Viva Las BAcon – An Easy Heathrow Connection?

Viva Las BAcon! An Easy Heathrow Connection, British Airways Heathrow Terminal 5 First Class Lounge

Trip Report Index (it’s long):

• Viva Las BACon! The second spin of the roulette wheel
• Heading to Birmingham Airport, EI277 Birmingham Airport – Dublin Airport
• HOTEL: Bewleys Hotel, Dublin Airport
• The DAA Lounge, Dublin Airport
  
• BA831 Dublin Airport – London Heathrow Terminal 1
• An Easy Heathrow Transit and the British Airways Galleries First Lounge
• BA295 London Heathrow Terminal 5 to Chicago O’Hare International
• Tick Tock, Tick Tock – an express connection in Chicago
• AA55 Chicago O’Hare International T3 to Las Vegas McCarran International
• HOTEL: MGM Grand
• HOTEL: Mandalay Bay and BAcon
• One Time Exception: The High Roller
• HOTEL: Luxor
• One Time Exception: A Nighttime walk down an every changing strip
• Back to McCarran Airport, The American Express Centurion Lounge
• AA1239 Las Vegas McCarran International – Dallas Fort Worth
• A quick rush across Dallas Fort Worth
• AA78 Dallas Fort Worth – London Heathrow Terminal 3
• Transit again, The British Airways Terminal 1 Domestic Lounge
• BA831 London Heathrow Terminal 1 – Dublin Airport
• Irish Transit, The Aer Lingus Gold Circle Lounge
• EI276 Dublin Airport to Birmingham Airport
• Another lovely slice of BAcon

For some, transiting Heathrow can be a royal pain. This connection would be one in point, as I would be arriving at T1 Irish/Domestic Gates – with me needing to be at Terminal 5.

Thankfully, there was a British Airways agent at the jetway, asking for connections and directing customers as needed, and directing people downstairs for those who need connections to the rest of Heathrow.

HALLELUJAH.

The multi-hour connection of going through Terminal 1’s green mile, through T1 itself, down the Heathrow Express to T5, and then re-clearing security was now in the bin.

This was now replaced with a  simple ride Terminal 1 flight connections centre, and a bus ride over to Terminal 5.

Easy eh?

This way to T5. 

Thankfully the wait for the T5 bus was literately 2 minutes from arriving at the flight connections centre – making a possible painful transit rather easy.

Aer Lingus at T2

A sight I can’t get used to – Delta at Terminal 3

Soon the bus was ducking under and over bits of Heathrow, finally popping up near terminal five – and near the big boys in aircraft terms of size

Big Plane!

With the bus dropping everyone off it was time to negate the joy of re-clearing Terminal 5. Thankfully, the main flight connection area at T5 was pretty quiet.

It’s quiet for once – not that I’m complaining….

I was cleared through conformance quickly, and then headed upstairs to the security clearance. And it wouldn’t be Heathrow without one queue… and that was at security… with fast track crawling at its usual pace.

Sigh. The more things change as they say.

Security clearance took 10 minutes and I was on my merry way to my usual home in Heathrow Terminal 5 – the British Airways First Class Lounge

British Airways Galleries First Lounge

I was welcomed to the lounge area, and directed to the entrance. At this point I checked behind me to see if there was a queue (which there wasn’t), so I asked the agent if they could print my Chicago to Las Vegas boarding pass. With a bit of fiddling, he managed to get the pass to print.

I also asked about any Airport Upgrade Pricing offers – sadly, the only one that was there was an upgrade from World Traveller to Club World, coming out at £750 (which is pretty expensive, considering United charges £500 or s0). I kindly declined the offer, and thanked the agent for his time and help.

A busy lounge

Skipping that, there was two priorities:

• Bubbles
• Food

Well, first priority:

And food (and drink)

Soft drinks and beers

Cold items

Breakfast was nice and warm, and there was plenty of it. Which considering how many people were in the lounge isn’t a bad thing. Finding space in the lounge was a bit of challenge if you wanted to sit next to a window – but still there was room if you looked hard enough.

I went to the help-your-self section mainly as 1) I was running out of time on this connection and 2) I wanted to maximise my relaxation time as opposed to worrying about food arriving.

WiFi was at a reasonable speed – not hot, but not bad. Fast enough to do a few uploads and checking of the mailbox (as well as writing things about Canada).

But with a time constrained connection, it was time to pick up everything and head to the gate.  This time, I would be departing from the B Gates at Terminal 5 – which means using the wonderful inter-terminal transit.

A quick ride over to the B gates, and awaiting was the chariot to take me Chicago – a British Airways Boeing 747-400

As I approached the gate, boarding was in full swing for priority passengers. I took this as my leave to wave goodbye to the United Kingdom, with my next stop the Windy City…

Next: British Airways BA295 to Chicago O’Hare.

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