Tag Archives: British Airways

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British Airways Business Class Meal Review (LHR-LAS)

A week before my British Airways long-haul flight in business class, I asked TWG readers to choose my meal for me. The Braised British Beef was the clear winner, getting 53% of the votes! So that’s what I pre-ordered. Before I tell you about that meal though, I had a three hour British Airways flight (LIS-LHR) in business class that provided a lunch which I could not pre-order. Based on what I had heard from lots of different sources, I had very low expectations of British Airways. Both their planes and their food got absolutely no love, at all.

This short British Airways flight was actually a great experience. Nothing special about the plane itself, but it was the crew and meal that made the difference. The crew and service were great. They were fun to talk with and full of good cheer. They did mention that British Airways had a new catering service and menu, and that they hoped we’d notice and be pleased. It did feel like perhaps I was the only one in business class who wasn’t a British Airways regular, so that leaves me with nothing to compare this meal and service to except what I had previously heard from others.

The starter of prawns and seaweed salad was well prepared. Great combo of textures and taste. Since I knew I’d be eating beef on my next flight, I went with chicken for my main course. Big portions, way too much for me, and the chicken cooked just right. I didn’t have dessert or bread. No complaints at all on this meal, and as I mentioned, an all-around great British Airways inflight experience.

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Help Me Choose my Meal on British Airways Business Class

Updated 1/3 4:30pm PT: Based on popular demand, I selected Braised British Beef as my meal choice. Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll.


Have you ever had the opportunity to pre-order your meal while traveling business class? On a few flights I took last year, I really loved the eating on demand option. Now on an upcoming British Airways flight, I’ve got the option to pre-order my meal. I’ve never flown British Airways before, so why not let you all help me choose! I’m guessing at least a few of you have flown British Airways before :)

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Please select your top choice. I’ll order whichever option gets the most votes. Thanks for your vote!

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Most of my 2017 Travel Predictions Were Wrong (Who Could Have Predicted That?)

Good morning everyone, happy almost New Years Eve.  Earlier this month, Doctor of Credit wrote how bad travel bloggers are at making predictions (I came in last at 33% correct), but he only reviewed our credit card predictions.  I made a lot of other predictions in January 2017, so let’s see how good or bad my predictions were.  I covered airlines, hotels, credit cards, and MS.  I will put my thoughts in bold at the end of each prediction.

Airlines

  • Southwest seems bent on making the Companion Pass very difficult to get unless you fly Southwest every week.  I believe credit card signup bonuses will no longer count toward the Companion Pass and Southwest might kill the whole concept of the Companion Pass entirely or switch to a certificate program similar to the Alaska Airlines companion fare or Virgin America companion ticket.  Southwest Airlines did eliminate hotel transfers counting toward the Companion Pass, but credit card spend and sign up bonuses still count toward the Companion Pass.  I am also the proud companion on my girlfriend’s Companion Pass.
  • Other airline credit cards will adopt the Alaska Airlines companion fare (you pay full price and your companion pays up to $120) or the Virgin America companion ticket (you pay full price and your companion pays full price minus $150).  No, I don’t think any other airline added a companion fare as a credit card benefit.
  • American will introduce a basic economy fare class to compete/copy Delta and United.  Yes, I got this one right!
  • Alaska Airlines will introduce a new level of elite status (maybe MVP Gold 100K?)  No, Alaska Airlines MVP Gold 75K is still the highest elite level.
  • More airlines will get away from the 12,500 one way domestic ticket and start to introduce 5,000, 7,500, and 10,000 mile awards.  Yes, I think Alaska Airlines announced cheaper awards on shorter flights.
  • British Airways will kill the 4,500 Avios award band globally and possibly remove one of their lower award tiers.  No, 4,500 British Airways Avios tier is still available outside the US.
  • Singapore Airlines will allow us to book Star Alliance awards online, rather than calling in.  Partially true, but not rolled out completely.
  • Hawaiian Airlines will get bought by a low cost airline, Southwest Airlines or JetBlue.  No, no one bought Hawaiian Airlines.
  • We will see 1 or 2 more mileage matching promos, this time from a big legacy airline.  No, no mileage matching promo like the JetBlue / Virgin America match last year.
  • My ~20,000 Spirit Airlines miles will expire and I won’t care.  Sort of, my Spirit Airlines miles did expire, but I still shed 1 tear.

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Planes, Trains, and More Planes, 2017 Edition: Asia for the Holidays

Buenos dias everyone,

Like last year, I just left Mexico City for a long international trip over the holidays – this time to Asia instead of Europe. This time the trip wasn’t built around a mistake fare, but rather a desire to visit the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Chengdu Panda Base, both in western China.

I started planning the trip in mid-September, and found that Asiana Airlines had pretty good business class availability across the Pacific for the dates we were looking at. I tacked on United economy flights between Mexico City and LAX (though this resulted in an overnight layover in each direction, since United only has one flight per day between those two cities), and added a domestic Air China economy flight from Shanghai to Chengdu after a one-week stopover.

A world map centered over the Pacific Ocean showing the following flight routing in red: MEX-LAX-ICN-PVG, SHA-CTU

Map generated by gcmap.com

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View Legroom on Google Flights by Adding Legrooms Extension

Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  I was in freezing Chicago over the weekend for the FTU Travel Expo / Signature travel conference.  I arrived late Saturday afternoon because I took a $500 bump from United Airlines, stayed the night at an SFO airport hotel and got on a Saturday morning flight to Chicago.  When I finally arrived, I picked up a few travel tips from the sessions and one on one conversations.  I will try to cover some of the public travel tips I learned this week.  Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.

Question… wouldn’t it be cool if you could see legroom for different flights on different airlines in Google Flights?  Yes, it is possible.  All you need to do is install the Legrooms extension to your Google Chrome browser.  I will walk you through all the steps the 1 step.  Also, while researching this post, I realized this was covered months ago by several travel blogs, but somehow I missed all those blog posts, so maybe this helps a few people like me.  Here is the basic Google Flights view:

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