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Phoenix-London on British Airways: seeking advice please


Disneyfriend
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Have you flown with BA recently? Especially in cattle class? They truly are the pits, I'm sorry to say.

 

I'm ashamed to have to talk of our so called national airline like this but honestly their service, food etc are awful.

 

Obviously this is somewhat subjective but as a BA Gold/Silver cardholder for almost 15yrs now I really don't see the "awful service" you speak of. Yes, there have been some well known cuts, and the law of averages when you've flown them dozens/hundreds of times means you might find one member of cabin crew on an off day but I certainly wouldn't describe them as "the pits".

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We are gearing up for our first flight to Europe next summer, traveling as a family of 4 (kids ages 11 and 12 at time of travel). We are staying in London for several days to sightsee before taking a British Isles cruise.

 

Since we live in the Phoenix area, we will almost certainly take one of the two British Airways non-stop flights from Phoenix to London. On the day we travel, there are 2 such flights:

 

 

  • BA 290 leaves Phoenix at 5:10 pm and arrives LHR at 11:10 am the next day.
  • BA 288 leaves Phoenix at 7:40 pm and arrives LHR at 1:35 pm the next day.

I keep going back and forth on two decisions related to our air transportation.

 

 

  1. First, I'm unsure which flight to take. I'm mainly worried about maximizing our chances at sleep and minimizing jet lag. I assume we'll have an easier time going to sleep on the second flight . . . but then again, we'll probably get served dinner around 8:30 or so.
  2. Second, I am debating between going on World Traveler (economy) or World Traveler Plus for the comfort. It's complicated by the fact that I can get two AA Saver round trip seats in economy, probably a smart way to use up 120,000 of our American Airlines miles. (And goodness knows . . . they are certainly not easy to use up!) I really, really would rather sit in the (slightly) larger seats of World Traveler Plus for our 10 hour flight. But I'm having a hard time justifying the extra cash expense since we can get the two frequent flier seats on economy.

Any advice or input, especially from those who have been on one of these specific flights, would be much appreciated!

 

 

 

World Traveler Plus! We loved it. So worth the extra money. For our October cruise we purposely chose a cheapie cruise ship cabin to offset the extra cost for WT +

We are not made of money, and I am a bargain traveler, but I have no regrets about spending more than double to have comfort. We never even suffered jet lag due to being able to get some decent shut-eye for several hours. The food service and food was very good. We were on an SFO LHT 4:40 pm flight which arrived at 11:30 am and it was perfect. In our case we were headed to Barcelona, so by the time we got to our hotel it was 7:00 pm, so we never missed a beat.

FWIW, we were able to pre-board with the First Class group.

 

For our next trip we are inclined to try Norwegian economy plus.

Edited by 4cats4me
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World Traveler Plus! We loved it. So worth the extra money. For our October cruise we purposely chose a cheapie cruise ship cabin to offset the extra cost for WT +

We are not made of money, and I am a bargain traveler, but I have no regrets about spending more than double to have comfort. We never even suffered jet lag due to being able to get some decent shut-eye for several hours. The food service and food was very good. We were on an SFO LHT 4:40 pm flight which arrived at 11:30 am and it was perfect. In our case we were headed to Barcelona, so by the time we got to our hotel it was 7:00 pm, so we never missed a beat.

FWIW, we were able to pre-board with the First Class group.

 

For our next trip we are inclined to try Norwegian economy plus.

 

Thank you for the nudge. In our case, World Traveler Plus is probably a reasonable amount over the price of the World Traveler seats, especially once the extra baggage allowance is factored in. What's killing me mentally is the fact that we can get two World Traveler seats using our FF miles. And we've been saving those darn American FF miles for *years*! I feel like we've caught a unicorn and dare not let it go, ha! ;)

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Disney:

 

If you go with the two different seat selections, why not put yourself and one child in Plus and Husband and other child in regular economy? Then during the flight you and your husband can change seats to get a chance for the better legroom.

 

I am very OCD to saving money (grin) and if I had miles to use and could save a good little chunk of change I would do the above!!! Anyway you decide, it is a long 10 hours but at least you are non-stop!!

 

Pooh

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Disney:

 

If you go with the two different seat selections, why not put yourself and one child in Plus and Husband and other child in regular economy? Then during the flight you and your husband can change seats to get a chance for the better legroom.

 

I am very OCD to saving money (grin) and if I had miles to use and could save a good little chunk of change I would do the above!!! Anyway you decide, it is a long 10 hours but at least you are non-stop!!

 

Pooh

 

Seriously this may be a great idea. It might be about the best compromise we can come up with given all the circumstances. We could probably switch so that whichever adult-child pair rides in WT+ on the way to London will return in WT on the way back, and vice versa.

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Seriously this may be a great idea. It might be about the best compromise we can come up with given all the circumstances. We could probably switch so that whichever adult-child pair rides in WT+ on the way to London will return in WT on the way back, and vice versa.
Just a word of caution. I'm not sure that switching of seats between different cabins is allowed. The named ticket holder should be in the correct seat prior to departure. Trying to switch might be problematic.

 

Sent from my SM-T700 using Forums mobile app

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  • 1 month later...
Seriously this may be a great idea. It might be about the best compromise we can come up with given all the circumstances. We could probably switch so that whichever adult-child pair rides in WT+ on the way to London will return in WT on the way back, and vice versa.
Just a word of caution. I'm not sure that switching of seats between different cabins is allowed. The named ticket holder should be in the correct seat prior to departure. Trying to switch might be problematic.
Changing seats during a flight is discouraged.

 

However, if Adult A and Child X have a WT+ round-trip ticket and Adult B and Child Y have a WT round-trip ticket, but they swap on boarding the second flight so that B and Y sit in WT+ for the whole of that flight while A and X sit in WT, that should be fine. It's a good idea to let the cabin crew know that you're going to do that, so that they know and in case there is some reason on the day why that shouldn't happen.

 

But the easier thing to do is to buy A and X a ticket which is WT+ outbound and WT inbound, and to buy B and Y a ticket which is WT outbound and WT+ inbound. That's dead straightforward to do, and it means that no swapping needs to take place.

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Changing seats during a flight is discouraged.

 

However, if Adult A and Child X have a WT+ round-trip ticket and Adult B and Child Y have a WT round-trip ticket, but they swap on boarding the second flight so that B and Y sit in WT+ for the whole of that flight while A and X sit in WT, that should be fine. It's a good idea to let the cabin crew know that you're going to do that, so that they know and in case there is some reason on the day why that shouldn't happen.

 

But the easier thing to do is to buy A and X a ticket which is WT+ outbound and WT inbound, and to buy B and Y a ticket which is WT outbound and WT+ inbound. That's dead straightforward to do, and it means that no swapping needs to take place.

 

Thank you for your thoughtful reply! You make an excellent point.

 

In the end, I spotted a pre-Christmas sale on Virgin Atlantic. We bought four tickets - together - in Premium Economy, at a cost per person that was less than the British Airways nonstop in economy. We'll actually be flying Delta in Comfort Plus to JFK, and then Premium Economy on Virgin Atlantic from JFK to London.

 

Now I just need to make sure we can make our connecting flight in JFK, but that's another thread, ha! (And I'm pretty sure we'll be just fine, with 1 hour 40 minutes on the flight to London and 2 hours 40 minutes on the flight back.)

 

Thank you to all who replied!

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