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My review of Goldair and Skyserv Lounges Athens, and a BA upgrade
After a nice week in Athens I’m setting off to the cold London. I used my Avios for an economy flight, and thanks to my BA status I could still use the fast track facility.
All non-Schengen flights depart from Hall A, and you pass border control first followed by the security check. Massive queue for non-EU passport, but I went through fast track in a breeze!
There are a few lounge options, all next to each other.
Aegean operates their own (Star-Alliance) lounge, and other airlines work with one of the three third-party lounges. British Airways partners with Skyserv, but after having read some reviews I decided to try out the Goldair Handling Lounge instead.
The lounge is a massive hall itself.
It is quite bright. There appears to be an outdoor area but that’s for emergency exit only. Here is the working zone:
And let’s have a look at the food and drinks:
Hot food of the day include:
- Orzo with mushrooms
- Turkish meatballs
- Vegetable soup
- Rice
Desserts look quite tasty.
I’m quite impressed by the fact that they have a dedicated shower & bathroom facility right across the alley. To be honest it looks even fancier than the lounge itself.
As I had enough time, I went for a sneak peek into the Skyserv Lounge as well. They do accept both Priority Pass and Dragonpass too.
A few random pictures:
It’s actually more beautiful than the Goldair – the different tones of blue and wavy decorations make you feel like in the Aegean sea. It is however a lot busier, probably because of its broader range of airline partners.
The buffet area is a quite small selection, with the following hot items:
- Turkish burger
- Veal with peas
- Rice
Having visited both lounges I made my way to the gate. The flight was slightly delayed so I checked BA’s app again to make sure. At this point I noticed a change to my assigned seat – I got upgraded to Club Europe!
It was a pretty full flight, so the upgrade made sense. But in case you didn’t know, the business class setup on intra-Europe flights is laughable – it’s basically exactly the same seat, but with the middle seat blocked.
There are *12* rows of business class on this flight, and I’m seated at row 7. My original seat at the exit row would have been better.
Good news is I’ve got free food and drinks for this four-hour journey. BA’s upgrade strategy is intriguing: I have been upgraded three times (the previous two on long-hauls) as Silver and Bronze, but never once whilst being Gold!
My extraordinary 4.5-hour flight delay with Storm Isha!
After I booked my return flight to LGW from Seville I realised there’s no train from Gatwick on that day (Jan 21st) due to engineering work. I was a bit annoyed, but the whole trip turned out to be much more complicated and dramatic than that!
I have vaguely heard about Storm Isha, and received an email from BA that my flight might be delayed because of it the day before. And it turns out to be the case, as I woke up on the day to a notification that my flight has an estimated delay of 1.5 hours due to late arrival of the aircraft.
It means that we would land at Gatwick at around 8pm, which isn’t too big a deal. The delay goes back and forth during the day though and I keep receiving emails / push notifications from Tripcase / Google. It is quite upsetting, and right before I was going to leave the lounge I saw the estimated arrival changed to 10.30pm. At this point I’ve finally made up my mind to book an overnight stay instead, and Courtyard Gatwick Airport is my choice.
It’s a very full flight, and we waited quite a while before the pushback started. According to the captain there’s some “computer error” following the late arrival which caused further delays.
After we are on the runway, another 30-odd minutes passed but we are not taking off. Passengers are getting noticeably irritated and the captain finally spoke again: Gatwick mistakenly stroke out our flight record, and although they are working hard to resume it, it might take another 1 hour and 40 minutes!
You can only imagine how everyone is feeling on this plane. Fortunately it didn’t take that long before they sorted it out – we took off after about another half an hour, some people applauded, and it’s an uneventful flight for the most part.
Until we got to the UK and started descending, and the very apparent turbulence came into play. It was windy and rainy, but we were approaching the land slowly, but the very second before we touched down they pulled up again. The runway’s condition is to risky for landing.
The aircraft circled for another half an hour and it’s the worst time I’ve ever had on any plane. The plane is visibly swinging all the time and I for the very first time have got motion sick in the sky. I’m sweating a lot and having a stomach ache, but luckily I haven’t eaten anything for almost half a day.
The woman sitting next to me was on Whatsapp and I had to tell her off. I can see some others who are undergoing a worse pain than I am. Fortunately, the second landing attempt is successful, and the nightmare is over.
It was an eventful evening and many flights were affected by the extreme weather conditions just like us. I should count myself very lucky as most of these flights were cancelled or, maybe worse, diverted. One reader @SBS2813J’s London-bound flight was diverted to Paris, followed by a whole night of buses and ferry to Gatwick. He went straight to work from Gatwick!
@X’s Wizz Air flight was diverted to Brussels and then heading back to Milan. Passengers who wished to offload at Brussels must sign a waiver as Wizz Air refused to cover their transport cost from Brussels to London.
It’s almost midnight at Gatwick and many passengers are stranded because of the storm. There’s a big queue in front of the taxi desk, and I got a quote of £50+ on Uber for a half-mile ride to the Courtyard! I’ll walk instead.
Booking the Courtyard is the best decision I’ve made this year so far. I even got an upgrade to the Junior Suite.
It’s a very basic and dated room, but I won’t complain. The hotel is overbooked, and there are a few guests at the front desk who paid but couldn’t get a room. I feel very sorry for them and can only imagine how desperate they must be.
[Compensation]
Well here it is – AirHelp comes to my rescue again! Since my flight is delayed by more than three hours (4 hour and 39 minutes), I’m entitled to a €100 payout from AirHelp Plus no matter what the cause is.
Their help page suggests 26 hours before I receive a confirmation, which is more or less the case.
After uploading the boarding pass and my passport, I received the payment in a couple of days.
I purchased AirHelp Plus Complete in November and now I’ve got the lounge pass, delayed bag compensation and the flight delay compensation – is it lucky or unlucky? The €250 compensation I’ve got more than quintuples what I paid already.
Sadly they devalued AirHelp Plus Complete on January 12th, and you can only register 7 trips per plan year now. It might still make sense, as you’ll get more than the cost back as long as one flight delay or one bag delay happens.
If you are interested, enter our unique promo code AHVERYL8 for 8% discount. Prices of the Essential / Complete plans are reduced to €22.99 / €45.99 respectively.
I submitted my claim to BA as well, in less hope as I know the delay is probably mostly attributed to the weather. To my surprise, BA responded in less than two weeks (much sooner than my previous experiences) with a positive outcome:
The total amount of compensation you’re due is £350.00 as there’s only one passenger included in your claim. We are happy to settle your claim for the expenses. We have managed to investigate your claim for your expenses for which the approved amount is £120.20 for your expenses incurred due to the disruption.
So it’s £350 compensation plus £120.20 for my hotel+train expense. I’m a happy man again!
Use BA’s companion voucher on Iberia flights
I was never a fan of the British Airways Premium Plus Amex card, mainly because I was, for the most time, a solo traveller. Its companion voucher went through a major overhaul in 2022 though which made it much more appealing, and I will take a close look it today.
The Travel Together Ticket issued by the Chase British Airways Visa Signature card is, as far as I know, exactly the same, so the following discussions hold for both.
To earn the companion voucher, you need to spend £10,000 in a card year. The voucher is issued right after you’ve met the spending criteria, and valid for two years from that date.
- Applies to redemption tickets on BA, EI and IB metal
- The cardholder must travel
- The origin can be anywhere
- Works on one-way, return and open-jaw itineraries
- Works on all cabin classes
- Save 50% in Avios for one or two persons
- Full taxes and charges are still payable
There are two major improvements: firstly, solo travellers can use it for 50% discount; secondly, it’s extended to Iberia and Aer Lingus flights too.
Unfortunately due to the constant efforts of BA to devalue Avios, long-haul redemptions are, very often, no longer very good in value even when the voucher is applied. For short-haul redemptions the math works out better, but in absolute terms you aren’t saving a lot.
The best way to use this voucher lies with Iberia, as they have a very generous redemption chart.
A one-way flight from Madrid to New York, in business class, costs only 34,000 Avios. For South America it’s 42,500 or 51,000 Avios. This is incredibly cheap compared to BA.
Taxes and fees are also very reasonable. For Madrid – Buenos Aires return it costs 102,000 Avios + £236.30 – superb value! Note that the chart above is for off-peak dates, and it will cost more in peak season.
With the companion voucher applied, departing from Madrid in off-peak season, you will pay the following figures for a return trip per person:
- New York – 34,000 Avios + £215.60
- Bogota – 42,500 Avios + £224.20
- Buenos Aires – 51,000 Avios + £236.30
Note that you need to book on ba.com rather than iberia.com to use the voucher. You could add your positioning flight to / from Madrid in the same booking with the 50% discount applied too. However:
- Don’t add London – Madrid to the same booking, otherwise it incurs the hefty APD
- Don’t mix with BA flights, otherwise it increases the cost significantly
My recommendation is to book e.g. Madrid – New York – Madrid – London using the voucher, and then sort out London – Madrid separately. Here’s my trip to Bogota:
It costs 48,875 Avios + £244. As it’s an open-jaw booking, it’s not possible to do it online – confirm online that there’s availability and then call BA to book it, mentioning that you want to use the companion voucher.
Flash deals: BA 25% off and Virgin Atlantic £60 discount
Two good flights deals here, but they will both finish soon!
[British Airways]
BA is offering a 25% discount on all economy fares from London Gatwick to any European destination. You must book by December 9.
[Virgin Atlantic]
Trip.com has a very good coupon for Virgin Atlantic flights.
- One £60 voucher per customer
- UK departure only
- Valid on all routes and cabin classes
- Book by December 10th
- Travel by September 30
It stacks with the £10 app-exclusive discount so it takes £70 off your airfare.
It is a genuine and decent offer especially for economy and premium economy tickets.
Earn 250 Avios and more with Red by Dufry
We wrote about Red by Dufry before, which is a loyalty program that gives you discount at duty free stores and other perks at airports worldwide.
In the Red by Dufry app, go to My Profile, scroll down to the bottom where you have the option to add a partner account. If you link your Iberia Plus account, you will 1 Avios per £1 / €1 spent at Dufry stores, and 250 bonus Avios on your first purchase.
It seems that British Airways is also a partner and the same earning rate / promotion applies. My account was already linked to Iberia Plus. I was trying to unlink and relink but I couldn’t see either Iberia or BA in the partner dropdown list anymore.
Historically Red by Dufry had some promo codes that gave away points or even Platinum status. Give them a try but I doubt any of them work anymore:
- RED300POINTS
- HAPPYBIRTHDAY2020
- REDPLATSMART0821
- AegeanMilesPlatinum
As a Red by Dufry member you get a guaranteed discount at many duty free shops and earn Avios with every purchase, so it makes sense to create an account.
BA sale: £600 Premium Economy deal, Silver for £800
British Airways has launched their end of summer sale, and as usual you can use the low fare finder to dig out the best deals.
I can’t see any particularly good Club World or First destinations, but there are genuine savings if you don’t mind travelling in premium economy. Here are some headline prices:
- Beijing £743
- Shanghai £721
- Tel Aviv £618
- Doha £636
- New York £636
- Toronto £747
And a couple of examples for China in Skyscanner:
- Beijing 03/10 – 24/10 £683
- Shanghai 23/01 – 05/03 £717
When it comes to Club Europe flights, we no longer see as many low prices as we used to. Here are some examples:
- Basel £198
- Bucharest £288
- Dublin £176
- Istanbul £312
- Luxembourg £148
- Pisa £198
- Sofia £212
The destinations in bold earn you 80 tier points per return whereas the rest earn only 40. Sofia is the one standing out (example 07/03 – 10/03), as you’ll earn BA’s Silver status after four returns which costs around £800.
BA’s Silver status, or in other words Oneworld Sapphire, comes with priority check-in and boarding, fast track, additional baggage allowance and business class lounge access.
BA business London to Greece / Spain / Croatia / Turkey for £106 o/w!
Not sure if it’s a sale or error fare, but British Airways has released some great Club Europe fares from London Gatwick to the Spanish / Greek islands and other destinations. The snag is it’s for one-way only.
To start with, check out BA’s low price finder here, which gives you an idea which destinations are included.
- Dubrovnik £109
- Dalaman £123
- Menorca £100
- Ibiza £118
- Corfu £106
- Kos £118
- Rhodes £113
- Santorini £118
- Sardina £114
- Thessaloniki £111
Destinations include Greece, Spain, Turkey and Croatia, and the available dates are in the last week of October and sometimes the first week of November. The common ground is, these routes are all gonna pause in November which kind of explains the exceptional fare.
Here are a couple of examples via Skyscanner:
Dalaman and the Greek destinations will earn you 80 Tier points, and it’s 40 otherwise.
If you price up a return ticket it’s gonna be much more expensive, so make sure you have an alternative way coming back!
British Airways’ (another) IT Meltdown and my nightmare at Heathrow T5
I count myself lucky as a frequent traveller and flyer. Over more than one decade of zealous flying around the world and I’ve only experienced one severe delay in 2018 when I was due to fly from Frankfurt to Doha with Royal Jordanian – the flight was cancelled and I was rebooked to Qatar Airways’ Qsuite the next day, so it was sort of a win for me in the end. Thanks to BA my lucky streak has come to and end.
To give you some context: I bought a Finnair business class ticket during their “flash sale” earlier this year, and was going to fly CDG-HEL-JFK on Friday. I bought a separate BA ticket on Thursday to connect to Paris from Heathrow.
T5 was not busy at all and it took no time before I arrived at the Galleries North Lounge two hours before my departure. Having scanned my boarding pass, the agent just kept stared at the screen. While I was getting puzzled, he finally got back to me, saying that my flight’s cancelled and I needed to visit the customer desk at gate A10!
I wasn’t expecting it at all, as the flight was still shown as normal in BA’s app. I didn’t want to waste any time though so went straight to gate A10 as instructed, only to be told by another agent to go to A21 instead and there was no further explanation.
Again, at A21 there’s no signage or staff but a big queue. Someone from the queue told me they all had cancellations, and they were told to exit the airport via here and seek help. I joined the queue.
The line was barely moving. After about 20 minutes one BA staff finally realised what’s going on, and shouted that we could just go out by ourselves without the need to queue. I followed the crowd, went downstairs and proceeded to exit.
As you might have expected, exiting the airport meant immigration and thus border control. One can only imagine how bad the queues (this time for real) were – some were victims like me, others were arriving passengers who had no clue why there were suddenly an influx of desperate people!
Then I arrived at the baggage claim area, still had not the faintest idea what was happening. Some people were lining up in front of BA’s baggage desk so I did it as well, but they were just as clueless as me. Suddenly a few people wearing BA’s uniform turned up and I clutched at a straw, hoping to figure out what was going on.
From their language, as well as some fragmented information I’d gathered from different conversations, I finally had some picture: BA’s having yet another major IT meltdown. All short-haul flights (at least 50 / 60) that evening were cancelled. They couldn’t track any check-in baggage either, arriving or departing, and all passengers were advised to leave the airport and wait for further notices.
A lady next to me was very emotional – she flew in from US and was connecting to Geneva. She’s now trapped in London without her luggage. Luckily I didn’t have any check-in baggage, but I must get over to Paris!!
Knowing that BA’s not a safe bet I tried to make other travel arrangement. Unfortunately according to Skyscanner and Eurostar no flight or train could possibly bring me to Paris in time. I phoned Finnair to see if there’s anything they could do, but as it would be a voluntary change fees were extortionate.
Back to the departure hall I decided to have another go, and more than two hours have passed already. A lady at the Club Europe check-in desk listened to my story and called the ticketing team to see if they could help. However it never went through, and according to her as the IT system was down the ticketing team wouldn’t be able to rebook anyway.
Given the situation and the futile efforts that I’d already made, I came to terms with my fate and just went home. The next morning I called BA’s Silver line, only to be told they couldn’t offer anything beyond rebooking or cancelling my flight to Paris, as the Finnair flight wasn’t booked on BA’s website. My only option at this point was to abandon my trip.
British Airways’ incompetence has struck me hard this time, and I’m feeling a bit disgusted. The whole incident was a joke and total chaos, and you’d think that BA would have learnt better after the numerous similar incidents they’ve had in recent years. I was given little and false information from the very beginning, and no one from BA actively offered information or help. Passengers, and in this case also victims, shouldn’t be left alone to deal with such ordeal.
It is at least the third time in the last four years or so that BA has a major IT meltdown. I remember very clearly that I had a near-miss last time as my trip was off by a day or two. BA offered status extension to all affected passengers and I regretted having missed out on the opportunity – well I jinxed myself…
From what I understand, I have the following recourses:
- I can claim £220 statutory compensation from BA thanks to EC261
- I will submit a complaint to BA and see if they offer anything extra
- Amex Platinum’s travel insurance will cover all my non-refundable expenses, as the flight was delayed for more than 12 hours (6 hours if trip is shorter than 5 days)
I will report back if there’s progress.