Easter trip to Berlin (part 4: WAW-LHR)

After going the exact opposite direction of London from Berlin to Warsaw, I was ready to go to London. Once inside Warsaw airport, I made my way toward the non-Schengen border control. I stopped by the duty-free store and then had an extremely friendly and efficient border guard who gave me my first Poland stamp!  I entered Schengen in Zürich and then exited from Warsaw, so despite my trip being to Germany, I didn’t get any Germany stamps in my passport, haha. 

After exiting Schengen, I stopped at a duty free shop and then proceeded to take some pictures of some of the LOT aircraft, including one of their 787s, which was gorgeous as always. Poland doesn’t use the euro, and so when I went shopping, I had no idea how much things cost because it hadn’t occurred to me to look up the exchange rate ahead of time. Everything was actually pretty cheap.

I made my way to the LOT ‘Mazurek’ lounge, which is their non-Schengen lounge.  The other non-Schengen lounge is called Bolero, which can be entered using a Priority Pass.  I had thought about checking out both, just because I could, haha.

I started my time in the lounge with a beer and a gin & tonic, which were self-serve.

There was a great selection of food on offer.  They had (bone-in) chicken, barley, roasted vegetables, fish, gnocchi, and mashed potatoes.  They also had cold cuts and a beautiful cake dessert.

I tried out a few different hot food options, including the roast vegetables, barley, fish, and gnocchi.  The cheesy gnocchi were delicious and appropriately cheesy.  The roast vegetables were a good temperature and properly cooked (without being too charcoal tasting). I also tried out the barley and the fish.  These aren’t my favorites, but they were properly cooked as well, and I enjoyed them.

Even though the lounge was pretty small, I really liked the food selection in the LOT lounge, so I stayed there and watched the ground support go by out the big windows.  Then I went for seconds on the food!  I got more gnocchi and roast vegetables.  The parsnip was especially good.  I also tried out one of the small cakes, but that one wasn’t really the best.  It was pretty dry.

After finishing my seconds, I made my way to the plane.  I arrived towards the end of the boarding process to minimize the amount of time I was on the plane, as I often do. 

I’d never been on a 737 MAX aircraft before, so I made sure to get a nice picture of it before I got on the plane.  I love the doubled winglets.

I knew going in to expect a standard European-style business class: an economy seat with a blocked middle seat.  However! There’s something that’s special about LOT’s business class seats on this aircraft: the first several rows have extra legroom.  The seats with extra legroom that don’t get sold as business class are instead sold as ‘premium economy’, which is pretty good for Europe.

The seat itself is a really nice blue color, and the red cover gives a nice color splash in the cabin. The seats were actually pretty comfortable despite being hard plastic.

The seats had in-flight power, including both a USB port and a power port.  I can’t remember the last time that I had a power plug on an intra-European flight.  The seats have tray tables that fold in half.  Once on the plane, I was offered a welcome drink, and I just picked a cup of water.

Since this flight was between Poland and the UK, no masks (or tests) were required on the flight.

I noticed that the aircraft had WiFi on board, so I decided to check it out once we got in the air.  I was surprised and delighted to find that they offered streaming entertainment on the flight.  While common in the US and on UK trains, this was the first time I’d seen it offered on an intra-European flight.

Shortly after takeoff, the meal service began.  My understanding is that the Warsaw to London flight is a flagship flight, meaning it’s one of LOT’s longer (and more prestigious?) flights within Europe and has elevated service.  First, the flight attendant came around with a tray table cloth, which I thought was an excellent touch. 

I was given the choice of salmon or chicken, and I selected the salmon.  The entire meal was served on a single tray, with the plastic removed. 

The tiny menu is one of the cutest things I’ve seen given out with a meal on a plane, haha.

The meal consisted of three courses: a cold salmon appetizer, the main course, and some chocolate cake with a berry compote.  The cold appetizer was very refreshing and a great start to the meal.  The salmon was cooked well, and the rice wasn’t too dry, given it was on a plane.  The asparagus was also a nice touch.  The chocolate cake was very rich and well-made.  I’m not big into that type of cake, but if you are, it was great.

I had a glass of white wine to go with it. It was served with a gorgeous little glass.

After finishing the meal, the flight was halfway over.  I spent the rest of the time on my laptop before it was time to begin our descent.  Upon arrival in Heathrow, I was greeted by a typical overly busy passport line in Terminal 2.  Maybe one day Heathrow will staff its airport properly, but that doesn’t seem like it’s happening any time soon.

In summary, this flight from Warsaw to London was everything I’d hoped it’d be.  The non-Schengen LOT lounge was small, considering it was also used for intercontinental flights, but the food was excellent (4/5).  The business class seat on the 737MAX8 was the same as the economy seat but did have a few extra inches of legroom, which is uncommon for intra-European business class flights (4/5).  The food was excellent, and it was great to be served a hot meal for an early dinner (5/5).  The service on the flight was also excellent (5/5).  The in-flight entertainment was great for an intra-Europe flight (4/5).  I greatly enjoyed this business class flight, which I would argue is the best intra-European business class flight I’ve ever had that wasn’t operated by a wide-body aircraft (22/25).

From a points perspective, I used 53,000 United miles and spent $156 in total for the entire set of 4 flights.  The comparison flight is a return trip in Lufthansa in economy, which would’ve cost £450 ($585). I’d value 53,000 miles as being worth around $583.  In effect, I paid $78 each way for an upgrade to business class, which isn’t a bad deal for 4 flights.  The biggest advantage of using the miles in this situation for me, however, was to avoid the $585 sticker shock.  I paid for the taxes and fees with my Amex Platinum card, which earned me 780 Amex points.  Unfortunately, award tickets don’t earn any other type of points on United.