Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022 – Day 2 – London (LHR) to New York (JFK)

So not an auspicious start for my new passport. I’ll persevere with it and ultimately I am not sure what I can actually do about these problems at the T5 automated kiosks.

Headed upstairs to The First Wing and saw another long queue for security. So today I decided to do something different so I walked over to Fastrack South Security. I wanted to see whether that would be any better.

It wasn’t. To be honest, I think I may have been better staying where I was and sucking up the long queue at TFW. There you go – worth trying these things from time to time.

So security was painfully slow. I ignored the “security” barcode scanner, which is misleading to say the least. After all, it’s just an opportunity to (potentially illegally) capturing marketing info without asking permission.

Through Millionaire’s Door and into the CCR. Managed to find some seats with access to a power socket. So I could charge my laptop ahead of my next flight. I’d managed to get my mobile up to 60% on the Budapest flight.

My flight to JFK left from Gate B48, so after updating the blog, I headed down there via the Transit Walkway. I got there 45 mins before the departure time and not a lot was happening. Very few passengers loitering around the gate entrance, so took up a strategically good position and waited patiently.

About 10 mins later we started boarding and other than a 5 min wait in the jet bridge, I was on into seat 01A in pretty good time.

Once on board, I was quickly invited to order a drink and the normal bits and bobs. I noticed that the seat next to me (2E) was broken – it was stuck in a lie-down position. So no one will be in that seat for today’s flight! An engineer did come on board whilst boarding was going on to see whether he could fix it, but to no avail.

Delayed in pushing back by an issue with the tug apparently. That put us back 30 mins. Expected to be a few mins behind schedule when we arrived into New York.

The menu looked amazing. Beef Wellington as a starter; pie for main; bread and butter pudding as a pudding. Wow!

Amuse bouche was fine – nothing outstanding. The starter of a cold beef wellington was beautiful. The pie was very tasty alongside the mash and extra veg that came with it. The bread and butter pudding had custard with it. I prefer my custard on the side, but it was still pretty delicious.

I started watching Brad Pitt in Bullett Train but it didn’t really grab me, so I watched Top Gunn Maverick instead which was amazing.

After a snooze I was offered a pot of tea and whilst I was waiting for that I checked into my room at the Hilton LAX. Got an upgrade to a king superior one bed suite – room 1682.

Even the BA menu for the light snack as a second meal was really impressive. I started with a chicken caesar salad which was ok – nothing stand out about it, then came a chicken katsu burger which was lovely and finally came an outstanding lemon meringue with raspberries. Overall, I think this must have been the best meal service I have ever enjoyed onboard a BA flight.

We were due to arrive into Gate 5 of T7 at JFK. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long for the jetty to be attached and then I’d have to see how my Global Entry fares with my new passport!

At 20 mins out it was clear that it was overcast. In fact I couldn’t see anything out of the window other than cloud. It was apparently chilly in NY as well.

We arrived into Gate 5 and we were about on time until the Captain advised that he had been told he needed a tug to tow the aircraft the final 20 feet on to the stand. The tug we ended up with was currently pushing an Iberia flight out on the stand next to us.

Once the tug became available about 10-15 mins later it ambled over to us and then pulled us onto our stand. That took a further 10+ mins and our BA rep in control of the jet bridge couldn’t get it to move towards door 2L. As a result the aircraft had to be pushed back a bit to make it easier for the jetbridge to be attached to door 1L. What a fiasco. 45 mins later, the door was finally opened and we were on our way.

Global Entry didn’t work out that well. I took my picture and waited to be prompted to put my passport in. Before I had a chance I got a receipt and was told to report to Passport Control. So it ended up with a manual check.

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022