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LONDON HEATHROW
I took the frickin’ H3 bus back to Heathrow in mad traffic. Because I was waitlisted for the 9:55am flight and confirmed for the 4:30pm flight, I went directly to the British Airways customer service desk. It was 7:30am and the agents looked up my record. There, they saw the note that my friend (who is the U.S.-based press agent for British Airways and who I had emailed the night before) had put in for me: a request to take care of me by allowing me to use the lounge and a possible one-class upgrade. Since the plane was sold out in economy, I had to wait around the check-in hall until 9am to see if I would get on ... which meant I couldn’t use the lounge.

UPGRADED!
Instead, I grabbed myself an English breakfast. At 9:25am they started handing out seats to the 10 standby passengers. A friendly Spanish couple who I got talking with, had been waiting for three days on standby and were given seats 28F and 28G (world traveler plus – extra legroom). Then, with my eagle eyes, I saw my ticket come out of the printer. I couldn’t believe that it read 63A. I thought, "You’ve gotta be kidding me! I got up at the crack of dawn, waited all this time to get a seat at the very back of the plane?" I told the agent in a sad but polite voice that I’d just wait for my confirmed flight later in the day since then I’d have an emergency exit row seat with plenty of legroom. She was just about to tear up the ticket in amazement when I muttered, "I was hoping to get an upgrade, not a downgrade." The agent looked at me like I was crazy and said, "That’s what this is. It’s upstairs, not at the back of the plane, dummy!" Well, she didn’t say dummy but she should’ve!

HEATHROW SECURITY
My whole demeanor changed, and I thanked her repeatedly while she checked my luggage. I grabbed the ticket and ran to security with my Spanish friends. It was a long line but took just 10 minutes to clear, even though it was strict. I had to take off shoes, belt, and jacket and pull out my laptop – no liquids rule. Basically it’s the same 3-1-1 rule as in the U.S.

CLUB WORLD BUSINESS CLASS
In my opinion, sitting upstairs on a 747 is the best place to be. It’s like your own private jet as there are only five rows of four seats; two seats on each side of the aisle. The window seats on British Airways face backwards which I’d never seen before but it made sense; this way, you face your seatmate, but there’s a divider if you want privacy. I thought that sitting backwards might make me feel queasy but it didn’t at all. There was plenty of storage space, they lie almost completely flat, and they had a nicely sized entertainment system with six or more movies (not on demand), lame music channels and map tracking. I can’t imagine what the new ones are like. It was a dream and even though my seatmate said these were the old seats, I loved them.

CLUB WORLD SERVICE & FOOD
On top of that, the flight attendants’ service was a 180-degree change from my flight over in economy. The old adage is true: you get what you pay for. The FAs came around with amenity kits, pre–take off drinks, hot towels, more drinks and a two-course meal. Interestingly, for a starter they offered us a choice: Asian crab salad or a Mediterranean meze... this is all I ate in Cyprus! The food was quite tasty. For my entrée, I had the chicken pesto salad and chocolate mousse cake. Then some Hoi Sin Shiitake noodles for a mid-flight snack and an hour before landing, they came around again with a salad, a hot cornish pasty and lemon meringue pie. Traveling in Club World made the 10-hour, 35-minute flight go by too fast.

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