British Airways

I like British Airways. To date they are the best airline I've flown on (although best is only marginally better than most of the other airlines).

They probably don't need the information until about 48 hours or so before you depart. I would probably send it to them right away for two reasons. First, I might forget so I do it while I'm thinking about it. Second, I'd rather give it to them early than risk getting bumped from the flight or not allowed into the UK because I forgot to provide it in time.

The US is rolling out a program to get advance information 48 hours before a person lands in the country. This may be similar to that or just airline policy to get that information ahead of time.

Thanks very much.

I concur with Brad. Give them your information now so there are no problems. I've only flown once on BA and that was this past summer to Europe out of Vancouver BC. We flew Club World (business class) on miles, so it was a bit different than their coach experience. Loved it though!

BA also won't let you pick your seats for your flight until you check in (unless you have status). Check in online starts 24 hours before the flight. I would strongly encourage you to check in at that time online. You can then pick seats so you can sit together, or get an aisle seat, or other preferences. Don't assume, if you're booked with another person, that they have pre-assigned you to sit together. Both our flights to/from Europe my wife and I's seats were split up, so when we checked in online we sat together.

One bonus to the 24 hour check-in is that you can pick seats for all legs of travel at the time of check in for your original flight. So, for instance if you fly LA to Heathrow and then onto Amsterdam, you can pick your seats for the Heathrow to Amsterdam leg when you check in for the LA/Heathrow leg. Of course you can't pick seats for the return journey until 24 hours before that starts.

Have a good trip!

I flew BA a couple of weeks ago. Just a short hop (Munich to London), but I had to go through "terminal 5". I was curious about how it would go since they had a lot of trouble earlier this year when they opened that terminal. (mostly with lost luggage) I had read that they had worked out the bugs and we had a very positive experience. Our luggage transfered over to our American Airlines flight and everything went very smoothly.

I flew BA several times from SFO to Tel Aviv via London, though I haven't been through London since the new terminal was opened. The food was always good (check out the menu options, I usually ordered Asian vegetarian since I love Indian food), the alcohol most plentiful, and individual video screens with a lot of choices for movies and other stuff.

It seems to me that I was always able to choose seats when I bought the tickets (online), but maybe that has changed. I may have been able to get a better seat just before the flight.

The only minuses that come to mind are not related to BA: [1] Heathrow has a terrible lost luggage record and [2] Heathrow has the strictest carryon restrictions.

The advance passenger information is what they used to collect at the check-in counter. It just saves time to do it by computer in advance. Doesn't matter when you do it.

I just came back from a BA trip with my mother from DC through Heathrow to Prague, returning from Bucharest. We provided that Advance Passenger Info during online check-in, about 15 hours before the flight [and were able to choose better seats then too]. I agree with Brad; we've flown BA several times recently and had good trips - except that some of the overhead bins seem to be smaller than usual. My RS rollaboard got some complaints from a FA once; fortunately the plane was not full so I could just put it sideways. And Heathrow has lightened up on the carryon restrictions; we each had a rolling suitcase and a personal item [RS Civita backpack for me, large purse for Mom] and had no problem.
Have a great trip!

We flew British Airways from Seattle to London on September 21, and returned on October 1st. Originally I wasn't planning to check a bag, but I ended up checking one suitcase for my wife and I, we also carried on the Rick Steves backpack and wheeled carryon bags. When we arrived at Heathrow from Seattle, we didn't have a gate to park in because the early 6:45pm flight from Seattle was 23 hours late in departing (we took the 8:55pm flight) so they took our gate. We sat on the tarmac waiting for 30 minutes to get off the plane (we were all standing in the aisles expecting the door to open anytime, it actually wasn't so bad as I was so pumped up to be in England). So when we got out of customs we walked down to the baggage claim and in less than 5 minutes there was my suitcase!! So Heathrow didn't live up to its reputation for losing bags in my experience. Next time we go to London we'll just carry on as I know now what I don't need to bring!!