First-World Problems.

[Mr Larrington]

Some places have a special lounge to keep proper First Class free from the off-the-peg salarymen that have scrambled into business class. Last year, travelling on a business ticket, I took the wrong corridor from the lounge reception to frantic cries of 'sir, sir, SIR!' I'll confess I ran and hid in the first class lounge toilet until it was safe for to come out and get cracking on the champagne. Eating from a buffet is so proletarian. They have table-service in First and everyone calls you 'sir.' It's a world where a Viscount isn't just a biscuit.

USAnians all call your "Sir" though.  Picture if you will a long-haired wildly-bearded scruffbag driving the world's dirtiest rental car through a Border Patrol checkpoint in southwest Texas.  He looks as though he has just swum the Rio Grande and then marched seven leagues across the desert.  The Border Patrol agents do not stick the barrels of their Mortalistastic Kill-o-Matics up his nose and demand to see his papers, no, they call him "Sir" and that was even before they'd seen my passport.  I like to think that it was the air of effortless superiority I naturally exude as a BRITON but I suspect that they do this to everyone, right up until they find your surname is "Garcia".

[Dibdib]

Oh, it's rumoured there's a lounge for those elevated above and beyond the usual choirs of traveller. Those of God-like status like Bono and Tony Blair hang out there being served canapes by supermodels while bathing in warmed Bollinger. The only way in is through a hidden door in terminal 5. I could tell you where it is, but then I'd have to kill you.

I think they had the VIP lounge on that Airline TV show, years back. With the obligatory well-spoken posho staff, not that Jeremy Wotsisname bloke.

[CAMRAMan]

I have sat on my bag of Sainsburys Assorted Toffees and now the wrappers are very hard to remove.

[Wowbagger]

I have sat on my bag of Sainsburys Assorted Toffees and now the wrappers are very hard to remove.

Where did they end up? 

[Oaky]

http://vegadventure.weebly.com/

British Airways started using the above website as promotion, and releasing press releases linking back to the blog. Basically some "random" guy decides to fly some pointless convoluted route for 45 hrs to get Gold Status. Gold status means you get to use the first class lounge and hammer the free booze. On the blog he shows his Gold Status card which is valid for 2 years. For most people, Gold statuses have to renew from year to year, and BA are normally very strict, miss the quota, and you lose your status. So some "freeloader" getting a guaranteed 2 years has upset quite a few business travellers.

There are more than a few PAs being told to draft angry emails to BA right now to complain about the inequity in the system right now.

As I understand it, when you achieve Gold status (or Silver for that matter), you have that status for the rest of your membership year, and will keep the status for the following year too.  you'll only drop a tier if you fail to collect enough points in that second year.  Unless it works differently for Gold than Silver.  My Silver card, for example is valid until April 2016.  When my Gold card arrives, I'm assuming that will be the same.

If he got his Gold status very soon after joining the program (or very soon after the start of his membership year) then he'd therefore have a gold card expiring about two years hence.

[CAMRAMan]

I have sat on my bag of Sainsburys Assorted Toffees and now the wrappers are very hard to remove.

Where did they end up? 

Still in their bag
The liquorice ones are soft to start with and now look like those old penny shaped ones you get in Quality Street, only wrinklier.

[PaulF]

It's exact as Oaky said. One  year I renewed my Gold card within a month of getting it so it lasted for almost 2 years

[ian]

It's exact as Oaky said. One  year I renewed my Gold card within a month of getting it so it lasted for almost 2 years

I meant to say that too, every frequent flyer programme I've been on is the same. I'm not sure what was so unreasonable about this chap. He seems to got his points by, erm, flying. Which I think is the point. But like I say, some of these status-obsessed dicks would turn up in Heaven and complain (a) that there isn't their priority entry lane and (b) that the people in economy hit the ground first.

I'm not sure BA will be using any of my posts as marketing material.

[matthew]

Hot water failure at the office...

cold shower after the ride in. Brrr

[TimC]

I'm pretty sure when I was doing some work for the CAA at Gatwick one of the check in desks said "upper class". I wondered if you had to show a documented ancestry going back to some Norman chancer to use it.

Probably for RyanAir - you get to sit on the roof.

Upper Class is ours. No riff-raff allowed. Except to LA.

[ian]

I'm pretty sure when I was doing some work for the CAA at Gatwick one of the check in desks said "upper class". I wondered if you had to show a documented ancestry going back to some Norman chancer to use it.

Probably for RyanAir - you get to sit on the roof.

Upper Class is ours. No riff-raff allowed. Except to LA.

Cough.

[TimC]

Ok, not many riff-raff. And only a few x-listers. And a smattering of random upgrades.

[ian]

I was freeloading. Of course. Nothing to do with the fact that my wife plays in an orchestra with your cabin services director (or whatever her rarified job title is) and our neighbours were you senior cabin crew trainers (well, they still are, they're just not our neighbours). I think they saw me at check-in and thought, hey, he's the kind of cool guy that epitomises our Upper Class travel philosophy.

It only happened once. I think I'm on a list now.

[TimC]

Yep, seen your name on The List. That Ian, it says, is not to be allowed near the front of a Virgin plane even if he's on a lead.

PS. It's FSM. CSD is a Birdseed thing.

[spesh]

Yep, seen your name on The List. That Ian, it says, is not to be allowed near the front of a Virgin plane even if he's on a lead.

PS. It's FSM. CSD is a Birdseed thing.

You have the FSM on your payroll? 

Fly Virgin Atlantic and touched by His Noodly Appendage...

[Mrs Pingu]

As I was having a shit day at work I went to the vending machine to buy a Galaxy Caramel of happiness.
Sadly the machine had been reshuffled and it was only as the bar dropped out of the rack that I noticed that it was a bog std Galaxy solid chocolate bar in the place where the caramel bars usually nestle.
Time seemed to stand still as I noticed


Just


As



The



Bar



Dropped



Noooooooo!

[TimC]

Yep, seen your name on The List. That Ian, it says, is not to be allowed near the front of a Virgin plane even if he's on a lead.

PS. It's FSM. CSD is a Birdseed thing.

You have the FSM on your payroll? 

Fly Virgin Atlantic and touched by His Noodly Appendage...

You should know by now that Richard is the Deity, and the FSMs (there are 800 of them) are simply His Prophets.

[tiermat]

The office fridge is out of KitKats*!!!!

*One of the, very limited, perks of working here is that the company supplies fresh fruit daily, and KitKats (oh and mediocre, but still drinkable coffee)

[ian]

Yep, seen your name on The List. That Ian, it says, is not to be allowed near the front of a Virgin plane even if he's on a lead.

PS. It's FSM. CSD is a Birdseed thing.

Thinking about it, I've probably demoted her through the process of managerial inflation (everyone aboard the mothership these days is a director, even the person who empties the dishwasher). I think she's the grand overlord who, when you'd much rather be in X, has decided you'll be in Y.

Getting upgrades used to be easy. All you needed were clean pants, a shave, and a smile (I'm not convinced about the former, but why take the chance). Nowadays, I reckon even RB would get bounced. Nobody wants a hobo beard in first class. I think my crappiest upgrade of late was when I wangled one on BA because they cancelled my direct flight to Phoenix and the only option was to go via IAD. Sure, said I, to the phone drone, but you can bump me up to First. He made a kind of ahhh-ahhhh-at-cha-cha noise and had to refer to his supervisor, who had to refer to his supervisor, and up the rungs of the pointless management ladder we climbed till someone begrudgingly agreed that yes, they supposed they could upgrade me. He sounded like he was agreeing to let me pull out his teeth, but I didn't care. Crowned with victory I did a celebratory lap of the terminal and presented myself to the gate. Stand in line you little plebs, because fast-track boarding here I come.

I don't know if they did it on purpose just to get me back for waking up the BA Senior Vice President Director of Awkward Customer Flight Rearrangement Services, but I swear they called the Bermuda Triangle and flew in a plane direct from 1972. I worked that out from the in-flight entertainment selection (of which they'd discarded the 'selection' component). Mind you, they'd perfectly replicated the experience of flying US domestic. Of course, we were late into IAD so I had a night at the Hilton for my troubles and then finally two days later I got to Phoenix. At some point over the midwest my bags evidently divorced me and moved to Denver.

[LEE]

As I was having a shit day at work I went to the vending machine to buy a Galaxy Caramel of happiness.

Was there a time gap between these 2 events?

[red marley]

#bendgate

Stop wearing skinny jeans and get a sense of perspective!

[TimC]

Yep, seen your name on The List. That Ian, it says, is not to be allowed near the front of a Virgin plane even if he's on a lead.

PS. It's FSM. CSD is a Birdseed thing.

<Description of a typical Birdseed customer experience, capped with: At some point over the midwest my bags evidently divorced me and moved to Denver.>

[spesh]

#bendgate

Stop wearing skinny jeans and get a sense of perspective!

Or perhaps people could ask themselves whether they actually need to upgrade to the latest piece of shiny from the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation Of Cupertino, USAnia^©...


^© Copyright Mr Larrington.

[rafletcher]

#bendgate

Stop wearing skinny jeans and get a sense of perspective!

Or perhaps people could ask themselves whether they actually need to upgrade to the latest piece of shiny from the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation Of Cupertino, USAnia^©...


^© Copyright Mr Larrington.

Funny isn't it. A few folks bend an iPhone (stupidly IMO) and it's global news - but plenty have done similar to various similarly proportioned android handsets and nary a whisper about it.

[ian]

#bendgate

Stop wearing skinny jeans and get a sense of perspective!

Who knew that applying a lot of pressure to a long thin object might bend or break it. In other news, TVs prove not to be resistant to hammers.