Bottom-line up front
British Airways’ west coast-bound flights across the Atlantic offer a convenient way to travel from London directly to major west coast cities (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego). The A380’s Club World seats are showing their age, but they should hopefully be retrofit in the coming years, but the timeline continues to be unclear.
The business class experience on this flight can vary substantially depending on which aircraft type (A380, A350, 787, 777), which seat type (Club World vs Club Suites), and even what specific seat you choose. I recommend seeking out an aircraft equipped with Club Suites whenever possible, but the upper deck A380 window seats are workable.
The ground experience
Following up on my eastbound day-time British Airways flight in economy comes this west-bound A380 flight in Club World.
This flight is the second half of the outbound ticket I had booked for my Spring Break to Europe trip last year, and it was also my final flight as a British Airways Gold member. Between the changes to the new BA Club tier points scheme and the much better benefits of American Airlines Executive Platinum status, there was no point in trying to keep status on two airlines in the same alliance.
Now, as you might expect, my flight that morning started off with a trip through the First Wing, but unlike my previous flight to San Francisco, since I was flying Club World, I had to stay in the Galleries First Lounge upon clearing security; I couldn’t bypass it in favor of the Concorde Room.
The scanned menu had several cocktails of note, including some Christmasy champagne cocktail, an espresso martini, and, of course, a bucks-fizz (mimosa). We just ordered all three because why not.
As you might expect from my other transits through the BA Galleries First (Gold) Lounge, the food on offer was a build-your-own English breakfast, and whatever small pastries you might want! Even though the food selection really isn’t any different from the Galleries (Business) lounge, I really do like the ambiance of the Galleries First Lounge a lot.
As is often the case with me trying to get to Heathrow, we had quite the adventure. The trains from South London to Central London were all cancelled or substantially delayed, so we ate up most of our lounge cushion just trying to get onto the Elizabeth line to the airport. But I did put in a delay repay to reclaim our $5! Which all is to say that I don’t have much more in the way of pictures of the lounge this time around. Not that there was anything different about it. I do appreciate how consistent the lounge is (almost to a fault in some cases).
After a short while in the lounge, I dragged myself out to the C gates, where the A380 was waiting to take us all to San Francisco!
I had arrived while they were doing regular boarding, but they don’t have a good mechanism for separating priority and regular boarding, so I just tried my luck by showing my Group 1 ticket to the man checking passports, and he hurried me straight through the priority line so we could bypass the larger queue.
The seat
Upon boarding, I took the boarding bridge up to the upper deck and crossed over and to the left. I had selected seat 53K, so I had a rear-facing window seat but still direct aisle access, since I was in the last row of the cabin:
If I look tired, it’s because I was. The IFE system on this seat pretty standard, with a touch screen that folds out. Free messaging Wi-Fi was available as well. I’m looking forward to these seats getting upgraded to Club Suites and having a nicer TV.
Now, at check-in, I had been told that the divider between the seats was broken but that since the cabin was full, he said, *checks notes* something along the lines of “sucks to suck”. Now, what’s the issue with the divider not working you ask? Well, it means I was staring at the stranger sitting beside me for 11 hours. Not just sitting beside, but straight up staring at him.
Now, as you might expect, this is a huge downgrade for an already aging seat. Upon landing, I submitted a complaint to British Airways. They responded within about 3 business days with an AI-generated response that also said, “sucks to suck; we’ll forward on your feedback”. So I sent a more forceful response that the AI-generated slop was insufficient and that on previous flights as a BA Gold member, they’ve given me 10 000 Avios for not getting a simple meal on a 1 hour flight in Club Europe. A human followed up a few days later and gave me 15 000 Avios for the inconvenience. 15 000 Avios represented an approximately 33% refund of the Avios I had used for the ticket, so I’d say that was pretty good!
The on-board service
So getting to the airport wasn’t great and the seat wasn’t great, so the question is now if the food was better. It was! As is standard in Club World, we were treated to a multi-course meal starting with an amuse-bouche and choice of starter, then a choice of main, and a choice of dessert. I selected the smoked salmon to start, which was very nicely presented along with a glass of sparkling water. The amuse-bouche was a small bowl of vegetables served on top of red pepper hummus, which was also excellent.
I then selected the chicken, as I usually do, and it was served with rice and vegetables. It was also very good! As far as I could tell, it was a much nicer version of what was served in economy on the flight.
Yeah, I’d say the Club World offering was quite the step up!
Finally for dessert, I ordered the cake, which was also nicely plated!
Through the middle of the flight, not much happened, as is typical. The meal service proceeded at a very reasonable pace given that there was no rush to go to sleep, but it also didn’t feel protracted. The flight attendants passed through regularly to offer top-ups, and they put out the standard spread of mid-flight snacks in the Club World galley.
After about eight hours in the air, they came around to offer effectively a second lunch service. Again, I ordered the chicken, which was served with a panna cotta.
By the time they got to my area, they had run out of one of the appetizer options (which must have been pretty popular to run out so quickly). To the flight attendant’s credit, she offered to check with the downstairs crew to see if there were any salads remaining down there. In the interim, she gave me my main so that I wouldn’t just have to sit around wondering, which I thought was extremely reasonable. When my main course arrived, she informed me that they didn’t have any downstairs either, and she asked me if I wanted the other option. I instead asked for the cheese platter (which was technically from the first meal service), and she was more than happy to provide! So no complaints from me.
In summary, aside from the seat, this was a good (not amazing) business class flight across the Atlantic. The Galleries First Lounge continues to be a great welcome into Heathrow for me (4/5), even if it’s not that special compared to some carriers’ flagship lounges. The broken privacy partition on the seat and minimal attempts to do anything about it were pretty unimpressive (2/5). The flight attendants were great (5/5), and the food was very good, aside from them running out of the starter pretty much immediately (4/5). The IFE was serviceable but showing its age (3/5). Overall, the flight gets an 18/25, which is marginally above expectations! The seat problem really killed its score.
I booked this flight using Avios and a 2-4-1 voucher directly with British Airways. The voucher came as a perk of having spent $30 000 on the Chase British Airways Visa Card. Since I flew alone, it cut the Avios price of the ticket in half but the taxes and fees remained the same. I paid using that same Chase BA card, which offers a $200 credit toward the taxes and fees of a BA reward flight starting in the US. My total cost was, therefore, 45 000 Avios and $375 for this flight. I earned around 1 000 Avios back from the credit card rewards on that $375 and then an additional 15 000 Avios back from the seat problem. 30 000 Avios and $375 really isn’t a bad price for an 11 hour business class flight.
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