BA J v Y - Points or Pay

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laffer

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Aug 21, 2008
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Hi All.

Perspectives - please.

SYD to SIN.

For a Y ticket, BA is coming up $700 cheaper than SQ and Emirates. About $350 cheaper than QF.

It is not a long flight and although BA is not great for $350 the difference between QF and BA is too great for me to hang with QF.

But i can pick up a J reward for 65,000 points on BA. I am not keen to spend the points but would rather keep the cash on me at the moment. Would you spend 65k QFF points for a BA J reward to SIN? Thoughts?
 
BA J isn't anything special. Having said that, if you've not flown J before, its a good place to start. Any J is always MUCH better than Y.
 
Hi All.

Perspectives - please.

SYD to SIN.

For a Y ticket, BA is coming up $700 cheaper than SQ and Emirates. About $350 cheaper than QF.

It is not a long flight and although BA is not great for $350 the difference between QF and BA is too great for me to hang with QF.

But i can pick up a J reward for 65,000 points on BA. I am not keen to spend the points but would rather keep the cash on me at the moment. Would you spend 65k QFF points for a BA J reward to SIN? Thoughts?

Are you looking at one way or return prices? If one way, try checking return to see if QF is more in the ball park. Just throw away the unused portion of your ticket.

It's an expensive use of points, plus the hefty fuel surcharge you'll have to pay. If you can suck it up for a few hours in economy you'll probably be fine.
 
In my eyes (and I had the displeasure of flying BA a lot over the past few years because I was based in bloody London for a while), every class on BA is similar to a class lower on many better airlines. So, BA F is about what you get on J class elsewhere (actually worse in many aspects) and J is a good premium Economy, albeit with a flat seat (that is really uncomfortable and, if you're unlucky, faces backwards which is simply awful), food in some premium Economies is better than on J BA from experience. As you can imagine, their Y class is rock bottom terrible.

Saying that- on this short route, I'd just pay for Y, put my headphones in or swallow a Stilnox and make peace with the fact that BA tends to at least be safe, if not comfortable or having good service.
 
...albeit with a flat seat (that is really uncomfortable and, if you're unlucky, faces backwards which is simply awful), food in some premium Economies is better than on J BA from experience. .

I guess YMMV :)

I find the backward facing seats to be far superior... in flat bed mode your head is still slightly raised due to the nose-up attitude of the aircraft, which I prefer to my feet being above my head. From a safety perspective, give me rear facing any day... much much safer! And the privacy of the rear-facing bulkhead seats can't be beat... and with OWR status or above you have a fairly good chance of snagging one of those seats for free 7 days prior to departure. The rear facing middle seats are also good if you can snag an empty pair for solo use.. makes it in to a private mini cabin almost equivalent to SQ suites. And for those of us very tall, you can spread out over the second seat in bed mode.
 
So, BA F is about what you get on J class elsewhere (actually worse in many aspects) and J is a good premium Economy, albeit with a flat seat (that is really uncomfortable and, if you're unlucky, faces backwards which is simply awful), food in some premium Economies is better than on J BA from experience.

You probably fly an awful lot more than I but in my limited experience I have found BA F, 777, 787, 747 and A380 to be better than J on:

CX
EY
EK
QF
VA
AA
DL
UL
JL
MH
LA

I also have found the BA J seat to be very comfortable for sleeping and agree with MEL_Traveller the window seats are very private. The experience has not been even remotely like premium economy for me.
 
I also have found the BA J seat to be very comfortable for sleeping and agree with MEL_Traveller the window seats are very private.
Funny how different peoples' opinions are! I'm all fine with that, however the 'private' thing really puzzles me: I find nothing worse than those middle partitions on BA J class where you always are forced to stare into a tired/drunk/weird strangers face whenever the crew puts them down to, let's say, hand you your desert. Some crew members manage to hand stuff OVER the aisle seat (which I imagine must be awful for the person sitting there...) but they are far and few in between from experience. I don't know, but I find this the very opposite of 'private'. Maybe I've always been in the wrong seat? Been flying mostly A380 and 787 and almost always in window seats because that's generally my preference but I always hated that J hard product on both of these aircraft. And I find it usually pretty hard to hate either the A380 or the Dreamliner.
 
If any of those flights are overnight, I'd definitely go for J class. Eat in the lounge. Sleep as soon as you can once on the plane
 
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