[Garethgerry]

Thanks , so avios same as club , for an extra £ 200 can upgrade to First. Might mean free cancel and rebook, but in other order

Should have thought to d this when I booked.

[Garethgerry]

NorthernLass wrote:

SeatSpy was showing plenty of F to JNB next month – is this not replicated on BA?

Also I’m confused by your gold priority comment – don’t these just apply to economy award seats?

No first reward seats on BA.com when I log in and search

The golden priority award , as long as seat available for cash you can get it for double avios . Used it to get Business to cape town for next Jan as I missed ordinary seats at midnight UTC. I believe it applies to all classes, so thinking I should have booked first.

[Garethgerry]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

There is an article on this very topic and easily googled

https://hfp2026mar.kinsta.cloud/2025/07/22/how-to-redeem-avios-for-first-class-flights-with-british-airways/

Yes read it , but it doesn’t specify cash element just a rough guide.
Can’t find anywhere with availablity to do dummy booking, so guess just have to ring up.

[Garethgerry]

That’s about what I was thinking , thought it was 100,000 (but thats peak)whatever struck me that its less than current Business.

As I wanted a specific one of just two days which I missed, I used the BA gold priority reward for a one way. As this 2 times avios applies to First it would be less avios to go First , just somewhat higher cash charge.

I Can cancel gold reward for free and rebook first . Any idea on cash charge, not in country so would like idea of cost before ringing up.

[Garethgerry]

Should say defacto boarding by seat number

[Garethgerry]

Sandy M wrote:

If BA maintain the same number of galleys and WCs, then I can’t see a problem, and the availability of WCs and galleys improves for J pax.

The galleys on the main deck will be busier, but other airlines have more pax on the main deck.

Boarding by seat number would be sensible for J pax on the upper deck, although I can see some might not like that.

The plans are for all 110 suites to be on upper deck , so the number of toilets will be 7 for 110 , vs current 7 for 97.

But the biggest issue is how to squeeze the 110 in. Singapore has 78 back from galley and mid door. Can be squeeze another 32 in, doubt if more than 24 in front, so 86 vs SQ 78 it will be dense for business.

Boarding J by seat row makes sense but not a premium look. Most sensible would be to restrict front seats to gold so priority group 1. Becomes refactoring boarding by seat number

Biggest draw back is disembarking. Those at back of J will get off behind a very large chunk of PE and E. Fine is no queues at immigration, but that is unl.

[Garethgerry]

JDB wrote:

AndrewT wrote:

Well BA do have 97 CW on the A380 at present, and 76 CS on the 773, so in terms of cabin balance they clearly see things differently from others.

Whether they make it fit sensibly is another matter.

And they are adding another 10%! We know BA sees things differently – never mind the product quality, let’s do just enough – which is currently doing them very well.

Remember this is all going on upper deck , not distributed across two.

F and J are currently at front so disembark first. In this new layout some J will be last off.

Since they struggle to board an A320 efficiently, it’s going to be more chaotic than ever if they have 120 F&J A380 passengers + a few status holders all expecting priority boarding.

[Garethgerry]

@jdB is completely right.

At most you could squeeze in 20 suites in the front where others have first. This means BA are aiming for 90 suites where Singapore have 78.

Might be sandwiches and going downstairs for toilet. Doesn’t add up

[Garethgerry]

Ring again hope to get someone helpful who will take some responsibility

[Garethgerry]

The advantage of fully flexible is if a avios ticket from jburg appears you can swap.

[Garethgerry]

I do believe it is becoming a victim of own success.

When avios (airmiles) were launched in 1988, it was a simple way for BA to utilise empty seats to reward frequent flyers and for years it worked like that. Avios seats cost BA almost nothing .Avios was liabilities on books but no problem, in an era of lower load factors.

Now it’s a different animal, the credit card and non flight issue of avios is huge. BA gets paid but has big liabilities on books. Which must be growing, Whilst BA (IAG) controlled the redemption rate all under control. Now if partners offer avios flights it’s cash flowing to partners. The liabilities are real.

[Garethgerry]

The article Rob wrote about the BAPP in the awards, which said in UK all avios related cards in total account for 10% of UK credit card spend, £2billion a month, plus avios from shopping, plus dare I say it avios from flights. Means billions of avios collected a month, so competition for seats will just get fiercer and fiercer and seats scarcer

[Garethgerry]

It should say no noise , no pollution,

[Garethgerry]

Aston100 wrote:

Jon wrote:

Regardless, it’s probably still a lot faster than what used to (still does?) pass for broadband in the UK 😉

1gb (or faster) full fibre is the new thing for homes.

I should be so lucky , lucky, lucky. If we get 1% of that. But on other hand, no noise , no solution

[Garethgerry]

All I can say is thank god starlink wasn’t on planes when I was working, nice to be out of contact. You could still work even think.

It will become an excuse to remove IFE. I’m waiting for day no IFE , bring own tablet and stream from on-board server.

[Garethgerry]

JDB wrote:

1958 wrote:

JDB wrote:

£600 for that long trip is a complete bargain as the difference between Club and First on a long route is night and day. That said, I wouldn’t even contemplate choosing BA to/from Sydney…

£600 was for the whole journey (Sydney to London). I was surprised that it was so low.
I think that you are being a bit harsh (for Avios users) on “wouldn’t even contemplate BA”. BA in Club Suites is pretty good. We flew Qatar London to Adelaide, which was better than BA – for approximately the same Avios (using a 241) on off-peak dates. On peak dates, Qatar is far more Avios.

The Club Suite itself would be fine if BA bothered to clean or maintain it but they don’t. The service is incredibly haphazard at best and the food and wine dire, plus BA has both an insufficient loo to passenger ratio and loos they don’t keep clean inflight. I personally also hate the timing of the BA flight that means two overnights on board and arriving in Sydney at 6am (and BA only offers Sydney).

As the flight stops anyway in Singapore a connection in the Middle East or Asia makes little difference to the overall time and the leg stretching between flights is good. Different people will experience flights in different ways, but for me a morning departure from London, arrival Doha early evening, short land break, and very long onward flight that gives time to enjoy and sleep, arrival in Sydney late pm, shower, nice dinner and bed, wake up fully refreshed to enjoy the next day in Australia is great, no jet lag. Other ME airlines or Singapore, Malaysian, Cathay etc. are all far better as well. So for me, for my biennial Australia trip, no way BA.

I’m in complete agreement with @jdb , firstly timing trumps everything (except nothing would make me get on old ying yang). Secondly although I don’t think service is as bad as @jdb thinks , it can be adequate. However the number of loos per person is just not adequate. Expecially on 350 1000s when they close front one. There are much better choices going east.

I would have offered my wife First and not entertained swapping, I know my place

[Garethgerry]

You should get it either way if your domestic connection is on same day as club longhaul. Keep boarding cards.

If some staff disagree get them to check upwards

[Garethgerry]

You will have access to Man lounge based on your connection ingredients business class flight.

[Garethgerry]

Rob Burgess wrote:

There’s clearly a big Silver issue coming. BA has probably set these new targets to keep the Silver tier at the same level, but for the first year has to handle a huge number of Gold drops.

If there are too few Golds then BA did a shocking job with their modelling. It’s not exactly difficult to work out how many members spent £20,000 last year and so probably will this year.

If they are 10% short then the limit will be informally dropped to 18,000 and people rolled over instead of downgraded.

None of us know what BA’s target numbers for each grade are. But we shall see. Was the £20000 aimed at a reduction in gold members, or was it aimed at a change in make up. Or as I suspect a bit of both. I can’t see them dropping £20000 limit, but be creative in some promotions or corporate deals if gold numbers drop.

[Garethgerry]

Had a Nondescript flight to Cape Town. Nothing went wrong, priority boarding would have been scrum , but nearly over when we arrived. They did come round and greet gold members but no follow up. We were in the little front cabin behind first on 777. Service was slow, we were first, but it took forever to serve the big CW cabin behind and one behind that. I think bottleneck is actually oven capacity and galley space. Between this and number of crew just adequate for what is huge CW section, crew just don’t have time during dinner service. I compare this to two crew for upstairs on 747, with own galley. The 777 and 350 1000 need two galley for size of CW

We had a lovely lady serving us went and got extra pastries from first for my wife.

[Garethgerry]

The real Swiss Tony wrote:

@jj The irony is the weather was perfect. Clear skies, normal air pressure, but not a breath of wind. And all the other airlines were seemingly managing to load bags. So yes I’m surprised that BA are using planes that are on the cusp of operational limits, when MUC and SZG are both so near.

They should know INN over any holiday everyone will have hold luggage. Planes that work on shorthaul business don’t work on holiday flights

[Garethgerry]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

“Socialist approach” ???

Even if the flight could only take some of the bags the handlers aren’t going to start hunting through piles of bags looking for priority tags for CE or status passengers or those on the same booking.

Bags aren’t organised like that. Plus BA doesn’t do priority bags despite them putting tags on.

The handlers will want to get the flight loaded ASAP and are simply going to pick the bags closest to hand in the baggage area storing bags for a particular flight until they reach the requisite number. And that may not even be those belonging to the first people to check in.

So instead of bags belonging to a discreet group getting through it’ll be a mish-mash with even some passengers on the same booking not getting all their bags and some none and so on.

A lot of airports don’t have fancy baggage systems with massive storage capacity where each bag is put in its own rfid identified tray circulating around the system ready to be called forward to a designated loading area. Many are just put on conveyor belts and delivered to a bay and manually unloaded and then uploaded to trucks to be taken to the plane. They aren’t even containerised.

It’s why at some airports there are restrictions as to how early you can drop bags off in the first place.

BA certainly do priority on long haul, haven’t flown short haul for some time. The fact they don’t do priority is disgraceful.

Anyway even if they put a random selection of 50% plus of luggage on board then quite a few people would be happy.

Better than disappointing everyone. Disappointing everyone because you can only load half the luggage , is definitely the wrong mindset

[Garethgerry]

I think this is a strange decision. Unless it was as @Rob said a problem with the baggage system then it’s understandable.

Otherwise if it was plane capacity.

Then it would have been possible to take every passenger and at least say half the passengers luggage. So taking none was a arbitrary somewhat stupid decision. The question whose to take. Then perhaps all CE , and then others in order bags were checked in. Or even just the first X at hand.

This seems to be a “socialist approach ” , achieve equality by denying everyone .

[Garethgerry]

Whatsthepoint wrote:

Thanks @jdb.

The conclusion has not been very satisfactory. After much tooing and froing, we got the LHR to DOH back, in J but they could only reinstate us in Y from DOH to SIN. Despite Qatar still selling Avios redemptions on the same flight and plenty of space in J, for cash, on the 2 direct flights. They have offered a significant number of Avios as compensation, exact number to be confirmed. We have managed to get extra leg room seats. We’ll hope for an upgrade opportunity.

Everyone, please make sure the agent retains old seats while new ones go off to the back office, just in case.

Couldn’t you book the Qatar J leg yourselves and try to get avios from BA

[Garethgerry]

Firstly do the sums , will having a silver save you £470.

If it will , then choose option that will give you most pleasure only you know that

If nowhere near, then only spend money on something you would have done anyway and enjoy.