Memorial Day/Jubliee trip to the US

One of the things I’ve found interesting living in the UK is that there are two bank holidays in May—one at the beginning (roughly corresponding to May Day) and one at the end (usually overlaps with Memorial Day in the US).  For the Early May Bank Holiday, I went to Portugal.  This year, however, the Late May Bank Holiday was moved to the beginning of June so that it occurs the day before the Platinum Jubilee to create a four-day weekend. Unlike a lot of other travel bloggers who took trips to the UK to see the platinum jubilee, I actually went the other way and went to the US. Therefore, I decided to go back to the US to see my friends for the Memorial Day weekend in Austin, Texas.  Back in December of 2021, British Airways brought back its direct service to Austin, which had started in 2019 and then paused during the pandemic.  BA operates this flight with their A350, which meant the flight was guaranteed to have Club Suites.  I made a point to select a date with availability in Club World so that I could travel in style and check out the Club Suite (again).  The flight was booked off as lasting for 10.5 hours, but when we boarded, we were alerted that our time in air would be a noticeably shorter 9.5 hours.  This flight was about a half hour longer than the one I had to Dallas in 2020 (in first class).  Since I’m used to flying to the Northeast (or California), I often forget how long flights to Texas (and Florida) can be because it’s so far south.

Before my flight, I attempted to use British Airways’ partnership with AirPortr to have them collect my bags the night before.  I was able to checkin online, but I wasn’t able to print a boarding pass, so I wasn’t able to use this service, however.  Instead, I took an Uber to Heathrow, which took a full 90 minutes, instead of the usual 65, which was extremely unfortunate.  It turned out that I had been given the dreaded ‘SSSS’ on my boarding pass, which meant I was selected for secondary security screening. I also had to take a call after I got through security.  Combined with the delay in reaching the airport, all this meant that I was barely able to use the Cathay Pacific lounge in Terminal 3, which was extremely unfortunate because it’s an amazing lounge, and I now have access to the First Class side of it.  I have a few more flights coming up from Terminal 3 this summer, so I’ll make it a point to get to the airport early for those upcoming flights to be able to check out the lounge properly.  The other downside was that it meant I wasn’t able to have breakfast before the flight beyond an almond pastry.

I made it to the gate early so that I could do the extra security and then get extra early boarding. When I originally booked my ticket, I took seat 1A, since the entire seat map was empty.  When I checked in, I saw that the back mini-cabin was empty. When I arrived early at the gate, I asked the gate agent if the mini-cabin was still empty, and she moved me to 15K. When she saw the new boarding card, which also had SSSS, she had me go ahead and clear the extra security, which was surprisingly efficient. 

I was the first person on the plane, so I got some nice pictures of the mini-cabin.

As people continued to stream in, I relaxed in my seat and was offered a welcome drink of water, juice, or champagne.  I naturally selected the champagne. 

Once boarding was complete, Alison, the service manager on board came by to welcome me personally, presumably since I had Gold Status.  She was incredibly friendly and even greeted me with, “Dr Grappone”, which was great fun.  We had a nice chat, and when the plane started to move, she left me so that the manual safety demonstration could begin.  I got a private safety demonstration in the mini-cabin, which was also fun.  After the demo, I took the opportunity to peruse the on-board menu. 

Service began around 20 minutes after take-off.  I was brought a pre-lunch gin zing. Since I was in the mini-cabin, I was served last, but it’s not like I was in a hurry.  Although, I wish I had been able to eat more in the Cathay Pacific lounge because I was getting hungry.

For lunch, I opted for the fish pie option.

I’m not generally a big fan of fish pie, but this one was pretty good. It was cooked well and not served scaldingly hot. The pie crust was delicate and not over-bearing, which was good, but it didn’t have as much crunch as I would’ve liked. That comes though from it not being served in a hot pie dish, so it makes sense. It definitely felt distinctly British, which was likely the goal. The pie was served with BA’s standard three-breads roll, along with a tiny salad, tiny cheese course, and pudding. I had selected some white wine to go with it, and a glass of Baileys with the pudding.

After lunch, I set up seat 16K as my napping seat and watched some TV and napped for around two hours, which was great.  The Club Suites are great for sleeping in because they are wide and long and the foot cubby is a decent size, at least for me.  However, the ‘comforter’ that they offer is barely more than a sheet, and I’m never quite sure exactly which way around it’s supposed to go.  Unlike the last time that I had a cabin to myself, there was no turndown service. 

After my nap, I had a glass of the rosé champagne, which was served with a choice of snack from the basket.  The snacks in the basket consisted of things like fruit & nuts, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, or granola bars.  The mid-flight food was relatively minimal.

I bought some timed WiFi after my nap, worked on my laptop a bit, and watched some TV.  I left seat 16K in bed form in case I wanted to return for another nap later in the flight, since at this point the flight was only about half over.  Because of the very northerly routing for a flight like this, that meant that we were just entering Canadian airspace. The WiFi was pretty good, but every once in a while dropped out.

Around 2 hours before landing, the second meal service began.  I had previously asked Andrew about inter-meal food options, so he knew I was hungry at this point.  Given how empty Club World was, and my inability to decide between the food options, I went out on a limb and asked what the chances were that I could have both.  The answer, “I don’t see why not, but I’ll double check”.  He came back a few minutes later with a tray with the gnocchi option and informed me that once everyone else had been served if there were any of the polenta option left, he’d bring it straight away.  And he did, which was awesome.  So, I can review both meal options!  I only got one set of the side dishes, which can be seen already on the tray on galley carts. 

The side dishes were pretty standard.  I got another of the bread rolls, and a cold cauliflower starter, which I would’ve preferred to have a more different flavor palette from the main dish it was served with. The panna cotta dessert was also fun.

The gnocchi dish was flavorful, and the chicken was very juicy and cooked properly, which was great.  The gnocchi were also flavorful, as was their pasta sauce.  The dish was very oily, however, but I’ve often found that to be the case on BA flights.

The polenta dish was extremely similar to the gnocchi dish, which makes sense because it was intended to be a vegetarian option and you’re not expected to eat both.  The polenta and goats cheese were excellent, as were the roast vegetables.  The red sauce with it is not what I would’ve done with that dish, but it worked surprisingly well. 

After the second meal, I decided to take a second, short nap back in 16K.  I woke up in time for us to prepare for landing.  While I was happy to be arriving at my destination, I wouldn’t have minded a slightly longer flight in such luxury, haha.

After landing, we were stuck briefly on the apron before we could deplane.  Deplaning was not particularly efficient, but the plane was empty enough that it wasn’t a problem.  We landed shortly before the Virgin Atlantic flight, which was right behind us.  The passengers on that plane had to wait until we had cleared the customs area before deplaning because Austin only has a single customs area that combines both passport control and baggage collection.  Normally, this would be fine but it took a full 40 minutes before the bags started arriving.  My two red bags were two of the first bags off, which makes sense since they had priority stickers on them. However, my tennis bag was nowhere to be found.  After waiting for every bag to arrive, it was clear mine hadn’t arrived.  The Austin Airport people in the baggage claim area were no help, so I had to clear customs with 2 of the 3 bags and make my way up to departures to talk to a BA employee.  It took a solid 10 minutes of standing in the Priority line to talk to a person, and she simply had me fill out a paper form, which did not fill me with confidence.  However, BA texted me that they found my bag and that it would arrive on the next flight (which was the next day).  The communication from BA was not amazing after that point, but I did eventually get my bag a few days later.  The reason was mostly the fault of Austin airport, rather than BA. When all was said and done, BA reimbursed me $80 for my expenses and gave me a £50 e-voucher for a future flight, which was great.

In summary, my second Club Suite experience on British Airways was excellent, once I got in the air.  The ground experience was poor at check in, but that wasn’t BA’s fault; it was the SSSS’s fault.  Better communication from BA about it would’ve been helpful.  Normally I’d remove this criterion, but since they lost my bag and their communication about the bag was relatively poor, I’m going to keep this criterion (1/5). They did eventually remedy the situation satisfactorily, however.  The Club Suite is an amazing business class seat, and having the mini-cabin to myself was absolutely amazing (5/5).  The fish pie for lunch was average, but the polenta and gnocchi were great.  It was great that I was able to try both meals (4/5).  The service was amazing as well.  Alison, Andrew, and everyone were great to have around (5/5).  The in-flight entertainment was not as great as what you find on American or United, but everything worked fine (4/5). The flight itself was amazing, but the poor ground experience is hard to ignore (19/25).

I paid around $700 for half a roundtrip World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy ticket) on my Amex Platinum card (5x points/$), which earned me 3 687 Amex points.  I then used 25 000 Avios to upgrade from World Traveller Plus to Club World.  I credited the trip to British Airways, which earned me 90 tier points and 9 822 Avios.  The total points earned are worth around $183, for a return of around 25%, which is very impressive. It also represents that I regained around 50% of the points I used to upgrade.