Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2021: Day 2 – London LHR to New York JFK

By Nige on Fri 12 Nov 2021 at 17:15
Type: Post
Story: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2021
Tags: British Airways | JFK | LHR | London | New York | Trips | USA

The CCR was very quiet.  I had just short of 2 hours before my flight to New York.  My Starbucks was really satisfying and I caught up with the Vickster who had been partying in my absence.

Flight: BA0115 Equip: 777-200
Sched Depart: 14:00 Actual: 14:02
Sched Arrival: 17:10 Actual: 17:00
Takeoff: 14:26 Landing: 16:45

After writing up my notes for the blog, I checked on gate info and noticed that my flight was leaving from Gate B44, so I headed down there via the Transit Walkway.  There were very few passengers waiting at the gate, so I loitered close by.  Boarding commenced almost immediately although I waited for a few passengers to go ahead of me – I wasn’t quite sure whether the announcement was for the first 3 rows or first 3 groups!

Into seat 7A which must be one of the best seats in the house.  It’s the new Club World suite with a closing door and the closest seat to door 2L, which I imagined would be the door that we use to deplane on arrival at JFK.

The new Club World suite is fairly cramped but also impressive for BA.  For example, there is a load of storage space and the screen is a fair bit bigger.  However, the entertainment system is the same one as before, so it’s still fairly sluggish.

I was offered a glass of champagne; it was obviously not LPGS, but it was nice enough.  A bottle of cold water was offered to me soon after.  I knew that I would need that later on.  There was no food menu – just a description of the meals to choose from, provided by the cabin crew.

There was nothing on the movie list that I fancied which was disappointing.  Good that I had preloaded all of Bosch Season 3!  So, I started watching that from episode 2.

I chose the lamb hotpot for lunch (there were two other choices).  Pretty decent overall and the champagne kept flowing.

After 3 episodes of Bosch, I decided to get some rest.  The bed wasn’t that comfy and I forgot to get the ear plugs out, so consequently I didn’t really get that much sleep.  I must have dozed for about an hour before waking and watching a few more episodes.  That just left two more to complete season 3.

A bit later on, I chose Welsh Rarebit as my afternoon tea, which was a bit overlooked at the edges.  It came with a bag of crisps and a mousse sweet,

With the flight taking just over 7 hours, I was happy when we finally landed at JFK.  After a relatively short taxi, we arrived into Terminal 7, Gate 6 a few minutes early.

I was wrong about the deplaning door – it ended up being door 1L, so first-class passengers left ahead of business class passengers.  After some challenging overtakes, I was second into the Global Entry kiosks.  Unfortunately, I had a problem with mine with the machine reporting a “system error”, rather than anything meaningful.  I think that was due to me now wearing glasses!

Anyway, I was pushed to a manual check with border control and he took me through the normal procedure.  He asked me to remove my glasses, which I hadn’t considered.  All was fine in the end and I was soon on my way.  It wasn’t busy in the baggage reclaim area – in fact it was pretty quiet in T7 overall.

I whizzed out of T7 and onto the Air Train to Federal Circle, where I waited for the Hilton shuttle bus.  I was going to cadge a lift with the Hampton Inn shuttle bus driver – the Hampton Inn is next to the Hilton, but the Hilton shuttle arrived after about 10 mins.

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2021