TAP Air Portugal Porto to London

For the ‘Early May Bank Holiday’, I took a short trip to Porto for the Bachelor Party of a friend of mine.  I booked flights from London to Porto on TAP Air Portugal. I had a few choices of carrier from London, including Ryanair (which my friends flew) from Stansted, British Airways from Heathrow, and easyJet and TAP Air Portugal from Gatwick.  Gatwick is the closest airport for me, and I’d never flown TAP Air Portugal before, so that made it an easy choice for me. 

On the outbound leg, my flight left late in the evening, and I had been working all day.  I checked what lounge would be available in Gatwick, and it didn’t interest me, so I instead timed my landside journey so that I arrived, went through security, and then immediately scanned my ticket and boarded.  The TAP gate at Gatwick was one of those pre-check gates, where your ticket is scanned and then you sit in a waiting area.  I don’t particularly like these types of gates, but given how long it was taking the gate agents to check in everyone, I understood why it was necessary.  I saw several people get turned away because their documents weren’t in order. The outbound flight in economy was exactly what one would expect for a simple intra-Europe economy flight, and so I’ll skip straight to the return flight.

On the way back, however, the flight was operated from a standard non-Schengen gate at Porto, and the only document check required was my passport.  I arrived at the airport about 90 minutes before my flight. The signage in the check in hall was relatively poor.  It took me a short while to find the departures screen and the check in desk.  The TAP economy line was very full, but the Premium line only had two people in front of me.  However, shortly after I joined the line, a bunch of TAP crew showed up.  After the two people in front of me were helped, all 7 of them were helped.  There was 0 acknowledgment of me by any of the crew members or check in assistant.  Then when she finally got to me, there was 0 apology or even acknowledgment of the fact that I could’ve been helped quicker in the economy line.  I was pretty unimpressed. 

Then when I got to the priority security line, I was behind the same crew members from before.  In theory, crew members should know what you can take on a plane, but one of them was stopped and they had to take a juice pouch out of her carry-on.  I was again unimpressed.

Once through security, I made my way to the ANA lounge.  The lounge is tucked away on an upper level, but the signage to find it is pretty good though.  I don’t really know where the name comes from, but it has nothing to do with the Japanese airline.  It was the only lounge in the airport, and I had access to it through a) my Star Alliance Gold Status, b) an Executive class ticket, and c) my Priority Pass.  I scanned my ticket was admitted immediately.  The lounge was relatively small, but that made since for the size of the airport.  The design was pretty bland, but I liked the balcony and that it wasn’t too busy.

The food, however, was definitely sub-par.  The sandwiches were a bit sad, and the ‘hot food’ was served room temperature.  Room temperature croquettes and fish cakes are not great.  Since the lounge was far from inspiring, which I did know going in, I decided to head to the plane when my boarding card said boarding would begin.

I stopped by a duty-free shop in the non-Schengen area like in Poland and bought some final Portuguese goodies, including cheese and a small Port wine taster selection.  The shop was definitely smaller than the Polish one, which made sense. 

There was only one non-schengen flight leaving at the time, and the gate already had a large line that wasn’t moving.  I was actually pretty impressed with the size of the line, considering I was flying an Embraer aircraft.  The TAP Express E195 aircraft does seat up to 118 people, so the line was a bit more understandable that at first glance.

Since I was flying business class and have Star Alliance Gold Status, thanks to my United MileagePlus Premier Gold status, I had priority boarding.  Given the long line and uncomfortable seating, I actually decided to board first, which is unusual for me recently.  It also gave me first dibs at overhead locker space, which wasn’t something I had considered as being necessary in business class until my recent flight from Berlin to Warsaw.

The bulkhead legroom was great for a flight within Europe but had the same problem all bulkheads do, where you can’t fully stretch out.  I’m not very tall, so it wasn’t an issue for me.

As was to be expected, the business class seats on this plane were identical to the economy seats.  Generally, the only rule with European business class is that the middle seat is empty, but this aircraft type has no middle seats.  From the online seat map I saw at check in, I don’t think TAP blocks one of the two seats, which is also what Finnair does but is not what Swiss does.  Nonetheless, getting an empty seat beside me was a welcome bonus. 

Once we were in the air, meal service began at a leisurely pace.  Given that our flight was booked off at 2:15 and that breakfast is a generally a relatively simple meal on an airplane, there was no real need to rush it anyway.  And given that Porto is a leisure destination and it was a long weekend (in the UK), it’s unlikely anyone on the plane to London was furiously working on urgent business until late Sunday evening and needed a prompt breakfast service.  That also explains why only three business class seats were taken.

Breakfast was continental style, which is exactly what one would expect.  There are plenty of airlines that try to be overly fancy with their food options, but a simple meal of cold cuts and bread is perfectly fine for a relatively short morning flight.  The fruit was ripe and refreshing, the cold cuts were exactly what one would expect: ham, egg, and cheese.  The warm bread rolls were also excellent; I really liked the Portuguese-style croissant (which I had had several of during the weekend).  For anyone who isn’t familiar with these croissants, they are far less flakey than the French ones, and you can really sink your teeth into them.

Shortly after breakfast finished, they began to prepare the cabin for arrival, which I have now started getting to used to again.  I think I got spoiled by empty planes and long-haul flights that had relatively minor preparation times for landings in comparison to the rest of the flight.

In summary, my first business class experience on TAP was positive, once I got in the air. However, the overall experience was relatively poor.  The ground experience checking in was poor, and the ANA lounge was also pretty poor (1/5).  The empty aisle seat was good, but based on what I saw on the seat map, it wasn’t actually blocked (3/5).  The breakfast was simple but pretty good, especially with the warm bread rolls (4/5).  The service was professional, but very slow (3/5).  The in-flight entertainment was non-existent (0/5).  The flight itself was decent overall, but the poor ground experience and substantial inefficiencies really detracted from the ‘Premium’ experience (11/25).

I paid around $225 for the Executive Class ticket on my Amex Platinum card (5x points/$), which earned me 1 125 Amex points.  I credited the ticket to United and earned miles based on distance flown, so I earned 998 United miles.  This is a good example of when a revenue-based system like United is actually preferable (I would’ve earned around 1 700 United miles if this had been a United ticket).  The total points are worth around $27, for a return of around 12%, most of which is from the Amex Platinum card.

As an additional points note, for the outbound economy class flight, I paid around $150.  Because it was a discounted economy class ticket, I only earned 398 United miles (and 750 Amex points), which gave me a return of around 10%, most of which was also from the Platinum card.  I think this trip shows why the value of a good rewards credit card with a solid return, like the Amex Platinum Card, shouldn’t be underestimated.