British Air: premium coach vs business
 

We will be using frequent flier miles to fly to Oslo spring 2006. I am planning on calling for reservations a year in advance. My question is: is anyone familiar with the differences, in leg room primarily, between premium coach and business? We will need to purchase more miles to get to business and am wondering if it is worth the money. Thanks!

Business class on BA from the US to London gets you a lot more leg room than does World Traveler Plus (premium economy). Also, most significantly, the business seat turns into a fully horizontal flat bed, probably the best business-class bed in the industry. Hip room and shoulder room are about the same (maybe even better in WT+ than in business).

For the London-Oslo leg you'll be in a 737 or equivalent, and the difference between economy and business isn't worth the proverbial bucket of warm spit. So, if you can avoid laying out extra money or scrip for upgrading on that leg, do so.

Business and Premium Economy are different worlds. BA haven't quite finished refurbishing all their planes, but in Club World on all flights from New York - and I think all flights from bigger US cities, though not yet all - you get a fully reclinable bed. You get fast tracked through UK immigration, proper food on propery crockery (though still with plastic cutlery), unlimited decent booze, seriously better inflight entertainment (though I've never understood what's wrong with a couple of decent novels). And I understand, though it didn't seem to be on offer last time I went Club World (which I can rarely afford to), you get an arrivals lounge at Heathrow with suit pressing, adequate breakfast and SHOWERS.

Most of all, eastbound, you get civilised treatment at check-in. Which is not how most people describe the queues in common as muck class at Terminal 4. You get fast-tracked through LHR security. And BA does give good lounge.

BA Club World comes close to transforming longer flights into something that could be mistaken for pleasant. Above all, the terminal experience is - well, a lot less terminal.

Thanks ! That's the kind of information that I needed. We will be flying out of Seattle, so perhaps the planes have been upgraded. Hopefully there will be some ff seats available in business !

I have done both and Business Class is many times better. In addition to better food and a much more comfy flight, you can use the lounge in the airport. The lounge in London offers snacks, drinks (both alcoholic and not) and showers all for free. You will not have the use of the lounge with premium economy, nor will you get the better food on the plane. At this point I thought they had upgraded all planes, but BA can answer that.

Have just used all three on a trip from BWI to Heathrow and then Johannesburg. Business is worth it if you want the flat bed and use of the lounge ..both great..although I am not sure Iwould pay for them.
We found the premium economy to be much better than coach. So much more leg room.
I do not find the food in business class to be better than coach and you get free booze anyway.
The only time we ever fly business is when we are using miles and only then on very long flights. I also do not see much difference between business and first class. Both of these offer fast track through the airport, which is certainly a nice plus.

Yes the BA SEA-LHR flights in NCW have the beds. Book your tickets early - NCW can run surprisingly full (thanks MS and Boeing.)

While the schedules are subject to change, you might note that there's an OSL connection from T4 at Heathrow that's only an hour and a quarter or so later than the Seattle flight's arrival. So your use of the BA lounge facilities at LHR would be curtailed. I'd try to book the later OSL departure, which gives you more time to decompress.

I'm presuming your miles are in Alaska Airlines' FFP. If they're not, or they're more flexible, you also might look into SAS' nonstop to Copenhagen, then quick hop to OSL. No flat beds in biz (but pretty good deep recline seats) and also a premium coach product.

I don't know Alaska Airline's rules, but if you are using BA's FF miles for an award ticket, do NOT use a partner airline for any of the segments. If you use a partner, BA will not allow you to make any date changes or get your points back if you should cancel your trip. However, if all your flight segments are on BA, the dates are changeable subject to award availability and the points can be re-instated if you should cancel your trip.

If your points are with BA, you also have the option of buying a ticket and then upgrading with points to the next class (for half the number of points needed to book a ticket only using points). This is a great deal if you pay for a World Traveller Plus ticket (about $1200-1500 Cdn) and then upgrade with points to NCW; in effect, you're getting a $6000 ticket for $1200-1500 plus points. Upgrading an Economy ticket to WT+ isn't such a good use of points. In that case, you're getting a $1200-1500 plane ticket for $600-800 plus points.

If you have difficulty finding business class seats from Seattle, don't forget to check Vancouver-LHR (or San Francisco or LA, depending on where you live).

You might also check out the possibility of booking NCW on the way to London (so that you can sleep) and booking WT+ for the trip home (likely to be a daylight flight so you'll be sitting up anyway).

Thanks for all of the comments. My miles are with Alaska, and I will be short about 20,000 miles for business when I book the flight. I am planning on buying more miles if business is available. It is $25 for 1000 miles. Anyone have any experience trying to do this? I usually buy travelers insurance for big trips like this....how does travel insurance when using ff miles?

If you're planning for spring 2006 then you won't be able to book seats until 11 months (330 days precisely) before your travel dates, so you have something like 60 days from now before you'd need to take the plunge. You might want to think about ways to use your mileage-earning credit cards or something similar in the meantime before shelling out $500 or so for purchased miles. Open a new AS-branded credit card, say, for a quick 10,000 or 15,000 miles; pay your taxes with your credit card, pay monthly bills with a credit card, etc. etc. Most FFers value their miles at roughly $.015 each, so paying AS $.025 each is going backward. Granted, premium longhaul tickets are by far the best use of miles, so I'm not saying you shouldn't resort to buying them if all else fails, but I'd seriously try to get the mileage balance up as far as I could before the day of reckoning.

Visit www.flyertalk.com, where there are various talkboards regarding how to amass miles in various programs, hints on optimal use of miles, deals, insider chat, all that. Very useful for folks in your situation.

Thanks for the tip on the site. I must say, I have a nick name that isn't appropriate to post to this website, but it refers to me getting every ff mile possible. We pay all of our bills on our Alaska credit card, do any promotions such as dining, hotels etc. This site will help though, thanks !