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UPDATE MARCH 2023 : This has been fixed Learned a hard lesson today – BA.com has functionally disabled its members from booking Avios reward flights on behalf of others. Yes, theoretically it's still possible, but it can only be done by phone, and given that their customer service center has had multi-hour wait times for several straight years... it's just not gonna happen. The details: I'm trying to book a points flight as a gift for a friend for his birthday, and when I get to checkout, I click "NO" on the "Is the payment card holder travelling on this booking?" and then this happens: Add to that the classic modern dystopia scene of the call center automated line on speakerphone telling you to "use BA.com for faster service." Furthermore, can you imagine what hellscape it will be trying to verbally relay all of the information over a highly-compressed voice line to India all of the details necessary to successfully book this flight from my fr...

I've complained for years that British Airways Avios are nearly worthless given the criminally-high surcharges they tack on to reward tickets. Well, a class-action lawsuit about it has finally reached a settlement and I'm getting $273.84 back ! They also offered me the option of getting 12,500 Avios instead, but since the terrible surcharges are still there (just with a new name) I'd rather take the money.  Near as I can tell, the suit hinged on the idea they called their surcharges "fuel surcharges", when in fact they had nothing to do with fuel prices. So if you had a reward ticket with BA between 9 November, 2006 and 17 April, 2013 (i.e., during the time the charges had the misleading name) you should have received an email with your unique login info to view your personal settlement. The email likely ended up in your Spam folder , so go take a peek there if you didn't get one. The sender is: info@fuelsurchargeclassaction.com , the subject is Dove...

We're big fans of British Airways' all-Business Class A318 flight between JFK and London City Airport. Sad news last week that they're cutting the frequency of this flight in half. People are speculating that it's because of Brexit-related concerns, but no one has shown any proof of that. I'm guessing this is going to make finding a reward seat even harder. Our trip report is here . The view landing at LCY is amazing!

This trip was JFK – LHR in business and then LHR – JFK in First . This itinerary cost us  65,000 Avios + $1150 per person, round trip . I used our last Travel Together certificate to halve the number of miles from 130,000. ( How I did it ) This is such a busy and well-documented flight that I'm only going to post a couple of quick notes.  On the 747, BA's "Club World" Business Class cabin is split between the upper and lower decks . Most of the New York - London flights are overnight so we opted to sit upstairs because the small cabin (only 20 seats!) up there is much quieter and less trafficked than the downstairs which makes it easier to sleep. BA makes you pay to choose your seat in advance, even in full-fare Business Class  so we decided to spend the money to make sure we were sitting up top. Seat selection is free once check-in opens up (24 hours before departure), so you could risk it and try to snag a seat upstairs by checking in right at the 24 hour...

This trip was JFK – LHR in business and then LHR – JFK in First. This itinerary cost us  65,000 Avios + $1150 per person, round trip . I used our last Travel Together certificate to halve the number of miles from 130,000. ( How I did it ) I'm glad BA  hasn't retired  their 747s just yet. I love the overnight flight in the 747's upstairs Business Class where it's calm and private. For me, it's only really worth it to fly First on a daytime flight when you can actually enjoy the nicer service. I took this leg in First back in 2014 and my full trip report is over here . The 747 cabin, the Concorde Room lounge, and overall experience haven't changed much since then, so I'll just make a few notes...  The Good The staff in First are still friendly, personable, and go out of their way to help you when you have a special request.  The espresso machine was working. ( I say this because I've noticed that onboard espresso machines ar...

Beautiful waterfront views from Ardbeg If you're reading this then you're probably a fan of the smoky whisky that this Scottish island is famous for. We'd wanted to go for years and eventually got around to it after attending a wedding in the English countryside ( how we did it ). Don't be fooled by all of the blue sky in our pictures - we went in August and everyone we met felt the need to tell us that they never get this many sunny days, even in the heart of summer. So definitely bring a waterproof jacket and shoes you won't mind getting a bit muddy . If you're going to come all this way, you're going to want to sink your foot into a wet and squishy peat bog at some point, right? First of all, it's pronounced "eye-luh" , not "iss lay" or "eye lay". There's a great series on YouTube about how to pronounce whisky names. I say this because we learned we'd been mispronouncing lots of them for years. Oops. ....