Heathrow Terminal 3: Qantas lounge and flight to Billund

After finishing at the Cathay Pacific lounge, I decided to check out the Qantas lounge. The Qantas lounge is right next door to the Cathay Pacific lounge, so I didn’t have to go far.    I’ve previously read that the Qantas lounge is on par with or better than the Cathay Pacific lounge, but I was pretty underwhelmed. I think the reason is that they have a sit down dining area that’s open to both business and first class passengers. So, if the comparison is Cathay’s business lounge vs Qantas’ business lounge, I can understand that giving points in favor of Qantas.

However, the lounge’s sit-down dining area wouldn’t open until 6, which put it a bit too close to when I would need to head to the gate for my flight.  Instead, I headed upstairs to the main lounge area, which consisted of a gin bar and a buffet.  I skipped the bar in favor of the buffet because the only thing I’d be doing upon arrival was going to bed. 

The buffet was a bit more basic than I was expecting given the size of the lounge, which is why  I think the major draw of this lounge, aside from the comfortable chairs, is that the sit-down dining is open not only to first class/emerald passengers but also business class/sapphire passengers. This also makes the lounge’s dining set up better than the Polaris dining setup, at least in theory.

I don’t actually know much/anything about Australian food, despite living with an Australian. The main dish was a vegetarian bean curry, which was served with some pretty good bread and rice, as well as soup and salad.

I was underwhelmed, so I also got a small salad and piece of cake. The lounge wasn’t very empty, so they were overly proactive about clearing the dishes.

I didn’t need to spend too much time in the lounge anyway, and between the two small meals in the lounges, I had enough food. I think I largely missed the point of this lounge, however, because I skipped the gin bar and the sit down dining.

After an enjoyable visit to the lounges, I saw that my flight to Billund had started boarding. However, when I got there, it turned out to be one of those holding pen gates, and so even after ‘boarding’, I still had to sit there for nearly a half hour before we actually got on.

I booked a standard Euro Traveller (economy) ticket for this flight. The website said I could upgrade to Club Europe (business) for £90, but with a flight time of only 1:45, that broke my rule of ~$50/hour for an upgrade.
I was able to select an exit row for free because of my Gold Status with BA, which, as always, had good legroom.

The flight wasn’t too full, so I had the row to myself, which was excellent. The plane had power sockets, which is the new standard equipment for BA’s A320s. However, there was no WiFi like on many/most BA aircraft.

Since the flight was further delayed once we got on, there was time for the purser to come by and personally greet me to the plane. In theory, this should happen on every BA flight, but this is the first time I’ve had it happen on a short haul flight (in any class).

The service on this flight consisted of what seems to be BA’s now standard service of a bag of crisps and a small water bottle.

In summary, this short Euro Traveller flight was unremarkable, but being able to check out the lounges again was a lot of fun.  The lounge experience in Terminal 3 is always excellent, even without the First Wing that Terminal 5 has.  The poor communication about the delay, however, was annoying (4/5).  The exit row seats are the best narrow-body Euro Traveller seats available on British Airways, and having a row to myself is as good as it gets (5/5).  A simple service of a bag of crisps and water was provided, which is standard for this type of flight (3/5), and the crew was efficient and friendly (4/5).  The lack of WiFi was a bummer, but that should only continue to be improved (1/5).  Overall, this flight was simple and direct, which was exactly what I needed it to be (17/25). 

In terms of points, this flight is a good example of why, sometimes, award miles based on the ticket price sometimes can work in your favor.  The flight cost $111 and earned me 750 BA Avios (and 10 tier points).  If this had been a United flight, I would’ve earned around 800 United miles.  I paid for this flight using a travel voucher that had originally been paid for on my UK BA Amex card, so I earned an additional 85 Avios.  If I’d paid for the flight on my Platinum card (which I didn’t yet have at the time), I would’ve earned 553 Amex points.  The total Avios I earned are worth around $10.86 for a 9.8% return, which is typical for a short-haul BA flight.