[Gosia44]

I would take Avios. Significantly more flexible and the value depends on when and where you want to fly.
Just booked a one way FAO-LON for next week in CE for 15k Avios + £37, BA wants £508 for the same flight in cash. Also many European destinations hit £400 one way in economy for Christmas. So visiting a lovely Christmas market in Krakow, Vienna or Prague is cheap with Avios.

[Gosia44]

A friend of mine received a £100 voucher for a broken screen in CW on a London to Boston flight. She asked for avios instead and got a big NO. Strange. Maybe because it was a cash ticket.

[Gosia44]

I would complain. The service you received was significantly below the expected BA level. Taking into account that there is no lounge at LCY, two glasses of champagne seems poor.

[Gosia44]

They removed Haribo bears jar and percy pigs from T5B. These were my little treats.

[Gosia44]

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/feedbackclaims/public/en_gb/select

[Gosia44]

Too little too late, I know, but you need to complain to BA. On EU routes such as LON-MAD for example it is normally 10k avios per person compensation for denied lounge access. Clearly a very wrong decision by BA not to let you in. You should also complain to Iberia in addition to BA.

[Gosia44]

Sounds like you tried to pay with Avios for a regular cash booking instead of booking a Reward Flight with Avios.

[Gosia44]

What a nightmare situation. The person who booked those seats obviously has no idea and it is not their fault. As someone suggested above, make a very very polite complaint to BA. After all, you were under the instructions of their agents.
I don’t think I would ever trust BA with any provisional cancellation. And it is always best to record any conversation with BA, just in case..

[Gosia44]

AJA – thank you for the Finnair tip. I am impressed that you can check and generate email info for non-finnair flights on the Finnair website. Very helpful. Just checked one of my LON-WAW BA bookings and it works!

[Gosia44]

paulg0 wrote:

tontoro wrote:

Confirmed it doesn’t work for HMRC payments

How about through Curve? I’ve just bought £100 NS&I and paid £100 to HMRC to test.

Curve works if we have fronted enabled.

[Gosia44]

Emirates is not part of the oneworld alliance so you cannot use avios to book reward flights with them.
In some circumstances you can earn avios flying Emirates.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/02/01/can-i-earn-avios-if-i-fly-with-emirates/

[Gosia44]

I got 10k avios for a closed lounge at WAW. Worth complaining.

[Gosia44]

The crew made announcements asking ET passengers to use toilets at the back of the plane. I guess the announcements were legal under the uk/eu law so people either did not hear or ignored. The curtain is there for a reason – to offer more privacy and space to those willing to pay more.

[Gosia44]

T5B is fast becoming a zoo too. Late morning today – no seating available, no regular Prosecco, you have to keep asking and I don’t like rosé, dirty plates and glasses everywhere, just too many people and not enough staff to clean and refill. I know it is a busy bank holidays weekend but..

[Gosia44]

I always go for an aisle seat, club/economy/exit/whatever, always an aisle. I guess it is a personal preference. I just like having an option to stand up and stretch.

[Gosia44]

Sorry to jump into this conversation but what is a middle class family in the UK? The current middle income is about £35k I believe. Would that be enough to have multiple lines of credit?

[Gosia44]

I had this problem. To book an avios flight with Finnair operated by NORRA you need to call BA. Important – tell the agent to change the search to ALL Airlines, not just Finnair as these routes do not pop up under Finnair.

I managed to book Finnair WAW-HEL-WAW operated by NORRA with avios for Novemenr 24. The agent wanted to charged me for a phone booking but I argued that I had no choice as there’s way to do it online. The fee was waved.

[Gosia44]

Really poor show. Status is irrelevant if travelling on a CE ticket – CE lounge access is meant to be guaranteed at Gatwick Airport. Let’s post it all over Twitter and see what BA will come up with..

[Gosia44]

I think this issue has now been corrected. Looking at LON-WAW the £17.50 is back. The following options appear. The same in the other direction WAW-LON.

11750 Avios + £ 0.50
11000 Avios + £ 4.50
9750 Avios + £ 10.00
7250 Avios + £ 17.50
4650 Avios + £ 35.00
2900 Avios + £ 45.00

[Gosia44]

Thank you. Yes, AA does show IB availability, just not in a nice full-year format like SeatSpy. I will have to go through it on a day by day basis.

[Gosia44]

SeatSpy Map, the Where Can I Go, tool is quite good if you are interested in a specific time frame and unsure about destination. The map is only available to paying customers but they offer a free one month trial, enough time to search, choose and book.

Maldives in January are great 🙂

[Gosia44]

The last minute gate changes can also work in your favour. While in the T5B lounge last month, I had an early A7 indication (not yet displayed) changed to B43. It was a short flight to Warsaw operated by Finnair. As I fly that route once a month, my strategy is to always go to the B lounge and wait there whatever the final gate.

[Gosia44]

For to me (measured a few months ago) it is 4min 27s from the moment the lift hits -4 level at T5A to the BA lounge at T5B, and two minutes longer on the way back to A. Travelators are only one way from A to B.

[Gosia44]

As someone mentioned above, you can usually pay council tax with PayPay and PayPoint. Both can be done with Amex. For PayPoint – just find a shop that accepts Amex. My local COOP and Texaco accept Amex for PayPoint. You can also load Monzo account with Amex via PayPoint, the current limit is £2000 a year so you get 2000 extra avios on your free BA card.

[Gosia44]

I also once experienced a strangely narrow seat – not a middle one but window. I luckily had the entire row for me (not a busy flight) and tested all three seats. The window one was smaller. I even asked a flight attendant why the seat was smaller, she did test and could not explain but also noticed the difference. It looked like it was attached to the other two instead of all three being one unit. It was a London to Faro flight last summer.