British Airways is due to launch its new Club World service in September on JFK flights followed by a roll out to all Club World routes. Along with ‘restaurant style dining’ (from what I’ve seen, it’s a strange restaurant BA management have been visiting!), they will be focusing on improving sleeping amenities. You can see more details of new Club World in this article.
As I talked about in this article, British Airways confirmed its plans yesterday. This will aim to give customers a great night’s sleep through a partnership with the luxury lifestyle brand, The White Company. The British retailer will supply bedding and amenity kits in Club World as part of the BA customer investment plan. Interestingly, Qatar also have a partnership with the White Company which I wrote about here.
In this post:
BA new Club World bedding
There will soon be a new day cushion which will double up as a lumbar support and for night a bespoke, soft large pillow with white cotton pillowcase. Customers will also be given a soft woven blanket with satin trim and a luxury duvet to improve their quality of sleep, as well as a padded mattress cover. These are definitely welcome changes, although I am intrigued by the fact that in First currently, you can only get a blanket on request. It will be interesting to see if that changes or whether the Club World ones end up being on request.
The new Club World amenity kits come in a bag from The White Company and contain products from the ‘Restore & Relax Spa Collection’, as well as a soft jersey eye-mask. I am pleased to see the new kits, although I am sad to lose the Elemis brand as it was a cheap supply of Pro Collagen Marine Cream. I may have to actually buy some now!
I view this as a positive step, particularly as they appear to be keeping up with the likes of Qatar, which for me is the bench mark in business class. In fact, my bed linen at home is from the White Company and I have been very pleased with the quality. However, given how dated the Club World seat is, BA need to do something to keep people flying with them until they are able to update them in 2019.
British Airways is also introducing a number of measures on board to maximise sleep time for customers in Club World. Breakfast cards will also be given out so customers can select if they wish to be woken for breakfast and if so, what they would like. I have had this on a Club World service back from New York, which I wrote about here. In general I like them, as it allows the crew to prepare things in advance, allowing more sleep time or not disturbing you if you want to sleep. The official BA page is here.
Qatar sale and new routes
Anxious to use it short haul aircraft in the current political crisis, Qatar have announced 2 new destination launch dates. The first, Sohar, Oman will be of little interest to most readers. However, the second, Prague may well bring us some great ex EU deals. Prague is traditionally one of the best places for low cost business flights in Europe, so it remains to be seen whether Qatar will offer similar pricing. The downside is that the seats will not be as good of those on the larger aircraft, but as it is a fairly short flight, it may be worth it for cheap fares. The schedule will be from 21 August 2017:
QR289 DOH 0230 – 0740 PRG A320
QR291 DOH 0800 – 1310 PRG A320
QR290 PRG 0925 – 1625 DOH A320
QR292 PRG 1710 – 0010+1 DOH A320
Qatar Flash sale
Qatar has also launched a flash sale which ends at midnight tonight, 5th July. The fares are only available for travel up to 30th September 2017 and there is a minimum stay of 7 nights. The fares as usual, are underwhelming from the U.K.. You may be able to shave some extra money off by using the accommodation trick I talked about in this article. You can also now experience the new Qsuite to and from London on the QR 8/9. This may mean you consider paying more, to try them out.
The best fares out of the UK are:
- Bangkok £1852
- Krabi £2052
- Bali £2107
- Hong Kong £2218
The UK sale page is here.
The best bargains to be had are ex EU. Here are the highlights:
| Destination | Price | From | Other cheap options |
| Auckland (AKL) | £1,657.00 | Oslo | Copenhagen |
| Bali/Denpasar (DPS) | £1,425.00 | Copenhagen | |
| Bangkok (BKK) | £1,151.00 | Helsinki | Sofia, Budapest |
| Johannesburg (JNB) | £1,670.00 | Sofia | |
| Kuala Lumpur (KUL) | £1,481.00 | Sofia | |
| Melbourne | £2,136.00 | Sofia | |
| Maldives (MLE) | £1,299.00 | Norway | |
| Phuket (HKT) | £1,139.00 | Sofia | |
| Shanghai (PVG) | £1,686.00 | Budapest | |
| Singapore (SIN) | £1,078.00 | Sofia |
Other countries worth looking at:
