score F to MEX regularly so he might have some tips.I would say CCR is worth the extra fees but definitely not the business lounges at LHR.
No special tips for getting F seats to MEX. It seems an oddly unpopular destination so we have been able to book 3 x F seats for each of the last seven years in Nov/Dec/Jan, usually booking 9-10 months ahead, sometimes less.
I imagine it’s quite niche – not many residents travelling from Europe and not many who would go to see the archaeological and other sites (not many people even know they are there!). I currently have medium term plans to combine it with a Caribbean or US beach break when I can get all my dates aligned!
Thank you to everyone.
@jdb any favourite lodgings? Do you visit Oaxaca, Baja and the Pacific coast? Copper Canyon on rail is said to be worthwhile.
@northernlass, had a delve into combining with Carribbean or US but the flights were not value for money at the time. There are a couple of local low cost carriers, we flew one, Verobus or such like, stay clear, Ryanair on a bad day. We might do Aeromexico down to Guatamala. Looking forward to Virgin joining Skyteam and redeeming virgin points with Aeromexico local flights.@Ash, IIRC correctly MEX-MIA was available as an avios redemption on AA when I looked which would make it a good deal. Obviously there’s no guarantee of availability on given dates.
@Ash we have visited Oaxaca; not that exciting and some say it’s a little dangerous now. Baja has been totally overbuilt and Americanised – ie totally ruined with US prices and tipping. A big shame as it was very beautiful, but then so were Cancun and Tulum some years back (much of the Yucatan peninsula is still unspoilt). Guadalajara is a great city. Mexico City itself has improved so much, so much to see, amazing food and very good value.
The Pacific coast has lots to offer around Manzanillo. Cuixmala is amazing but there are lots of places along the coast and it’s still very unspoilt. They are developing new bits of coast near Puerto Vallarta that looks interesting – Riviera Nayarit. We have stayed for the last few winters in Zihuatanejo, not a smart resort, no high rise, but a real town where Mexican families go to the beach, so lots of normal, real restaurants with 80% Mexicans eating and at normal prices. Lots of good accommodation (eg Espuma/Tentaciones, Casa que Canta and Thompson near town, Marea Beachfront Villas on nearby Playa Blanca, nine mile long beach, lots of restaurants. Also a few miles up the coast for surfing, Troncones is very beautiful, small but being slowly colonised by Americans.
@Ash we have visited Oaxaca; not that exciting and some say it’s a little dangerous now. Baja has been totally overbuilt and Americanised – ie totally ruined with US prices and tipping. A big shame as it was very beautiful, but then so were Cancun and Tulum some years back (much of the Yucatan peninsula is still unspoilt). Guadalajara is a great city. Mexico City itself has improved so much, so much to see, amazing food and very good value.
The Pacific coast has lots to offer around Manzanillo. Cuixmala is amazing but there are lots of places along the coast and it’s still very unspoilt. They are developing new bits of coast near Puerto Vallarta that looks interesting – Riviera Nayarit. We have stayed for the last few winters in Zihuatanejo, not a smart resort, no high rise, but a real town where Mexican families go to the beach, so lots of normal, real restaurants with 80% Mexicans eating and at normal prices. Lots of good accommodation (eg Espuma/Tentaciones, Casa que Canta and Thompson near town, Marea Beachfront Villas on nearby Playa Blanca, nine mile long beach, lots of restaurants. Also a few miles up the coast for surfing, Troncones is very beautiful, small but being slowly colonised by Americans.
I have £4k of an evoucher I need to use B4 Sept.
How do you organise your trips?
FLy into MEX then what?
Cheers
@Notmyrealname we have either overnighted at the airport or, increasingly, stayed a few nights in Mexico City before taking a domestic flight. Prefer Aeromexico or Aeromar (very flexible on changes and luggage but currently a bit financially precarious) over Viva Aerobus or Volaris.
We organise it ourselves which is pretty easy. It’s really worth getting a guide in CDMX for a walking tour around the historic centre as there is a lot to see and understanding the origins and history really brings it all alive. The city is huge and the sights very spread out so it is really worth getting a driver who will charge $10-15/hour but enable you to see much more and at some places it’s difficult to get taxis. The traffic can we quite bad midweek or on holidays so sometimes metro can be better.
Where’s best to stay if planning to visit archaeological sites? I assume as well they have good museums – the ones in Merida we visited 20 years ago as part of a tour of Yucatan were excellent.
Where’s best to stay if planning to visit archaeological sites? I assume as well they have good museums – the ones in Merida we visited 20 years ago as part of a tour of Yucatan were excellent.
It’s a bit of a big question as the whole country is covered in archaeological sites!
Mexico City is a good place to start as the Anthropological Museum is superb (although huge so quite difficult to do it all) to set the scene for how civilisations/society developed and in the historic centre there is the Templo Mayor site. The pyramids at Teotihuacán are about an hour away but fine to go from the city as long as you leave as early as you can cope with; don’t take a group tour. It’s a massive site to visit, so really a fairly full day. From the city there are other day trips but all in different directions so difficult to make a really worthwhile trip.
In CDMX, most of the big hotels are in/around Reforma which isn’t ideal as it’s a huge busy road and a bit of a no man’s land, although not far from some of Polanco which is a smart residential area, full of restaurants and boutiques. We tried staying in the historic centre this time and would now stick with that.
The sites you visited from Merida were probably the best ones in the country. Chichén Itzá is obviously the most most famous and not too far away is Ek Balam where they have made many recent discoveries that we haven’t seen yet. CI is just too popular with the big crowds in Cancun and cruise ships, so these days it’s probably better to stay on site and go when it opens. I personally wouldn’t stay in Cancún, Tulúm or the so called Mayan Riviera. It was wonderful 25 years ago but now a complete tip and as un-Mexican as can be, plus stinking seaweed and drug gangs competing to supply the tourists.
Monte Albán in the valley near Oaxaca, Palenque and Uxmal (both also in Yucatán) are very impressive and Merida is a good base; Hacienda Xcanatún is good. Campeche, on the coast is lovely, but a bit further from the sites – Hacienda Puerta Campeche is comfortable.
CDMX
Great tips and insight.
So basically BA MEX return then domestic flights into other sites. (Any AVIOS\AA miles redemptions?)
Would 4 weeks in Feb be good for a first timer interested in archaeological sites?
Might even do a Fly into MEx and out of CAN?
CDMX
Great tips and insight.
So basically BA MEX return then domestic flights into other sites. (Any AVIOS\AA miles redemptions?)
Would 4 weeks in Feb be good for a first timer interested in archaeological sites?
Might even do a Fly into MEx and out of CAN?
.
Don’t think there is an Avios angle as AM is part of Skyteam. Mexicana used to be an Avios partner, but they went bust years ago (although still aircraft on the perimeters at MEX) and InterJet also bust more recently. CUN doesn’t have F and is on old LGW 777s quite apart from the undesirability of CUN (now an airport with 25m pax pa) and the surrounding area.
Feb a good month, although it’s nice in CDMX most of the year with the altitude keeping it relatively cool.
@JDB, thanks! I did mean Mexico City as I can envisage easily being able to fill a week before moving on to somewhere more relaxing. OH will probably take some persuading that it’s not Tijuana!
We did stay in Cancun at the end of our 2003 trip but I’m not anxious to return at the moment. I regret that we didn’t get to Tulum as our outbound flight on AA was delayed over 24 hours and we lost the day we would have been there, but CI, Merida, Uxmal and a couple of others were well worth visiting. We stayed at the lovely Hacienda Chichen which is an old estate-type property with bungalows in the grounds which felt as though we were in the middle of the jungle.
Chapultepec Castle (in the same park as the Anthropological Museum) isn’t much rated in guidebooks but well worth a visit (although a bit of a climb) and good views. If you go to the Frida Kahlo house (for which I think reservations are still obligatory) the area of Coyoacán is nice to walk around as well, including the church. The entrance ticket also gives you entry to the Museo Anahuacalli (which isn’t so near) but is an incredible building created by Diego Rivera to house his huge collection of pre-Hispanic artefacts – none of his work. The Diego Rivera mural museum nearer the centre isn’t much good, but there are works of his dotted all over the city.
I’m not a big fan of markets and as with most countries these days the ‘local’ handicrafts come from China anyway but the San Antonio market that only operates at weekends has amazing work. It’s mainly inside an old building and courtyard but also in the square outside – very lively with music and pop up food places. In the same area (quite a way from the centre) also, best for lunch, is the San Antonio Inn – very beautiful although food not quite as good as surroundings but a one of a kind, supposedly where the margarita was invented and on the Amex Plat list. Next door is the studio of FK/DR not amazing but worth a visit.
There are loads of great restaurants at very reasonable prices but one other is Arango which is I think the 7th floor of a building with huge windows overlooking the Plaza de la República which is little visited by tourists but rather beautiful. The food is exceptional, plus great original cocktails and very good reasonably priced Mexican wines; you don’t need to have a full blown lunch, especially if you go early when it’s not busy.
On the safety aspect, perceptions of risk are rather a personal thing, but we have never felt unsafe walking around Polanco or the Historic Centre and the latter has wonderful buildings on every block so walking is a real pleasure. There are still some bad areas as in any big city. The mayor has done an incredible job over the last few years cleaning the place up (cathedral currently covered in scaffolding) driving out the petty/opportunistic crime with huge constant presence of all types of police + cameras everywhere and a lot of pedestrianisation. People say there is a sort of understanding that the bad stuff one reads about is kept out of the city.
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