BA to NYC

[Edinburgher]

Righty-ho! Cutting a long story short, one of my and the other half's friends (who clocks up mega frequent traveller points through work) has very kindly offered to use their air miles to pay for flights to NYC for the both of us, by way of a wedding present. Very generous I know.

The flights would be from Edinburgh with BA, and we are likely to be going mid to late Feb next year. My question is this. What would be the prefered route and aircraft type with BA? Having had a quick trawl through their booking system, it appears we can depart via either LHR or MAN, obviously into Newark or JFK. BA seem to fly mostly 744s into JFK and 777s into Newark.

Does anyone have any views on prefered aircraft type and/or route? To make the most of a long weekend over there, we would like to take a fairly early flight out on a Friday (shuttle willing) and a late-ish one back on the following Tuesday.

Oh, and the other half is nearly 6'7", so any advice on legroom would be very much welcome too!

Tah very much...

[Globaliser]

That is indeed very generous. I hope you don't mind a few lateral thoughts about making the most of it.

First, is NYC really where you want to go? It's the same number of miles to anywhere in the US (50,000 per person in economy), so if you'd prefer to try to get to another destination it wouldn't be costing your friend anything more. However, NYC is probably the easiest route on which to redeem miles, so the words "try to" are the operative ones.

Second, which class would you be travelling? I didn't want to just assume economy, seeing as this is a wedding present. But if your friend is "paying" for you to go in Club, then what you should try to get is the upper deck on the 747. That cabin has a wonderful feel about it - about as close to flying in a private jet as any of us are likely to get.

Third, if you would be travelling economy, would your friend splurge to put you in World Traveller Plus? That would be more what a 6'7" person needs - economy would be pretty uncomfortable unless in an exit row seat. I think that WT+ is 1.5 x the miles needed for an economy ticket, so total cost of 150,000 miles for the two of you rather than 100,000. (A Club ticket would be a total of 200,000.)

Finally, if your friend isn't likely to splurge, would you be prepared to put some cash towards the venture? One of the things that I'm thinking about is trying to put together the best value use of your friend's miles. If you were to pay for a WT+ ticket and then use your friend's miles to upgrade, you could do the trip in Club for the expenditure of an additional 50,000 miles (total for two) on top of the cash cost. In the current sale, the cash cost for a WT+ ticket starts from £678.50. That type of deal (£678.50 + 25,000 miles per person for a Club ticket) is generally regarded as the best value use of BA Miles, although obviously doing it like that isn't quite consistent with the concept of a wedding present.

If you go to NYC, where would you be heading for? If Manhattan, then I think that EWR is only slightly less convenient than JFK. This wiki page (http://www.flyertalk.com/wiki/index.php/NYC_Airports_to_Manhattan_Transportation_FAQ) may help with transport options. There's obviously a wider choice of flights to JFK - and obviously a wider choice of flights between EDI and LHR than between EDI and MAN.

[jack_essex]

In your post you actually asked about which aircraft type you would choose to fly on. The first time we flew to New York we flew BA LHR - EWR - JFK - LHR, both on 777's. The second time, Feb this year we flew BA LHR - JFK on a 747 and then JFK - LHR on a 777. World Traveller class for all flights. We found that the 777 flights seemed a lot more spacious and quiet and the cabin seems a lot more modern than the 747's.

At the end of the day you are flying to New York! And if you are not even paying for it does it really matter what aircraft you are flying on? LOL.

[lexxity]

Avoid MAN and go for LHR, just because the aircraft out of LHR are newer and have better in flight entertainment.

[LHR_777]

Avoid MAN and go for LHR, just because the aircraft out of LHR are newer and have better in flight entertainment.

Absolutely not true. The entire BA 767-300ER fleet has recently had a cabin refit and also had new AV installed. A couple of aircraft now also have AVOD, which will be rolling-out across the entire 767 fleet in the very near future. It's a much better IFE system when compared to the 777 fleet and 747 fleet. Also, the interiors (seats/carpets) are much newer.

Note - MAN-JFK is always a 767. LHR-JFK is 747 or 777. LHR-EWR is 767 or 777.