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We stayed at the Shangri-La a few weeks ago. Top notch, would stay again. Booked through Amex so upgrade, breakfast and room credit. Highly recommend. We didn’t have kids but seemed to be perfect for little ones.

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BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

VMAW wrote:

The worst of it is that Canadian, American, NZ etc etc can all use the biometric gates to get through, but can we fellow Europeans since Brexit? That’s a big fat ridiculous NO.
Can someone help me escalate? Who should I write to about this. It is far more than an inconvenience.

It’s called taking back control and didn’t just apply to the UK! It applies to the EU as well and guess what they decided not to allow UK passport holders to use the e-gates.

The EU can put in whatever arrangements it likes when it comes to 3rd countries and immigration.

It’s just pig-headed EU beauracracy. EU citizens can use e-gates in the UK. I can use e-gates in Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. I even used e-gates in Portugal! It’s as if they just want to be petty and difficult. No reason why UK citizens shouldn’t be able to use them. Re Frankfurt, one experience, never again hopefully.

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GaryE wrote:

Is it possible to find out from BA what meals they will be serving on their long haul flights, specifically LGW-UVF next week in WT and WT+. I thought I read somewhere that you could see the meals for the next two weeks – but I might have dreamt that !

Flyertalk might have that info.

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Too late? We organised our NZ trip, we’ve just returned from, using the Multi partner award chart in August and made adjustments after that. See my separate post.

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Your experience of the agents is something most of us can relate to. The difference in how helpful agents can be is vast. I ‘accidentally’ disconnect if I find an unhelpful one. Well done and good luck in getting J on the return.

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Kraut wrote:

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

Russia is a huge country. Leaving aside politics, St Peterburg to Donetsk is about the same as Edinburgh to Malaga. So quite a bit from trouble.

Quite a silly comment, you might not catch a stray Ukrainian shell but the FSB is very much still around

And that’s before even the basic moral consideration of supporting an economy geared up for killing Ukrainian women and children on a daily basis

Completely agree. Supporting a murdering, fascist dictatorship who have killed 10000s of innocent Ukrainians and threaten the rest of Europe wouldn’t be top of my travel plans.

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Colin MacKinnon wrote:

Hi, anyone have any recommendations for very nice hotels in St, Petersburg, Russia (not Florida!).

As a side note, I see that Radisson hotels are still accessable and bookable from this side!

I can’t understand anyone going to Russia in the current climate??

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@Lady London My wife finds it more onerous than I. Once I get comfortable in the club suite with a nice glass of fizz, a good movie, food brought you and on demand naps, I’m happy. It’s a bit like a 5 star care home in the air! There is no way we’d do it other than in J.

@qc and @masaccio. Total length 27 days.

@Jill Kinkell the only ‘issues’ about the Oasis is that there’s no bar or restaurant and breakfast is a bit basic. We don’t usually eat much for breakfast anyway. I hope you enjoy it too. Can’t help re Queenstown Hotels as we booked a VRBO.

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Thanks. I thought it unlikely!

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Gillian S wrote:

Thanks, everyone.

In relation to the IB option. I’ve registered for an IB account but I don’t think I’m able to use my BA CV there, am I?

I still can’t see any Nashville availability. I’ll keep looking. Still nothing for Bangkok but I guess, if it’s a very busy route, I’ll just have to be on it the day they come available. Is it getting harder, though, in recent years? I’m almost tempted to can my BA Amex and move solely to Marriott (I have both and optimise use between them) as the BA Airmiles + CV options seems really challenging to take advantage of in Business Class nowadays.

How are you looking? I can see business class availability to Nashville in almost every month this year, many months it’s most days. Nov/Dec/Jan – just about every day. October 4 days, September 2 days, August most days, July about 30% etc etc. This is without extra CV availability. All I did was use Reward flight Finder on BA.com.

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Hbommie wrote:

Whatsthepoint wrote:

Just back from month long London-Doha-Singapore-Fiji-Auckland-Queenstown then Christchurch-Wellington-Sydney-London via Singapore.

330000 Avios and £2500 in fees for 2 for London-Singapore-Fiji and Wellington-Sydney-London via Singapore. All J except Doha to Singapore in Y due to BA cock up, hence reduced Avios due to 150k Avios compensation. Cash fares for similar itinerary at least £4.5k each.

All other flights Air NZ in PE (Fiji to Auckland) or Y for internal flights.

Fiji was nice, good diving. NZ was great despite being cut off by flooding and landslides in Whitianga. Queenstown was lovely, Tranzalpine train well worth it, so was Hobbiton. Missed out on a lot in North Island, so second visit needed. All BA flights were excellent and had most sleep ever on a plane in CS from Singapore.

I’d be grateful if you expanded a bit on your travels in the Destination forum.

No problem, give me a day or two.

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Just back from month long London-Doha-Singapore-Fiji-Auckland-Queenstown then Christchurch-Wellington-Sydney-London via Singapore.

330000 Avios and £2500 in fees for 2 for London-Singapore-Fiji and Wellington-Sydney-London via Singapore. All J except Doha to Singapore in Y due to BA cock up, hence reduced Avios due to 150k Avios compensation. Cash fares for similar itinerary at least £4.5k each.

All other flights Air NZ in PE (Fiji to Auckland) or Y for internal flights.

Fiji was nice, good diving. NZ was great despite being cut off by flooding and landslides in Whitianga. Queenstown was lovely, Tranzalpine train well worth it, so was Hobbiton. Missed out on a lot in North Island, so second visit needed. All BA flights were excellent and had most sleep ever on a plane in CS from Singapore.

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Some great advice above. We do MCO every year, we now live in North Yorkshire. The last two times have been redemptions from MAN with Aer Lingus and Virgin. Both these options are now largely dead for different reasons, AL giving up on MAN and Virgin having crazy redemption values. Shame! Going to LGW, we simply go by train to KX, walk over to Thameslink at St Pancras and get the train to LGW. We then stay in the Hilton the night before. At MCO, it’s easy with Avis Preferred at terminal C, just walk to the parking lot, find our allocated car and we’re off. Our record is 12 minutes with HBO. On the freeway with our own Sunpass for the tolls in minutes. It’s easy to buy one. Good luck, I hope it all works out.

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2025 highlight was Sri Lanka, a fabulous tour with own driver, Maldives was pretty good too. All on Avios. Portugal twice was good, Madeira and Douro Valley. Had never been to Portugal before but we’ll go back. Both had significant issues though.

Lowlights. A crappy Riviera cruise up the Douro. Terrible food, laughable organisation. Also stuck in Madeira for 2 days due to airport weather closure.

Nothing too bad though, so can’t complain.

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I agree with the recommendation of the zoo, it’s quite hilly though in case that’s important. As for the 2 hotels by the dunes. We looked at those but were put off by some first hand feedback indicating that they were a bit past their best. We ended up staying in a nice ‘lava rock’ villa. We echo NorthernLass’s summary of Corralejo, we weren’t impressed either. El Cotillo looked nice when we visited.

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Facebook is full of people saying they’ve got 50k Avios and a CV from the free card asking how do they get their family of 4 to Orlando or Male or Tokyo in peak times. Also it’d be nice to go PE or business class. Or similar combinations. I try to help but they get cross when the reality is pointed out to them and it is suggested they should have done some research and planning first.

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Another great flight with BA from LHR to DOH. In the old CW but you do get loads of room in the window seats. IFE probably lets it down the most, in comparison, although it was ok. Food was yummy, service by Gabriella was excellent, mentioned in dispatches. Flight was early too, despite taking off late. Economy in Qatar from DOH was fine but was a useful reminder of why we don’t do long haul economy if we can avoid it.

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I wondered that too and asked. No, was the answer, due to the difficulty of decoupling that one flight from the whole itinerary. They lost me at that point. We’ve got extra leg room economy for now. We’ll keep an eye out for upgrade opportunities. We’ve been given 150k Avios as compensation. A big lesson learned for us. It’s clear now that partner reward chart can no longer be easily used for round the world itineraries due to the 72hr stopover restriction being enforced now.

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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.

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I’ve only been to the Virgin Clubhouse once, 3 years ago. I thought it was a nice area, but food was no better than BA T5B lounge, service was much, much better though. The 1903 lounge in MAN is small but not bad at all, really nice staff too. I choose the best value/most convenient airports, the lounge is pretty low down on priorities. If Aer Lingus continue at MAN, business class redemptions are about as common as Donald Trump talking sense. Virgin are great but redemptions horrendously expensive, most of the time, a few bargains sometimes.

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In the same vein as Strickers, we used a chap called Chandima. We booked him through Tour radar but he can be hired directly. He was excellent, I don’t have any hesitation in recommending him. He can book hotels or you can. His number is +94766995060. He used his own Toyota Prius for us but I am sure he said he can access other vehicles. I hope that helps.

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Also had the Christmas Dinner to Funchal last Thursday. It was decent. Wasn’t keen on the quinoa salad or the weird offspring of a trifle and mince pie that was the dessert. Great service too.

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I do think it odd that there are people on this forum who clearly hate BA, never have a good experience yet still keep flying with them? The OPs experience is an outlier in my experience. I’ve just had a great CE flight to Madeira, for example. Saying that, my wife did experience something very similar to the OP a couple of years ago. I was on the opposite aisle and had great service, BA can be inconsistent. We complained and got an apology and some Avios. The OPs experience is not acceptable in ANY cabin.

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I don’t quite agree with this ‘if you’d have paid £x for the tickets’. If the money saved allows you to afford to go, when you wouldn’t go or have to choose a worse option then the ‘value’ has a different meaning. If it’s cheaper than cash and feels like a good deal to you then it’s a good deal.

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Very unlikely, but not impossible. No harm in asking. It’s much more likely that you would get an ‘offer’ on ‘manage my booking’ a few days before, but still Unlikely on such a popular route.