[Peggerz]

Metty wrote:

Random Monday question regarding those little 17ml bottles of Monte Vibiano olive oil that are offered on BA, Qatar etc in the pointy end of the plane.

The producer’s website has various options for buying e.g. 10x 10ml bottles; this wouldn’t last too long in our house.

There’s bound to be someone on here who is a connisseur of such things, can anyone recommend a spicy lemon/chilli extra-virgin oil that is available in a bigger bottle. Have tried various Waitrose/M&S products over the years but nothing as nice as the above 🙂

Try Valvona & Crolla, fantastic deli with 90+ years of experience. Valvonacrolla.co.uk
In fact, @NorthernLass could probably pick some up for you as she’s in Edinburgh atm 😃

[Peggerz]

Data Point (I think):
Flew EDI-DXB return last October on Emirates in Y. At that time posted here that on the drop down for loyalty, I could send the miles accrued to my Aegean account as I don’t normally fly EK and haven’t an account. I was advised this would only relate to flights to Greece linking to other destinations so they wouldn’t track. Well….
The points from the EK flights have just dropped into my A3 account (no tier points, but that’s ok).
Every mile helps. During last summer I took a couple of internal Olympic air flights around the Greek Islands and to Athens. At 5000 points and as low as €0.30 each they were a bargain. And far better than 6 hours on a ferry.

[Peggerz]

freckles wrote:

Gordon Dewar stepping down as CE of EDI – maybe his successor will finally look at improving the international arrivals experience rather than just concentrating on extracting the maximum spend from departures traffic 🤔

Of course they have a way to go to match the MAN experience 🙄

I couldn’t agree more. Though they announced this for EDI this week;

5 new aircraft stands by June 2026.
– 8 new departure gates by April 2027.
– Expanded departure lounge by June 2028.
– Merged international arrivals by April 2029.
– Terminal upgrades (baggage, immigration, gates).
– Larger car rental area with EV charging by summer 2026.
– New eastern access road by May 2028.
– Runway resurfacing (£30M) completing March 2026.

It really cannot come quick enough. And A LOT MORE.
Maybe include escalators for a start….

[Peggerz]

@Mikeact,
A former tax office converted well (obvs see HfP review).
At West End of New Town, 10 mins walk from Dean Village and the walk down the Water of Leith to Stockbridge where you’ll find lots of bars, resto’s and a Sunday market.
Tram and bus from EDI stop 10 mins walk away from hotel, Princes Street close too.
Overall a good choice I’d say.

[Peggerz]

Great review of your time in the Northern Isles.
Well done in taking in the HMY Britannia and using the tram to get there. Sincere apologies for the shopping mall beside it, Ocean Terminal. Built to encourage cruise ships to berth in Leith until they realised the width of the lock gates were too narrow to allow access for ever bigger cruise ships. It’s on a real downer atm. A short walk to the Shore would have been a lot better imho, but there we are…..

[Peggerz]

Hi @cin3.
I can’t help you with the restaurants you have mentioned as they are too high-end for my tastes in Korea. They all seem to get good reviews so, unless anyone else here has personal experience, I think you just pick a couple and go for it.
Re food markets, we had a couple of meals in them when we were in Seoul this year. The central sites in the alleyways of Gwangjang market can have some visitors there and they were good fun. Our ‘guide’ was my daughters Korean partner so he was quite happy and didn’t feel they were tourist traps or overly priced. In fact we went to one market stall to sample Korean black pudding (Sundae, don’t judge me until you’ve tried it!) that we couldn’t get elsewhere. However there are at lot less tourists in the restaurants that line the alleyways, really busy with locals. And even in the markets, go down the quieter alleys as you will be surprised by how un-touristy they are.
Once you come out the Gwangjang Market go down onto the Cheonggyecheon Stream and walk up to ‘the library’, an open area where the locals sit and read and chat until late in the day. A very pleasant walk
Re vegetarian food, scroll to my previous entry for a link as there are quite a few vegan/veggie places to be found and they were of decent quality too.
As said before, you will do well to head to Sindorim station and walk 10 mins to Mullae district which is great for wandering around and picking a restaurant or bar etc. All extremely welcoming and no tourists about the place. And I was in this area using my very poor 3 words in Korean, so language really isn’t a problem as people can speak at least a few words of English if your Korean is as bad as mine.

[Peggerz]

@AnotherUser
I’m also EDI based and BA not great without a change in LON before the weekend European flights kick in later in the year.
How about Orkney on Loganair using Avios? Or Bergen, Norway? Obviously more choices both from EDI & GLA to other destinations with Loganair.
Then there’s Iberia and Finnair as mentioned.

[Peggerz]

ed8890 wrote:

Hi, i managed to do a status match with RJ (to silver) using my Radisson status yesterday. and changed the FF number on my BA avios booking via fiji this morning. the RJ number shows on my booking on BA now. But wont know if i can choose my seats 7 days in advance till next year when the flight is !

@ed8890
Worked for me last month, shouldn’t be a problem.

[Peggerz]

If you are in Edinburgh then a visit to the Johnnie Walker place of Princes Street is worth it (including the rooftop bar) but obvs this only gives you access to JW products. Get the tram to Leith and visit the new Leith Distillery next to the RY Britannia. Or/and visit the Glenkinchie distillery for their very good tour in East Lothian, 15 miles from Edinburgh.

[Peggerz]

Decided to ditch BAPP for a while having gained another Companion Voucher. Just can’t get use out of them as much as I thought. Anyway, agent went through the cancellation and there were no retention offers. However, this may have come off the back of an accepted retention offer last November. I still have another Amex for bookings and points collection.

[Peggerz]

If Emirates are moving into the BA Lounge at Gate 6 will BA be taking over the Plaza Premium Lounge at gate 16 with Qatar having the VIP room that is off the PP room at present? So the One World partners together?
In an earlier iteration as part of the No.1 lounge, the VIP room was rumoured to be in line for use by Qatar or Emirates, but Covid put paid to that. And No.1 at Edinburgh.

[Peggerz]

I also understand the Emirates business pax at Edinburgh use the BA lounge. Presumably under contract. So it appears the Qatar passengers are rejected, but Emirates are given access to the One World Lounge.

[Peggerz]

I’ve had access to lounges in EDI, LHR, DOH, ICN and VCE with my RJ Golden Sparrow without issue as a OW passenger. Not sure what the policy at CFU or RHO may be though.

[Peggerz]

I also got this offer from Status Match to retain RJ Golden Sparrow until 01/09/26. It’s not worth it for me as I don’t have plans to do much travel with OW that isn’t already in J using Avios. I also received a soft landing to RJ Silver Jay until 8/26 anyway from last years RJ GS so happy with that. $350 too steep.

[Peggerz]

vlcnc wrote:

Guernsey Globetrotter wrote:

HampshireHog wrote:

vlcnc wrote:

I was just looking into this for my partner who currently has Turkish Miles&Smiles Elite status. Am I correct that the RAM work around to change FF number no longer works?

Also I wondered how do you change the FF number on a reward flight which automatically has your BA Club number on it??

Think South Pacific

And rhymes with “squeegee” 😎

Thanks guys, I tried this with a BA reward booking although its on Japan Airlines metal and couldn’t get it to come up – just gives an error 😕

Hi @vicnc
I would suggest you persist as I changed two BA reward flights (on BA metal tbf) last night and the website does come up with errors that sort themselves out with persistence.

[Peggerz]

Thanks @davefl and @Pangolin for your replies.

[Peggerz]

Hi BWS, My wife and I were in Seoul in May this year and had a fantastic time. My daughter lives to the south of the river so we had an airbnb down there this time, as opposed to the Hilton and an IC on our last trip 2 years ago.
The metro is very easy to use and we found that the staff will try to help if you get lost/confused – but all signs and train announcements on board are in English as well as Korean.
A favourite place to visit in the evening is the district of Mullae (use Sindorim station) for great local restaurants, cafes and quirky shops. It really has a feel of having broken away from the more regimented Korean life. The cable car up Namsan Mountain for the views and a pricey beer. The food markets, Myeondong and -new to me – the Cheonggyecheon river up to ‘the library’ are great things to do.
The Westin is near City Hall and the Deoksugung Palace, not far from Gyeongbukgung Palace and the (near) adjacent Hanok Village. Plenty to see and do.
We even made the trip up to the DMZ, saw North Korea (disconcertingly called the Norks by some American visitors) and went down into some of the tunnels dug by the north in the 1950’s.
Essentials are to buy a Metro card, use NAVER and, if visiting homes etc, try to wear slip on shoes as laced shoes were a pain to keep taking on and off!

[Peggerz]

Ihar wrote:

Peggerz wrote:

<I know that the finder of property that is handed into my local Police are entitled to claim 10% of the value of the find.

No, that’s not a thing. That would be a whole load of crimes (theft/blackmail). Just be nice, and hope if you’ve lost our bag/phone that someone just as “loving the world” as you helps to return it.

Unfortunately for you @Ihar this is the case in Scots law (I’m not sure where in the world you are) with the Police being the initial arbiter. I’ve seen it done. Anyway, thanks for your contribution and as you say, just be nice….

[Peggerz]

@Paul I know that the finder of property that is handed into my local Police are entitled to claim 10% of the value of the find. So a bag (value?) jewellery (value?) and cash etc is added together and 10% reward agreed. If it is not agreed (maybe due to the valuation of jewellery etc) then the items are held on to by the Police for independent assessment of worth. Of course not many people claim their find reward, but in your case you may have got off lightly.

[Peggerz]

Thanks @Richie, good call. I now have a couple of places in mind.

[Peggerz]

johnny wrote:

I was about to book a Club Europe redemption BER-LHR but in the time between checking it last night and returning to book it today (mistake, I know) they seem to have pulled all award seats for all evening flights BER-LHR for all future dates that I sampled. Looking at my date in particular, because I snapped the seat map before and after, there are no new seat reservations. What are they up to?! Cash prices on those evening flights have been jacked to 727 EUR one way.

Wow! I’ve foolishly done the same thing. I should have gone straight in for the BER-LHR/LCY flight last night, but there were lots of options and I had to double check something so left it for today. Then….. they’ve all gone for the April dates I was looking for.
I think I’ll leave it to see what re-appears, if it ever does.
Doh!

[Peggerz]

Garethgerry wrote:

James wrote:

Ihar wrote:

I always greet cabin crew on boarding, and often take treats (premium chocolates or similar). If I’m flying econ, we always get free drinks or champagne (I have status also). It would be weird to be served last, but as said Gold will have preference.

It’s much easier just to politely say something. Perhaps they didn’t think you wanted to eat??

So you now need to buy gifts / bribe British Airways for any (not good) service? Seriously it sums up what BA has become recently.

I have never done this (bought gifts)or seen it done, I don’t think it’s very common or necessary.

@Garethgerry I know someone who presently works for a large intercontinental airline. Many people board with gifts for crew and I know that on long haul a little box of chocolates (individually wrapped if possible) is seen as a welcome distraction on the overnight duties. They’ve also been offered cash and gift vouchers, those are kindly refused as that’s seen as a no-no. It’s not expected to get you any particularly special service and certainly no upgrade, but it’s a nice thing to do or receive on a 8+ hour flight. I’m told that it’s mostly those in business class that do this. I don’t do it on every occasion but on my last QR flight I was thanked for a wee gift from the Cabin Service Manager and we had a conversation about how the crew appreciate being thought of by customers. It cost me very little but maybe it personalised the service I got? I don’t know. Maybe I got my first choice meal 😎. But what I do know is that the crew work really hard, work long unsocial hours and, on occasion, a bit of chocolate keeps them going.

[Peggerz]

Aston100 wrote:

Thanks for the info Peggerz, Meta and Pangolin.

I’ve booked an apartment near Sadang – 5 minutes walk to a couple of metro stations on lines 4 and 7 and seemingly 30ish minutes to many attractions.
Hotel rooms were small and pricey. I could not see any advantage in getting a hotel room over the apartment.
As Peggerz says, most apartments I looked at were lacking a room – so the kitchen and dining rooms were usually combined, and sometimes the bed would be in the extended kitchen and dining area. Also, almost every place seems to have a wetroom where you shower next to the sink and toilet rather than having a dedicated shower cubicle.
However, after much searching (literally dozens of apartments) I have fortunately found a place that has a separate living room, kitchen, bedroom and a bathroom with a shower cubicle.

Only issue thus far seems to be the availability of Vegan or vegetarian food since Mrs Aston is on that vibe again. Cross contamination might be an issue from what I can tell.

Hi @Aston100.

It’s good you got your accommodation sorted.

It looks like I’ll also have a vegan travelling with me and found this a good resource.

https://heyroseanne.com/vegan-restaurants-in-seoul/

I hope it helps.

[Peggerz]

Hi @caloomba.
As has been said, July is very hot, humid and can be very wet. There do seem to be regular deals on flights to Seoul, just over £600 with Turkish via IST and (I think) £580’s via HEL with Finnair recently. If it were me I’d save my Avios and look for something like this …… in May or October when the weather is convivial.

[Peggerz]

Thanks for this, I await the next reviews. I’m also new to Radisson and received VIP status. London and mainland Europe hotels particularly of interest.