Around the world part 2: London to Madrid

After a few days in London, it was time to head to Madrid to continue the around the world trip!  There were one and a half reasons for flying to Madrid.  The biggest reason was that it made the long flights (i.e. London to New York and San Francisco to London half the price).  The half reason is that my flight to Seoul was departing from Madrid.  It’s only a half reason because if I didn’t already need a flight to Madrid, I would’ve booked my flight to Seoul from another city. 

I arrived at the airport a bit earlier than I usually would have because I was traveling with a friend whose flight left earlier than mine.  We cleared security through the First Wing together, and I think that was my first time taking a guest through the expedited check-in and into the lounge.  In 2024, the UK temporarily relaxed the liquids restriction when clearing security through upgraded scanners.  The restriction was relaxed around July 2024 (which is after I visited in June 2024).  It was then rescinded the day of my flight to London. Which is just classic.  It didn’t actually affect anything for me, but I was very miffed about it just on principle, since the Gold Wing is one of the security lines with the enhanced scanners.

Upon clearing security, we were dropped into the Galleries First Lounge, which I confirmed last time is only a marginal step up over the Galleries Club Lounge. 

When we first arrived, they were serving breakfast, which was the same offering as last time.  And then when it got close to time for my flight to Madrid, they swapped out the breakfast buffet for the lunch buffet.  Though I have a feeling that it’s more of an “All-day” menu. 

Interestingly, they had a staffed dessert bar that looked fun.

Instead, I just got some curry and a poppadom since I knew I’d also be getting some food on the flight.

Finally, it was time to board my flight.  Since I was flying a narrow-body aircraft to Spain, my flight left from the A gates, and I was lucky that the gate was close to the lounge.  I flew Club Europe so I was able to board at any time during the process.  Realistically, for a flight of this length, I would’ve been fine to sit in economy.  But because of the way I booked this flight, business class was included automatically. 

That being said, European Business Class in Europe is not the most exciting.  It’s just a standard economy seat with a blocked middle seat. And, unfortunately, because this flight was operated on an A321neo, there was no middle table like BA has on its non-neo fleet. 

After my flight to Milan in June in a basic economy seat, I have a new appreciation for (a) the headrest and (b) the table that Club Europe usually offers.

Also the legroom in row 1 is excellent.

We pushed back on time and service began promptly after takeoff.  Small Club Europe menus were passed out, and I still love how cute these menus are.  I saw on the menu that they were offering hot chocolate on the flight, so I figured I’d try it out.  It was my first time having a hot chocolate on a plane, and it was fine. 

As is standard for many airlines, at meal times, British Airways offers either breakfast or lunch/dinner (all-day dining).   

Since I always order curry on BA (and had some in the lounge), I decided to try the stream trout.  Since I’m out of practice with BA, I forgot that they offer two hot options and a (cold) salad option as standard.  Since curry and pie are clearly hot meals, the last one was going to be the salad option.  And it was, in fact, served cold. 

The honey glazed trout was (I believe) hot smoked and then served chilled.  Now, was the meal good? Definitely.  Would I have ordered it if I’d known it was the salad? I don’t think so.

However, as far as salads go, it was pretty light on the lettuce, so it was more of a platter, and it actually had a very nice presentation overall.  It was served with a little salad appetizer, so they probably wanted the main course to be as un-salad-like as possible, which I appreciate.  It’s a small detail that you don’t necessarily always find on some other airlines, like on some American Airlines flights. 

The cheese course was simple, but specifically offered British cheeses that were great and showed off something that Britain is proud of.  I still don’t fully understand why all cheese plates that I’ve ever had (on the ground too) offer so few crackers.  You’d think that would be the cheap part.  The dessert was a standard Do&Co small pudding pot and was not really my vibe (which is often the case).  I was also given a bread roll that was basic but fine for plane bread.

Other than the meal service, there wasn’t much else to this flight. Flights within Europe are short to begin with, and so the drinks and meal service take up most of the flight time. I’ve learned that the budgets for in-flight meals are only a few dollars each, which is shockingly low, but it’s still interesting that the US can’t handle offering meals on flights that are two hours long. For a short flight like this, I’d say that a worse seat can sometimes be worth the trade off for a meal.

In summary, this British Airways Club Europe flight to Madrid was again just average.  Visiting both the Club lounge and the Galleries First lounge reminded me again how similar they are, but the First Wing experience remains excellent (4/5).  The seat was standard for a neo (3/5).  The service was fine but not memorable, and I just wish they’d mentioned this dish was served cold (3/5).  The food was very good overall, but I don’t think I’d’ve ordered it if I’d known it was the salad option (4/5).  The IFE was the standard messaging/WiFi (3/5).  Overall, this flight gets just the median score of 17/25.  So British Airways is, consistent, which is important at the baseline.

Unlike the previous leg, this leg did credit based on price, and so I paid a theoretical $80 for this Club Europe flight, which is a great deal all things considered.  I earned the standard 40 tier points for a short haul flight as well as 556 Avios (which is about half of what I would’ve earned based on distance).  I also earned an additional 320 Bilt points, for an overall return of 15%, which is the norm now.