Welcome to my next trip report, a whirlwind trip to London to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. I’ve already shared about the jubilee events; now it’s time to focus on the travel-related portion of the trip.
Introduction – A Mint Trip To London To Celebrate Platinum Jubilee Of EIIR
It’s not every day that a distinguished monarch celebrates 7o years on the throne. Although I’m not British, I herald the Queen’s life of public service and wanted to be part of the celebration for this very rare and momentous event.
With flights running full this summer, I took advantage of some open JetBlue award space and booked the outbound ticket using Emirates Skywards miles:
- 52,000 Skywards miles – Los Angeles to New York
- 64,000 Skywards miles – New York to London
That’s quite a bit considering I could have (theoretically) flown all the way on a Star Alliance carrier for 63,000 points with Avianca LifeMiles, but it finally gave me a chance to review JetBlue and paid tickets were several thousand dollars.
I’m glad I did, because right now you cannot even book JetBlue business class space with Emirates miles (it remain to be seen whether this is a temporary glitch or a new unwelcome change to the program). I offered my first impressions of JetBlue’s new transatlantic service here.
I had hoped to book both segments one PNR, taking advantage of the 88,000 one-way price for both segments (since LAX-JFK-LGW falls into the 5,001-6,000 mile distance tier), but Emirates charges on a per-segment basis and could not book both segments on a single PNR, which was annoying.
Here’s what the report will look like:
- JetBlue A321 Mint Business Class Los Angeles – New York
- JetBlue Rooftop Lounge (JFK – T5)
- JetBlue A321LR Mint Business Class New York – London
- Hyatt Regency London Stratford
- Hyatt House London Stratford
- Afternoon Tea At The Ritz London
- Great Scotland Yard, Part Of Hyatt Unbound Collection
- Report: My Platinum Jubilee Trip To London
- Photo Essay: Platinum Jubilee Of Queen Elizabeth II From The Perspective Of An American Visitor In London
- The Mad Dash To Make My Flight Home
- United Club London (LHR)
- United Global Services Lounge London (LHR)
- United Airlines 787-9 Business Class London – Los Angeles
I left on a Monday afternoon and returned on Thursday evening, so it was a quick trip.
CONCLUSION
London is always a special city, but visiting during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee was very special. I look forward to sharing with you about my time there and some of the great flights, hotels, and lounges I experienced during my visit.
Wait, have you not already posted any of these reviews yet? I thought I already saw the report on the United flight?
Didn’t you get one of the old 787-9s? Which is very unlucky out of the 40 or so 787-9s they have only 4 still have the old seats, seems like you always get them somehow though.
Woof! Looking very good in that pic, bro.
Matthew, long time fan of the blog, and please dont get me wrong, but…
Im starting to get the feeling bloggers are nowedays really milking their trips.
We get a first impression post, a photo assay, a trip introduction, the actual trip report, a report on weird stuff happening on board, several lounge reports (that can easily go in one post) and sometimes even a closing post.
Its getting a bit much and is also watering down the actual main event: the trip report itself, because we get to read the same stuff over and over between all these interconnected posts.
Just my 2 cents.
Still a fan of the blog though!! Keep it op.
I appreciate your feedback, Niels.
I won’t be repeating any info/posts on the Queen’s jubilee – that was done once and I won’t rehash it.
However, I find creating a brief first impressions post followed by a detailed review at a later point is very valuable for the diverse group readers who visit this blog. Some like summaries and don’t care to make the time to read up to 2K words in my full reviews. This provides both.
One thing I haven’t done lately is my “Booked!” posts, which I used to do before major trips describing the trip I was about to take. These days, I go right into the first impressions posts.
I do notice that people have short attention spans and therefore I don’t like to combine lounge reviews into trip reports – when posts get too long, people just gloss over the pictures and for SEO purposes, I’d prefer to have as many different short-subject posts as possible.
The click-bait incidents that happen onboard or at the airport will always be in separate posts, because I don’t want to overshadow the trip report itself, which provides evergreen content and quite a bit of credibility for this blog.
Again, keep the feedback coming. I appreciate it.
I appreciate your constructive way of replying Matthew, 100%.
You def. bring up some valid points and it makes more sense to me now.
Looking forward to whats up and coming.
-N