British Airways Club Europe Review - Heathrow to Budapest - BA864

This was the first flight of my six fights in 72 hours, an all points odyssey. It would be fair to say that I was a little bit nervous coming into this, I didn't have a huge amount of leeway in case something went wrong. Reassuringly, the weather was on my side with a glorious English summers day. I will fight anyone who says winter is supreme.

A great day for flying

How did I book?

I booked this flight with Avios on the British Airways website, using 17,250 Avios for a one way peak fare in Club Europe. Club Europe is British Airways' short haul business class. On top of the Avios used, I had to pay a small amount in taxes, £29.50 to be exact, which I put on my American Express Platinum card as I'm currently working towards hitting the sign up bonus that results in 100,000 American Express Membership Rewards points, which can then be transferred to Avios or Virgin Points amongst a few other airlines on offer.

Pre-flight experience

This flight was one of the few that British Airways operate out of Terminal 3. That may come as a surprise to some, Terminal 5 is "The Home of British Airways". But don't feel like this is some sort of downgrade, in fact, I would say it's better. Whilst Terminal 3 may be feeling a bit cramped in the main concourse, what your British Airways Club Europe ticket gets you is not just access to the British Airways lounge, but also the American Airlines, Qantas, and Cathay Pacific lounges. I utilised the British Airways lounge first, before making my way over to the Cathay Pacific lounge, I'll let you take a guess as to which of those was better. I'll have full reviews for those lounges in the coming weeks, so make sure you subscribe to our free emails so you don't miss those.

I was travelling with hand luggage only, so I went to check in using the BA app, but to no avail.

BA's IT is woeful

BA's IT is renowned for being terrible, I know this, yet it's woefully frustrating each time it occurs. 

The gate was announced on time at 4:10pm for a scheduled 4:50pm departure. The usual scrum of people formed in the gate (side note, why are these areas always so uncomfortably small?), and boarding commenced at 4:33pm, starting with young families and those that need special assistance, followed by groups in numerical order. Being in Club Europe I was one of the first to head down the jet bridge, only to be held on the jet bridge. I know why the airlines do this, so they can be as efficient as possible so that passengers are boarded the instant the plane is ready, yet is is incredibly frustrating to be consistently herded like cattle.

#boardingnotboarding

So, the flight?

After a few minutes we were then let onto the plane. For those who don't know, within Europe business class is operated in a 2-2 configuration, using the normal economy style seats, but with the middle seat blocked out. That being said, it does make for a more comfortable experience without that extra person in the middle.

My seat for the day, 3F

What you will notice is the tray table fixed in between the armrests of the middle seat. This is helpful as it means you do not need your tray table down if you just have a drink, or it allows you to work in front of you, and put your phone on the middle seat tray.

Now, I'm not usually the one out of the two of us to pick up on cleanliness. To have an aircraft perfectly spotless is a hard task, with the turnaround time given to crew not enough to deep clean the plane each time. But, even by my more lax standards, the area around my seat was filthy.

Unclean tray table

Brown goop

Unidentified green goo

Smeared window

Grubby tray table, unidentified green substance in the literature storage, brown goop to the bottom left of the storage, and a Vaseline like coating giving the window a soft focus.

Ignoring all that, I settled in for the flight, as the captain came over the tannoy with the inevitable air traffic control delay. Only 25 minutes, a relatively good amount of delay for a late afternoon flight. The captain was true to his word, and at exactly 5:15pm we pushed back. We were in the air by 5:29pm departing to the west, before making a turn to the south east heading towards Budapest.

Full WiFi was available onboard if you wished to pay for it, or messaging was available to all members of the British Airways Club. This was a text only service, photos within messages would not download or send.

British Airways short haul WiFi options

I paid for an hours worth of WiFi to do some work, and test the WiFi speed, which was predictably slow. Barely fast enough for basic doomscrolling.

Too slow for most

One of the benefits of flying Club Europe is a complimentary meal and drinks service. I’ve flown Club Europe maybe a dozen times, and I would say its 50/50 whether you get a menu for the flight. It’s a nice touch when the menu is left at your seat prior to embarkation (its something the Middle Eastern airlines manage in economy) as it gives you that sense of anticipation for the most enjoyable element. Unfortunately, this was not one of those flights. The crew to their credit were excellent on this flight, with three members serving a nine row club cabin. Flights on BA can be a bit hit or miss when it comes to the crew, but a great crew can really make up for a filthy cabin…

The crew came round fifteen minutes after departure with a round of pre-dinner drinks. The Champagne on offer today was Castelnau Brut, but I went with a drink you can’t get on the ground, a can of the BA Speedbird OG IPA produced by Brewdog, named in homage of the British Airways callsign. If you think Punk IPA is too strong a drink for you, then Speedbird is a more akin to a lighter pilsner, but with a strong tropical note. I also asked for a glass of still water, because you’ve got to stay hydrated folks! This was served with a bag of salted rosemary snack mix.

Pre dinner drinks and snack

The meal service was brought round with the option of “butter chicken” or “creamy asparagus pasta”, I chose the pasta, not an option I would usually go for, but I was not disappointed.

"Caesar salad", creamy asparagus pasta, chocolate mouse, cheese and cracks, and olive bread

Served alongside the pasta was a starter of salad, an egg, broccoli, with a Caesar dressing… I don’t think this is something I’d be serving at my next summer BBQ. There was a chocolate mousse, emblazoned with British Airways caterer DO&CO, and a portion of cheese with a blue, double Gloucester, and a serving of chutney. With the meal the crew offered a choice of two warm breads, plain or olive. I went with the olive, easy choice.

The pasta was a tad dry on the parts not covered in sauce, caused by the reheating onboard the plane. But the dish itself was flavourful, with only a little bit of salt and pepper needed to bring it to my tastes. The olive bread was perfect for mopping up the remnants of the sauce. The cheese plate was fine (?), and the chocolate mousse was soft, but a tad sweet, you wouldn’t have wanted much more!

The tray was cleared a couple of minutes after finishing, swift enough to be considered good service, not over-zealous, with the crew striking that good balance. The crew were proactively keeping everyone’s drinks topped up, with the champagne flowing all the way up to 20 minutes before landing. And with that, we started our descent into Budapest.

Flying over the Danube

For all that you can mock BA Club Europe for, a crew such as this, with nice food onboard, really gives the flight a sense of occasion, with the time quite literally flying by. I hope that if you fly BA Club Europe that you aren’t disappointed. If you are lucky enough to be fly Club then my recommendations would be to not pay over the odds, and keep your expectations in check, as sad as that may sound.

Sam

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