Any recommendations for which show to catch in London in may? Thinking about Cinderella. Wish I could get tickets using ur points but that doesn’t seem like it’s possible.
We absolutely love SIX (seen it a couple times in London) and just saw & Juliet last week. It was fun--especially if you know recent pop music (Brittney, Katie Perry, etc.).
We were in London last week visiting DD. Around the middle of the week, all her friends started coming down with covid (no idea on what variant, but omicron is rampant in London so that's the assumption). Most of them had no symptoms, just popped in the tests. Her roommate (double vaxxed) got it and he was sick as a dog for about 3 days and then got better! Luckily for DD, she was not exposed to him because she was staying in the hotel with us. We extended the hotel another week when we left so she didn't have to go back to her apartment. So far she has tested negative every day and it's been 7 days since she saw the roommate. We got her a booster on Thursday last week, so we are hoping she has some immunity going forward as well.
So funny. We were in London for the past two weeks to visit out DD for Christmas and just got back. I've been to the UK 7 or 8 times the past 2 years (during pandemic), and this was probably the most stressful do to the highly contagious Omicron. So many hoops to jump through now, and the threat of testing positive the day before we wanted to fly home was real--especially as we were staying in central London where the numbers were exploding. We mostly ate outside and did long walks around the Royal Parks. I panicked on day 4 when we were pinged by NHS and told to isolate due to a positive case on our flight (this is happening all the time now). Fortunately, they'd recently made a chance allowing vaccinated people with non-NHS vaccines to avoid the 10 day isolation with daily testing. Before you had to have your vaccine from the NHS. I'd bought a bunch of cheap lateral flow tests right when we got there to bring home, so we ended up using those and buying more to test at home. So far so good.
Our DD is 22 so she just became eligible for her booster. She was able to get an appointment in early January, but we found a walk up near Soho and she got hers last week, too
She is at Oxford and so far her group of friends have avoided, but this thing is a different level of contagious.
Back to points ...
For this trip all three of us flew First on BA in both directions on award tickets so that was really nice. The Concord lounge at LHR is amazing. I've been flying First most of my recent trips due to the pandemic. When things shut down, BA really opened up the award charts and I was able to rebook many of our club world (business) seats to first. But sadly those days are gone, and I haven't been able to get any first seats for our next 3 club world trips that are on the books for 2022. I'm sure I will get sympathy from PlanePrincess! Due to the type of plane that they fly out of SFO, I really prefer First. Club world is often the 2-3-2 layout that requires you to climb over people, etc. i have quite a collection of "lounge suits" and "wash bags," LOL.
DH and I both have the Chase BA credit card to help take the bite out of the award seat taxes ($200 off Club World or First), but my struggle to have them credited continues. The Club/First seats do not seem to automatically trigger requiring tons of follow up with Chase and BA. I'm currently on day 43 of our last one and still nothing.
We stayed the first few nights on points at the Hilton Paddington from our Hilton Aspire cards. I loved my card so much, I had DH apply and his came right before we left. I highly recommend the Hilton Paddington for one night stays before flying in or out of LHR due to the proximity to the Heathrow Express. (15-20 minutes). You literally walk off the train, and go about 50 yards to an escalator that takes you into the hotel. It is *so* easy, and for Diamond members they do decent upgrades and there is a lounge with a free cocktail hour. I stay there on most of my trips. This time we just stayed on arrival, and I was regretting not having a one night stay at the end while I was stressing in the cab on the way to the airport
The rooms are a little tired, but the ease of travel can't be beat. I want to say they are typically in the 55-60k points per night range.
I applied for the SW priority card last month and my card finally arrived while I was gone. I'll be going for the Companion Pass (DH has had it the past 3 years), so planning to do a bunch of spend starting January 1st. estimated taxes should take me most of the way ...
A belated Merry Christmas and early Happy New Year to all!
