Continuing the series of what travel is like now, a reader has shared experience of flights to/from Los Angeles at the end of July and middle of August in British Airways new B777-300 First suite. You can email [email protected] if you want to see your trip report published.
In part one, we look at the outbound flight from Heathrow. Part 2 will be published tomorrow. Currently, you can’t travel to the US from the UK unless you have applied for a National Interest Exception (NIE) which includes certain critical business or education reasons, or are a US citizen.
In this post:
Booking
Originally I’d booked a Club World fare in the 747 farewell sale for £999 – these flights had been cancelled a number of times, which has the bonus of giving me the flexibility to change dates, although I’d rather have been able to take the flights as originally planned!
After re-confirming my dates nearer to the date of intended travel, I saw there were POUG offers to upgrade from Business to First for £550 for the outbound flight and £450 for the inbound flight. Given outbound equipment was a 77W and I was expecting limited food and drink in the TBIT terminal, I snapped up both of these upgrade offers and was confirmed for First Class.
Check-in and lounge at LHR
I arrived at Heathrow early to ensure I could complete the check-in formalities. This was completed quickly and I was through the First Wing without any delay and found myself in the lounge about 15 minutes after arriving at the airport.
Having arrived early, this meant I was able to catch the end of breakfast, where I’ve been enjoying creating my own breakfast roll, and enjoyed jerk chicken for lunch. I’m still enjoying the lounge experience, and hoping the table service is maintained.
I won’t say too much more about the lounge as it has been covered recently. My only minor comment is lack of power in the Concorde Terrace. But I’m happy working at the desk in the First Lounge and going to collect any of the drinks I want that are only in the CCT – and in the scheme of things, this is really a non-issue.
Boarding and in flight experience for LHR-LAX
I was excited to be able to try out BA’s latest B777, the 77W with the newest first product, and was keeping an eye on ExpertFlyer in the days leading up to the flight to watch for equipment changes.
Thankfully no changes, and I arrived at the gate around 55 minutes before departure. After a short wait, pre-boarding commenced, and then Group 1 boarding – this was the first flight I was taking since priority boarding had been re-introduced.
I was quickly escorted to my British Airways new B777-300 First suite seat, introduced to the crew who would be working the first cabin that day and settled into looking at the new first seat. First impressions were positive – big space, decent sized doors and large clear screen that was fixed in position.
This might make dining with a companion tricky but I’m sure it would work, and I’m not sure how much that feature gets used as I don’t see it that often, but have done it once myself on a First flight to Hong Kong.
I kept the doors open most of the flight but had them closed when I slept which I liked. The height was just right and I didn’t feel claustrophobic at all.
My last First flight was from Barbados when the F&B service was limited, so it was good to see the full menu back. After take off the crew came to take orders for drinks and food, and when I said I’d like to do wine tasting of the whites and reds with the starter and main, he was more than happy to.
All of the crew I’ve spoken to since being able to travel again have been happy to be at work, seeing passengers.
Here are the white wines I tried.
I liked the Chassagne Montrachet most and was impressed that they actually had some decent wines after the whole Villa Maria period a few years ago in First.
And the reds…again some good choices
I had the English sparkling with the canapes.
Then salmon tartar (which you may remember from the Feast Box!)
Bread was served from a choice in a basket with olive oil and butter.
Then beef for the main with cheese and port to finish, and a Bulleit bourbon to wash that all down.
With dinner plans to eat on the ground, I skipped the second meal and had a coffee to help keep me going.
The chocolates are no longer the nice box (for obvious reasons) but Lindt chocolates served in a cup!
All in, a super smooth flight, attentive crew, and the 77W with the new First Suite and Club Suite looks smart.
Then just US immigration to face!
Like our British Airways new B777-300 First suite with doors review? You can read more flight reviews here.
14 comments
Why do people use pointless abbreviations when writing reviews? As if a normal person is meant to know what they stand for – it’s just lazy writing. Please could we have these edited out going forward? Thanks!
Agree about the abbreviation comment. Would have really liked more details about the new suite, more pics etc. Good to see the food is back to near normal.
The dine together feature is one that makes BA first special. Feels more like you are in a restaurant in the skys.
We use it every time when not flying solo and it never gets old.
Not possible anymore on the new 787/77W version. Hope in a future iteration they make it possible again and to keep the nice big screen too.
What is the point of writing a review on a long haul flight and skipping the second meal? And where are the pics of the main course. This is just lazy, sloppy work
So someone who is reader that was kind enough to write a review should eat food they don’t want to do you as a reader that’s completely free can not feel hard done by??
Spending nearly a grand extra upgrading from Business to First because you expected “limited options” in the terminal? Good grief, what a difficult life it must be.
What happened to “champagne travel on a prosecco budget”? This blog used to feature helpful tips, tricks and deals for everyone to take advantage of. Now it just seems to be a bragging zone for the already very wealthy. On that – these pompous, entitled “reviews” are becoming really quite tedious.
So funnily enough being extremely vulnerable thanks to a kidney transplant, my travel in a pandemic has been curtailed. So when someone is kind enough to write a review of the new BA first that I and many others haven’t had a chance to try, I’m not going to say no. I constantly feature BA offers for first at discount prices plus people could use Avios if they wanted to try it. I honestly despair of a minority of people who read something free and then want to lay into someone who has taken the time to write a review for nothing.
I used some readers reviews this weekend as it’s my birthday and I wanted to have a couple days off. Along with Xmas these are the only days I take all year. Yet people think it’s fine to be rude to someone who had tried to share their experiences. It’s free to read. I
Michelle I would go further than just “DON’T BOTHER” to these arse holes who leave petty negative comments. You should actively ban their e-mail accounts from subscribing
It’s hard to imagine how negative you need to be or how sad your life must be to actually post such pettiness
Great blog, thanks for the hard work
Thanks Andy. Normally if someone makes more than one nasty comment they get banned from commenting. Particularly if attacking readers who contribute. Although people use different names/Fake emails sometimes. However I can ban people by IP address so they are not as clever as they think!
If they are so tedious as you say, unsubscribe so we don’t have to read your sad negativity.
Maybe subscribe to Aldi or Lidl if you want budget
Michelle: IGNORE. I have spent my entire career in the travel industry as you know and I look forward to your blog as I always learn something new. And whatever happened to us all being “nice” to each other? Very rude comments. Unacceptable.
I completely agree with Doc. Keep up the terrific work. Just ignore such ingrates.
Michelle and Reader Review Author, thank you for the article and great to get a live, real update from the air as travel looks to take off again now. The opportunity to upgrade to First (and often for less than £1,000) is always tempting but definitely wasn’t worth it when everything was restricted, so this update is timely and useful. I love the idea of the wine tasting in flight too – hadn’t thought of that, so another thank you.
I hope the negative, space-wasting, self-centred individuals who wrote all those unnecessarily negative reviews above understand that this review is actually interesting and useful to many readers, and so they should think of others before their micro-cosmic selves. And yes, I would say this to their faces if I met them, even though we know people like them are always happy to make wingeing negative comments online but would never make them in person.
In times like this we need to support and help each other, bring a bit of positivity to our world, and encourage selfless volunteering like this article – not knock down everyone and everything. Come on people!
Thanks Martin. I don’t know why people feel it necessary to rip to shreds someone who has written something free, and that they can read for free. It’s a strange world we live in!
Comments are closed.