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So the TL;DR version: ”I want to pay a bit less for checked bags” 🤷🏼‍♂️ How many bags do two adults and two teens need for a holiday? I’ve emigrated with less than it seems you need for this trip…

In addition to what others have said I wouldn't follow the path into Terminal 5. If you go down the elevators from the AirTrain to the ground level you can walk into the parking garage slightly and then across the parking in front of the TWA Hotel and into the front door. It's far quicker than going into Terminal 5 and then having to loop back and around.

I like the idea of flying on BA, SOU-SZG-LGW.

JFK has eight numbered terminals, but only six currently operating. For the majority of through ticketed connections you are going to connect within that terminal, so distances between gates isn't going to be enormous. Before JFK became my home airport I'd connected through it many times, often in as little as 40mins. Airlines set minimum connection times as such because in the vast majority of cases people will make them. It's in nobody's benefit to allow people to book connections they have little chance of making.

90 mins is fine for Terminal 5. It's really not that big a terminal and the short flights like this generally end up with plenty of buffer. If you miss the flight you get rebooked for an evening flight and go hang out at the TWA Hotel all day...

I wonder if it's some kind of quirk where they don't know if there will be an equipment swap to a different aircraft. The seatmap will block off certain seats so it makes it easier to remap seat assignments into a new aircraft configuration if/when that happens. Yes, there isn't an aircraft that matches the configuration with the blocked off seats but it's the best I can think of for a large-ish number of seats on a bunch of flights way in the future. Though not sure why that would be something your cousin couldn't share so maybe not...

Booking a more expensive cruise should solve this problem.

The Polaris Lounge at EWR is decent but would I stay there for 11hrs? Definitely not. Even the very best airline lounges would bore me after that and I love a good airline lounge. There’s no reason why you can’t leave the airport and take the train into NYC easily enough. Begs the question why are you doing this itinerary? There must be MDT-EWR flights that leave later in the day and if not then it’s less than a 3hr drive…

$1800 to upgrade to Economy Delight (knowing what I know about it) does sound on the expensive side, but the airlines are pretty well segmented in terms of offering different products for different needs and wallet sizes. The majority of the flying public are in the cheapest seats and only a very small percentage of them don't survive the flight. If you can't afford or justify anything above economy then you have two options: 1) Don't fly 2) Suck it up As you've said there are other options and a little research is all that's needed. There are some longhaul low cost carriers that offer premium options (not dissimilar to domestic FC with a bit more room/recline) such as Norse. Are there potential pitfalls? Sure.

Since you're in business class the seating/aircraft is important on the domestic side. ORD-LAX is probably a mix of regular domestic FC and widebodies with full lie flat seating. Going via EWR will almost certainly be lieflat, possibly even Polaris style seating on the EWR-LAX segment.

The escort is not a standard feature. BA have a huge, premium heavy operation at T5 with hundreds of First/Business passengers an hour changing flights. I’ve been a BA Gold (top tier) cardholder for almost 20yrs and have never had an escort from the jetbridge when on short connections…even when traveling with the wife (also a Gold) on business class tickets, hand luggage only and connecting off a late arrival onto the last flight of the day…

Cancel the miles ticket, get a refund and pay cash, no?

Be sure to check you are flying BA. BA and American Airlines are close partners and sell tickets on eachothers flights. If your flight number is 206 or 208 it is operated by British Airways, if it's 1500 or 1529 it'll be operated by American Airlines. BA use Terminal 5 at Heathrow and there are escalators/lifts and underground trains to get from the aircraft to Border Control. Then you'll collect bags and clear customs. If you're using American they use Terminal 3 and there are no trains. For your flight to Barcelona you'll use Terminal 5. Many shorthaul flights leave from the main building so there is no need to take the train. If you're flying business class or have oneworld Sapphire status there are separate Club Europe/Club World check-in desk, Fast Track security and two "Galleries Club" lounges you can use, one at each end of the terminal. If you have oneworld Emerald status go to the First Check-In at the south end of the building and the private security lanes put you right into the appropriate "Galleries First" lounge. https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/business-travel/articles/the-first-wing

For future reference it is not just customs but immigration and customs upon arrival into Heathrow if you are "landing yourself". Immigration would be your passport check, then you'd collect any checked bags and you'd then clear customs as you enter into the landside area. Can't believe your golfer pro friends playing in a major championship relied upon airlines to carry their clubs. Pro friends, amateur mistake...There are companies that specialize in worldwide shipping of golf clubs for this very reason. My friends and I use Shipsticks and we don't have anything on the line besides beer money...

No, Concorde won't be returning to the skies.

Easy problem to solve. Upgrade to an Owners Suite... I don't think there is a correct direction in which to upgrade. I personally think if you can sleep onboard then do the business/first upgrade on the westbound since you'll be up and awake to experience the unpleasantness. I often find myself double thinking about paying for FC on overnight flights if business class also has lie flats, especially on my shorter US East Coast to London flights which is my most common route and where I'm asleep for all but about 30mins aloft. As for the "good use of miles" that depends on the user and how much you earn. I know some people who prefer to redeem for shorthaul economy fares wherever, but on Delta those are largely pegged to revenue cost. I personally prefer to use my miles for "aspirational" flights, those where I might not pay $25,000-$30,000 for a cash ticket but would use a six digit amount of miles...

There are in some cases a dozen or so fare "buckets" on a given flight. You hoovered up the last in a fare bucket at a given price leaving only the next highest fare available, hence the higher price showing. The fact there were "seats left"(whatever that means, seatmaps are a poor indicator of how busy a flight is, and airlines will oversell flights too) doesn't mean anything. Airlines don't raise prices when you're searching for flights, that would be illogical given that most people book based on price alone. What's likely happening is, depending upon how you do your search you may be closing out inventory in a given fare bucket temporarily, thereby leaving the next, higher price showing if you go back and search again. If those tickets aren't purchased then it can be released back into general inventory, and therefore the price appears to drop. Of course, someone else could have booked at the very same time you were searching.

That's because you bought the last seats at that given fare price, thereby meaning the cheapest available fare was now a slightly more flexible, higher class ticket. Fare prices don't go up and down, the cheaper seats sell out. Think of it like a hotel...you bought the last King Bed room available so now only more expensive Junior Suites are available. For someone just wanting a "hotel room" the price may appear to have increased but actually they're getting a slightly better room out of it. Same with plane tickets....that more expensive ticket may be more flexible with the ability to purchase nearer the time of travel etc. etc.

You're completely wasting your time trying to gauge where fares will be when you're as good as a year out from them even going on sale...Looking at prices for the same month but in 2023 is equally as useless a gauge too. This might sound a little backwards but Colombo in Sri Lanka is a cheap place to start business and first class fares from. You may find that squirreling away miles so you can redeem First/Business Class to BOM and then buying a cash oneway First/Business fare out of CMB makes sound financial sense. If the oneways price up exceptionally high then you can book a return connecting through say Europe for your next trip and just throw the last leg away by planning things carefully if you don't want to go back to Sri Lanka in the future. You just book a BKK-CMB fare separately and give yourself plenty of time to self-connect, even tack on a couple of days in Sri Lanka, it's an amazing country!

For an LHR connection you only need to reclear security. No immigration, customs or baggage recheck. Everyone has their own risk appetites as to whether this works for you. Be aware you need to reach the entrance to security at least 35minutes before departure or you won't even be allowed to get in the line for it. If you are flying First/Club World (this appears to be a BA itinerary) then there's a separate line for security but the 35min rule still applies. A few years ago my inbound was delayed, and my wife and I reached it 34mins beforehand, travelling business class, 2 x top tier BA status passengers, with hand baggage only and could see my aircraft at about the nearest gate to where I was standing. Late in the evening so security would be a breeze. A call was made to the gate where all the above was noted but even still, no dice...

Besides the cringe factor of treating your kids, literally, as second class citizens, usually all passengers on the reservation have to be in the same classes of travel, same flights etc. Is there a separate PNR for your children's reservation? It is certainly possible that the agent was correct. Some passengers, typically those with status or on more flexible or full fare tickets, may be able to pre-assign seats at booking or further ahead. Booking codeshares, consolidator tickets and such can add extra complexities that may prevent certain services being fulfilled.

A great story I heard from someone I know about the BA A318 service... It was a JFK-LCY flight and an American passenger flying AA was rebooked onto one of these flights. They disembarked by stairs at LCY and freaked out having crossed the Atlantic on this tiny plane because they assumed they had been boarded directly into the upper deck of a 747 😁

It's very rare for a specific aircraft to constantly ply the same route/flight numbers. For aircraft type yes but aircraft registration, no. The schedule and flight lengths need to align exactly. Just look at Flightradar24 and you'll be able to see a specific aircraft's recent flights.

Got to get the airfare down below to price of the cruise, right? 😁 With these kinds of offers aren't you likely to end up on Sky High Airlines Friendmaker Flights?

Auckland is AKL. A flight to AUK will result in you arriving in Alaska... Air New Zealand used to be very good but they're using a very outdated seat. (It's the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class seat that debuted almost 20yrs ago) and have cut back on their soft product that used to be amongst the best. I do like Jeb Brooks' videos but he isn't quick to criticize