The full title of this article should be “don’t fly in Club Europe if you have status”, or in any European business class if you have status if I’m really honest with you. Let me explain through the short trip report on a low cost (relatively) trip to Barcelona for a trade show.
Background
I needed to attend to trade show Barcelona that’s held every year, and as it’s such a big show it tends to fill up the hotels in the city rather quickly, making them quite expensive. I decided to book this as a British Airways holiday, flights and hotel under one booking, which makes the cost a little bit more manageable. I booked a return flight and one night in the hotel for around £500, it was quite a pleasant hotel as well. As the first flight was leaving from Heathrow very early on the Tuesday morning I used some of my Hilton points to put myself into a hotel at the airport so that I could be there ready nice and early, rather than a silly early start from home to get there on time.
The Trip
In my continuing effort to keep this as a low-cost trip I decided to take the bus to Hatton Cross tube station. I know some of my friends who will live their entire lives using an Uber will have comments to say for going on a “bus”! I used the Super Loop from Kingston, the express bus service in London, and from Kingston it’s half an hour and only has one stop. The seats are comfortable enough, there’s USB power at the seat and I was quite happy with my headphones on watching something on my phone until we got there. I’d booked into the Hilton Garden Inn right next to Hatton Cross. First of all because it was the cheapest of all the Hilton’s around Heathrow. I was sticking with Hilton as I could use my points to reduce the cost, and secondly because being right by Hatton Cross, I could easily get from there to terminal 5 in the morning as the tube runs straight there. Hilton has an official terminal 5 hotel, which is outside the M25 and it’s only accessible via a bus, which I believe you have to pay for. I didn’t want to rely on that, and this hotel is also accessible by the super loop bus, so it made it an easy solution. I discovered a friend of mine, and former work colleague, who was also going to the trades how was doing the same thing as me, same hotel and same flight. As he had a car, he offered me a lift in the morning to the terminal.
He didn’t have any status, so it was my pleasure to take him with me through the First Wing and into the first lounge for breakfast. This is the first time I’ve travelled in a long time with no checked luggage, and it was a breeze going through. We walked straight into the first wing, turned right to head to the lounge entrance, into security which has the new machines so nothing to take out the bag, and then straight into the first lounge. I think from arriving in the building to being sat in lounge was less than 5 minutes. The lounge had had a few minor upgrades since I’ve lost been there, some nice additions to breakfast that I’ve not seen before, such as waffles, pancakes, and bacon in a special area. We had breakfast, then walked down to our gate and they started boarding almost immediately.
Direct route to the First Lounge from First Wing Security
Despite being in economy with my gold status in BA Exec Club I was in group 1, so we headed straight to the plane, taking my friend with me and we were sat down in no time. I’d specifically chosen my seat as 7A, the row behind the front row of economy. Only because the first row of economy has the silly little curtain right in front of it it’s nice not to have that in-your-face flapping around in the flight if you can avoid it. Randomly my friend had been given the seat next to me, which was a complete fluke as he has no status so he couldn’t choose his seat. The economy flight was perfectly fine we were given a bottle of water and a salty corn snack, and I dozed most of my way to Barcelona. The hotel in Barcelona was lovely, turned out to be a 5-star place called the Wittmore. Highly recommended, especially when they give you free welcome drinks and a free mini bar with gin and tonic in it.
The next day I had almost full day at the trade show and I header it off to the airport late afternoon. As there is a direct Metro line from the airport to the conference Centre, that makes life extremely easy. Again, being hand luggage only, I was very quickly through, there’s a fast-track area very separate from the main departures, so if you are travelling look for it carefully because it’s not near the normal departure gates. They also had new machines so nothing out of the bag and I through to the other side to go to passport control and up to the Barcelona VIP lounge to relax before my flight. The Barcelona lounge is quite nice has a wide variety of snack food that you can nibble on, which included some Iberian ham and some croquettes, which made me happy. There is Cava available as well as a variety of wines, beers and spirits, if you want to drink. When it was time to head to my gate, as soon as the gate number was announced I headed to the toilet and then straight down to the gate. They must’ve been boarding very quickly because they called group 4 when I’ve arrived. So, I skipped the queue and went straight to the Club Europe entrance and boarded the plane.
Joan Miro VIP Lounge, Barcelona
This time I had selected 6F, I quite like if I can fly out on the left and fly back on the right, I don’t know why. But this time it was the row behind business, so I did have the annoying curtain in front of me, but that was okay. Similar flight home to the outbound one but this time decided to buy myself a drink. Special note to those that decide to buy things on board, look at the cost of Avios first against the cost in cash. If you assume your Avios is worth about 1p, you’ll see the Avios cost is about double the cash cost, don’t buy things with Avios if you value them. They are better used on flights. However, to be fair you did earn them for nothing originally so, if you have a lot you’re not spending then, they why not get a free drink and a bite to eat. There’s mixed opinions on this.
We landed earlier T5 and thanks again to being having only hand luggage, I headed straight through passport control and out to meet my other half who had kindly come to pick me up.
Why I didn't upgrade
This is the first time in quite a long time I’ve flown in economy, but most of my recent flying has been long-haul overnight where I much prefer to have a bed. Why did I fly economy this time? Well, the question really is why bother flying in business class? One big argument for some people is the tier points, you get a lot more for flying business, which could be all you need to make it to the next level. Therefor the £250 upgrade fee could be worth it for an entire year of silver or gold benefits. What else do you get? If you have no status the business class ticket gives you a lot of perks, dedicated check-in area, fast track security, lounge access, priority boarding and you get a light meal and a full drinks bar on board. But if you have status then you get all of that except to the on-board treatment anyway. The main difference of flying economy is you don’t get much on board and you might have someone sitting next to you rather than empty seat, which might or might not have a little tray on it. I was sat, in both directions, one or two rows behind club, so I was pretty near the front and able to get off quickly after the flights. One of the other advantages of silver or gold status is the ability to choose your own seat for free, so you can get yourself near the front. A friend of mine on the outbound leg did fly in business, to be fair he was booked business all the way from Toronto changing in London, which made more sense. He said the light meal was terrible and really not worth it. And as it was a morning flight and we were on a business trip, there was no need to drink alcohol so the bar wasn’t a lot of use.
BA had contacted me about a month before the flight to say upgrades were possible and as it’s a holiday booking you can’t see the cost through the website, you have to phone them. I called up, asked and was told that the upgrade cost was a roundabout £250, each way!
Let’s look at that what £250 gets me. It means I can move forwards three or four rows, it gets me a rather nasty light meal, which is not required after having a full lovely breakfast in the lounge, and it gets me a free choice of drink from the bar, so maybe I could’ve had a Coke instead of a water. Oh, and don’t forget the empty guaranteed seat next to you with possibly a tray table at it.
One of the little known things about gold status is there is somewhere an algorithm that tries to keep the seat next to gold members empty to the last possible minute. Even if you’re in economy the seat next to you is blocked out until they get absolutely full and then they’ll put somebody in there. On the way out the plane was completely full, so I had someone sat next to me, which did just happen to be a friend of mine. On the way back though there weren’t many empty seats but one of them was right next to me. I did choose to buy a coke on the way home for £2.50, which if course would have been free if I’d paid £250 to move forward one row.
Bottom line
Flying short haul business class does have one major benefit, you can earn somewhere in the region of 4 to 8 times the tier points of flying economy, if you need a few more tier points just to tip you over then flying in the front could be useful. But if you have status, most of the perks you get automatically, so flying business can be a big waste of money, and on this occasion I felt that spending an extra £500 to sit slightly further forwards and have a bad meal was really not worth it.
