Tier Point Run to San Jose in Nov 2023: Day 2 – London Heathrow LHR to Dublin DUB

The first day of flying is always exciting, especially when there’s a B2B involved and a seat in First Class!

I had set my alarm to 4am, but I was awake around 3:15am. I did some checks on the best way to get to T5 this early in the morning.

There was a shuttle bus that picked up at the hotel, but Hilton didn’t recommend it. It’s run by a third party. From reports, I think it picks up everywhere and takes too long to get to T5.

An Uber would cost me £16. I know that’s not too expensive, but i knew there would be a cheaper option.

The hotel suggested I walk to T4 and then catch the tube from there. At 5am, that doesn’t work that well. Trains only start at 5am, then I would need to change at Hatton Cross.

I ended up walking a mile down the A30 to Hatton Cross and catching the first tube to T5. It’s a well proven approach and I don’t mind the walk early in the morning. It was cool and fresh, but the walk warmed me up.

Hatton Cross tube station was still closed when I got there. I had to wait 5 mins for them to open it up!

The tube was on time and on arrival at T5, I followed the regular T5 workers into the furthest lift to head up to departures.

BA has recently moved its business class check-in from the South to the North of the terminal. Not sure why. The First Wing (TFW) was pleasantly still welcoming in the south of the terminal.

BA validated my passport and printed out my boarding passes through to San Jose. I’ll need to get an AA boarding pass at JFK so I can make use of TSA PreCheck.

TFW Security was empty, so it was only a few mins before I was sat in the CCR with a cappuccino.

I wasn’t in the CCR long and I decided NOT to enjoy my normal breakfast in the CCR – my waistline had still not fully recovered from holiday to New England, so there was no reason to expand it even further!.

Whilst in the CCR, I caught up with Vick by phone, who was still struggling with a swollen finger. At least the cats were keeping her mind off her pain.

I left my rucksack with CCR left luggage. I was glad to see that they checks were no more advanced than they ever were. Pick a valid boarding pass for the day and they were happy to take my bag.

I headed off to Gate A6 via Starbucks about 40 mins before departure time.

Whilst waiting for my coffee, I noticed Howard Donald (Take That) join the queue. For a change I managed to take a photo.

I arrived at the gate just ahead of Group 9 boarding announcement, so I timed it just right. It wouldn’t want to be any later to the gate than that. With no luggage, it was an easy one for me.

On into seat 01F and as with the recent push to timely departures, BA were keen to get away ahead of schedule. Scheduled for 6:50, but ended up pushing back at 6:44. We were off on our way to Dublin 20 mins later with a flight time of just less than an hour.

With it being a Neo, there was no table covering the middle seat, which is always annoying.

Food service started promptly and I picked at the full English. The scrambled eggs were fluffy, the bacon and sausage were half decent but the mushrooms were pretty tasty. I never bother with the tomato – it doesn’t deserve a place in a full English in my opinion.

Arrived into Gate 204 a good time early, which gave me some extra confidence getting through passport control and fasttrack security.

I had a chat with the cabin crew before leaving the aircraft. They confirmed that the new BA boss’ focus was on timeliness, so they are aiming at pushing back early.

Today’s flight had been given a target of pushing back 5 mins earlier than scheduled. As it happens, they beat that by 1 min.

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