London to Toulouse two different ways

Following trip to Bucharest, my best friend Valerie arrived from the US.  She and I planned a short trip to southern France as part of her visit.  We went to Toulouse (for the Airbus factory) and Carcassonne (to see the walls). The best flights we found were on BA to Toulouse and Ryanair back from Carcassonne.  The fun part of flying BA to Toulouse was that I got to take Valerie to the Heathrow Terminal 3 lounges!

When booking this flight, we decided to book one ticket in Club Europe and one in Euro Traveller.  Since Valerie isn’t trying to get any Oneworld status, there was no need to book her in Club Europe, whereas the $60 upgrade to Club Europe to get 30 extra tier points was worth it for me.  What I didn’t consider about this is that it meant Valerie wouldn’t be able to use priority security since we were on different reservations.  That was a bummer. 

Once we were both through security though, the lounge game began.  We tried to check out the Amex Centurion Lounge, but it was in the wrong part of the Terminal, and it wasn’t worth walking to it. 

We then tried to check out the Qantas dining room, but that was completely full.

So we ended up at the ever-reliable Cathay Pacific First Lounge.  This was Valerie’s first visit to a Cathay Pacific lounge, so I was excited to share it with her.  We headed immediately for the first class dining room, which shares a kitchen with the business class lounge.  I’m pretty sure the menu was basically the same as in business class, except that the food was brought by a waiter, instead of from the counter.  We also poured ourselves some champagne from the self-service area, like I do every time I visit the lounge, haha. 

The flight was delayed a bit, so we just stayed and hung out in the lounge. A delayed flight in July 2022 from Heathrow was very much expected.

After our time in the lounge, we made our way to the gate, which was noticeably farther away than my flight to Bucharest had been.  That being said, we arrived just before boarding began.  Normally, we both choose to board later in the process, but this time, we boarded with Group 1 in case there were any problems with us swapping seats. There were not.

Since the flight was short, I gave Valerie the Club Europe seat (1A), and I took the normal seat (which was an exit row seat). Our flight was operated by an A320 with the tail number G-EUUC, which is the same aircraft that I flew from Manchester to London to Stockholm in 2020. I even had the same seat assignment the Manchester to London leg, haha. It was pretty fun having the exact same plane and exact same seat.

The catering in Euro Traveller was basically the same as in 2020: crisps. Club Europe, on the other hand, had the best Club Europe meal I’ve ever seen on a flight this length: poke. I was very bummed when I learned that after the flight, haha. Instead of raw salmon, the dish was served with smoked salmon, which is consistent with the chicken poke I had on my 2020 flight to NYC in the Club Suites.

Valerie was definitely pleased with her seat swap.

Upon arrival in Toulouse, we were ushered directly to passport control, but since the flight had been delayed by over an hour, we actually ended up clearing passport control the next day. So according to our passport stamps, we left the day after we arrived in France…

In summary, this flight from Toulouse was typical of short intra-European flights on British Airways.  It was pretty fun being able to share Cathay’s lounge with Valerie.  But the flight itself was pretty boring in the back of the plane.  The ground experience in Terminal 3 was excellent as always, but that didn’t have much to do with British Airways (4/5).  Club Europe 1^st row and Euro Traveller exit row are the best seats available (4/5).  Valerie tells me the poke was excellent; my crisps were as expected (5/5; 2/5).  The service in both classes was efficient and friendly, but not noteworthy (4/5).  The plane offered WiFi and in-seat plugs, which is solid for intra-Europe (4/5).  Overall, this flight gets a 21/25 in Club Europe and an 18/25 in Euro Traveller, which are solid respective scores.

Valerie collected miles for this flight on Alaska Airlines, where she earned 274 miles for the Euro Traveller ticket.  I credited the Club Europe ticket to British Airways and earned 1250 Avios and 40 tier points.  I paid for the tickets on my Amex Platinum Card, which earned my 5x points/$.