The BOOT goes to London - in style!

Many thanks to BA for an unexpected upgrade to first class. Turns 23 hours in the air from Business Class great to First Class fantastic. Two cute twists to the updgrade. The first is that they give you a cosmetics/amenities kit that you have to empty in the garbage bin at Bangkok airport because you can neither leave it on the plane nor take it through Bangkok security when in transit. Second - you will recall my great experience re-visiting of Qantas Business Class in my last trip where after a year or more of faulty VOD system I was pleased to find a system working and full of movies. Now here I am in BA first class with a new and highly publicised VOD system that had to be re-booted twice and failed again an hour and half out fo Bangkok. According to the copy of Business Traveller I was reading on the plane this is a common complaint in the BA roll out. One big difference with the Qantas VOD failures was the charming and constant apologies of the BA staff. Though as the staff member joked after the final re-boot attempt, "we'll need a crowbar to fix it and put it out of my misery".

UPDATE - forgot to mention another cute part of this story. My boarding pass contains a comment to indicate that it is an upgrade not a "pure" first class boarding pass. I assume so that I can be differentiated by the staff from the people who actually bought a first class ticket. The boarding pass describes this as "INVOL UPGRADE DUE O/SALE". That's something I could get used to - an involuntary/forced 23 hours in a first class seat.