Turkey Trot - First Class

Turkey Trot - Overview
Turkey Trot - First Class
Turkey Trot - Are We There Yet?
Turkey Trot - Ephesus
Turkey Trot - Mary's House and Basilica of St. John
Turkey Trot - Swissotel Efes
Turkey Trot - Taking the Bus and Priene
Turkey Trot - Putting on the Ritz
Turkey Trot - The Blue Mosque
Turkey Trot - Topkapi Palace
Turkey Trot - Hagia Sophia
Turkey Trot - Carpets and Grand Bazaar
Turkey Trot - Dolmabahçe Palace and Taksim Square
Turkey Trot - Bosphorus Cruise
Turkey Trot - Turning Blu
Turkey Trot - Getting This Turkey Home

If you've been around me much in the last three years or so you know I've really gotten into the points and miles "game".  This involves using credit cards and strategically purchased points/miles to travel in (relative) luxury for much less than what it would ordinarily cost.  I'm now at the point where I don't even want to consider flying across an ocean in economy class.  I've gotten spoiled by having lie-flat beds where I can get a halfway-decent night's sleep!

Back in the winter of 2014 I knew that United Airlines was getting ready to devalue their award chart, meaning that it would soon cost more miles to fly than it did at the present time.  So on the last weekend before the award chart changed, my friends C and D and I got on the phone and made our plans.  C and I were each using miles while D was purchasing her ticket.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we wanted to arrive together just in case there were issues getting into the country.  That actually worked out well with my plans because that meant we'd all fly over on American Airlines and/or British Airways, meet in London and fly to Istanbul together.  Then, on the return trip, when it wasn't so crucial for us to stay together, I could use my United Airlines miles to fly Turkish Airlines business class and visit their lounge I'd heard so much about at the Istanbul Airport.



When I looked for award flights to London in business class or better there was one seat available from Chicago (which C snagged) and one in first class from Houston.  Despite having to fly from Memphis to Dallas to Houston in order to get to it, I actually preferred the longer route as it gave me more time to sleep on the transatlantic portion of the flight.

Even though the flight from Houston didn't leave until about 8:30 pm, I left Memphis around 1:30 pm as I wanted to be able to catch later flights should something delay me getting to Houston.  I knew if I made it to Dallas I'd be in good shape because there are flights every hour between those two cities, but AA only has a few between Memphis and Dallas each day so I needed to be overly cautious.  But everything worked perfectly and I arrived in Houston at 5:30 pm.

I checked into what turned out to be the British Airways Business Class lounge where the nice lady at the front desk (who was American, not British!) checked me in, answered my questions and then pointed me to the First Class lounge down the hall.

It's not a very large lounge but then BA only has a couple of flights per day and only 16 first class seats per plane so there aren't a lot of people using it.

I'd inquired to be sure that a full dinner was going to be served on the plane.  Since that was the case, I didn't want to fill up on food in the lounge.  As it turned out they didn't have full meals available like some lounges, so I snacked on some cookies and veggies and dip while waiting for the flight.  It wasn't fantastic but it was quiet, we had wi-fi and I was able to relax.  (Click on any photo to enlarge)

Cookies! And tea, of course

BA Club Seating Area

More snacks

Then it was time to board. We boarded through door 2L and I walked through the galley and turned left (I really like turning left!) to seat 3K, my home for the next nine hours.  An amenity kit, a blanket and headphones were waiting for me.  A flight attendant brought me pajamas and slippers (though I had to ask for the slippers).  I hung up my windbreaker in the small closet at my seat and was able to put my shoes in there too.  I went ahead and changed into my pajamas while the (tiny) lav was not busy.  I wanted to change before we ate because I did not want to take a chance I'd spill food on my street clothes!

Seat 3K

Lotsa legroom and the TV popped out for viewing

Comfy PJs that I kept and used all winter

Lite blanket and headphones

I apologize that the quality of the photos isn't great.  I was a bit excited for my first First Class flight and didn't stop to be sure the pictures weren't blurry!

The seat did recline into a fully flat bed that was plenty long enough for me.  The foot portion angled towards the window which meant that it was actually difficult to look out the windows as we flew.  But that was really only an issue once daylight came because we were over the ocean most of the night.

I had soup with a roll as my starter along with the aubergine tart with mini pear:

Soup's on!

The pear and aubergine tart along with butter for the bread

And braised beef as my entree:

I actually skipped dessert as there was nothing chocolate (what were they thinking?!) and while I like cheese ON various dishes, I'm not a huge fan of just eating a hunk of cheese by itself.  That's OK, I didn't need those calories anyway!

After dinner the flight attendant made up my bed by providing a mattress pad and a thicker comforter.  While I only got about 4-5 hours of sleep, it was definitely better quality sleep than I had in business class on the way to Amsterdam earlier in the year.

For breakfast, I thought I'd be good and stick to juice, yogurt and cereal.  And quickly realized that wasn't going to be enough so I ordered the lemon pancakes with the wild berry compote.  In my fuzzy-brained state I forgot to take pics.  I know you're sorry you missed them!

By that point it was time to change back into my street clothes for arrival at Heathrow.

After about an hour in the terminal C, D and I were able to get together at one of the lounges and spend the afternoon there muching on the free food while we waited for our evening flight to Istanbul.  I got to enjoy a quick shower in the club to freshen up which really helped revive me and even though the club was quite busy, it was still a much more relaxing place than being in the terminal.

It was great to finally catch up with C and D as I hadn't seen C since April and D since March.  We had just one more flight for the day and after over 7000 flown miles we'd be done for a few hours.