I feel sorry for anyone booking business class as a special occasion one-off experience, only to get a dodgy product like this. Business class seems to be so hit or miss these days which shouldn't be the case when spending so much money. All worth it though for your army frisk and delightful lounge welcome :D

Thanks for sharing another interesting flight. I’m flying back BA business for the first time from NYC in November and the arrivals lounge looks another great perk. I’ll definitely give that a go. Thanks for highlighting that. 👍

Currently sat in WTP on BA209, which is a perfect setting in which to watch this video! All the best, and great content as per Matt! Cheers, Jon

Thank You ✈️

Hey Matt, just a quick note to say you inspired us to complain to BA about a broken club class seat and divider, after refusing their first offer we’ve just received a good chunk of avios, so thanks for highlighting!

I'm with you on the walking at Rio airport. It felt never-ending when I did a similar flight to Heathrow last summer. The Amex lounge is also very good there.

Great video. Very informative! 🙂

Fair and balanced review.

The arrivals lounge looks really good - will definitely be freshening up here later this year.

In 2003 I flew Club world to Rio and back , also on the B777 .. back then BA’s business class seat was revolutionary, and way ahead of the pack .. the return flight cost 50,000 air miles and maybe £60-70 in taxes .. I don’t remember any of the food , but I do remember the great service and my broken IFE system on the return leg .. so 20 years ago BA had a great seat and very good on board service at a decent cost. Times change for everyone.. 🙏…

Another fantastic video Matt. I think BA are going to find a lot of issues with those seats in the coming years, I had multiple issues with them to/from EWR a couple years ago including the door getting stuck like yours and the seat losing the electric recline and had to be done manually by the crew. Did get 80k Avios in compensation which can’t be complained about! Arrivals lounge looks nice, never been in as always connecting up.

Any airline that can produce such a dire safety video can’t be taken too seriously and good old B.A. didn’t disappoint with this. My regular long haul is from São Paulo to London and a few years ago I ditched them in favour of KLM/AF which offer me a much better deal and better experience. To be fair to B.A. in the past despite their controversial business class layout I always received good service and good food. I’ve also flown Lufthansa/Swiss on this route and they were fine, Swiss was excellent though neither not quite as good as A.F.

I like your food. I would appreciate this. Thanks for the video.

Well negotiated Matt 30000 points, I think the issue in Brazil is probably due to corruption in the security and things getting through. Jut flown with aer Lingus to Chicago for 600 pounds, not the perfect seat but the service outstanding. I had a second flight from Chicago and stopped in the flagship lounge it was dead quiet first thing and the views amazing.

Always great to see your videos and feedback Matt, in the main, BA are a shambles. Flying out of Aberdeen, I have little choice as when I go stateside, best to keep the booking with BA all the way through so I have only 1 company to deal with and if anything goes wrong BA will always get you on a another flight, if any flight is delayed and you're catching a rivals connection, they simply don't want to know. Club World and above should be perfect all the time, not some of the time, there are no excuses acceptable, not when you're paying that amount of money. Rather than give you AVIOS points, they should refund your credit card if some parts of the flight (broken seats, missing wines, rubbish food etc) are that bad.

Hi Matt, As per usual, a smashing video. A wild guess could be that a lot of narcotics are being moved with body suits, or taped onto the body. I guess the only way of detecting this is with a proper body frisk? You are in a part of the world we're plenty of snow is found..... I trust you are well, and look forward to more content soon! Just as a suggestion for content: with Lufthansa on strike last week, this coming week, and the week after, a video on airlines duty of care, EU261 UK 261 , compensation schemes, how to apply, demand to be booked/ rerouted on any airline etc.....would be handy. As your style is always very clear, and airlines always very vague, it could be a great piece of information. Regards Thomas

Apparently BA customer relations are meant to be recruiting more staff so the end to end for cases they receive have a better turnaround. 3 days is amazing!! We logged to cases back in October, 17 weeks before we got everything resolved from a damaged case to issues with a flight back from Orlando. We didn't accept £50 evoucher for the 3 of us so replied (waited more time) finally a new case, voucher and 10k avios each. I am stunned u got urs all agreed in 3 days (fainted) lol

At least we now have club suites mostly between LHR & GIG. Very busy route so seems BA can get away with lesser quality on this route and actually have started to experiment with alternative routings. Takes longer but do earn extra TP (flying today AA via MIA as example). As BA Gold I do indeed tend to skip breakfast on board and head to arrivals lounge when returning from GIG to LHR direct.

Another great video Matt 👏🏽👏🏽 very honest and factual. Great feedback!

Breakfast looked good

Matt I always reject BAs first offer of Avios and to this day I’ve always got more. Best so far was 25k for a broken door JFK to LHR and to be honest I wouldn’t have noticed until the crew pointed it out just after take off as I never close the things anyway. The arrivals lounge is great, normally flying back to MAN so I hit the Galleries first to have breakfast and skip the average offering on the flight. Out of the USA the full English is normally replaced with some sort of omlette thing unless your in First

As an ex crew member with BA one of our biggest issues was shortfalls in the uploaded product down route. From food quality and quantity to premium wines and spirit shortages in club. Bedding issues etc etc etc, I lost count over my 22years long haul service of the amount of reports I and my colleagues wrote and in all honesty nothing ever changed. We got so frustrated with the Company and its seemingly lack of interest we agreed with our passengers complaints and urged them to complain complain complain. BA wouldn't listen to its staff so perhaps they would listen to their passengers many of which were very loyal and had become fed up with the products. Sadly though I don't think the powers in waterworld were that bothered. Its such a shame because the Crew in general want to do their best but are always apologising for managerial lack of interest and care. BA unfortunately is money money money...... at any cost

Good that BA compensated you so quickly, but it’s bad that their service is so patchy.

I did BA Club class in the old seat down to Miami from LHR last week, and it really brought home to me how much of an upgrade the club suites are. With that said, I had the following issues: - the tray table wouldn’t stay straight, it was leaning downwards into the aisle. The stewardess suggested I wedge a crumpled empty plastic water bottle I had lying around under the edge of it as “an engineer would be required” to fix it…I literally said to her “that’s £5k well spent then” (the rack rate of the flight, not what I paid) - it’s insane there is no cognac or brandy of any kind on the drinks list, but bizarrely two gins - the wine was awful, almost undrinkable - I’m not sure we got champagne before take off, it tasted like cheap sparkling to me - the drinks selection generally is terrible nowadays, they really need to upgrade the spirits and wines, people who drop thousands on a flight just don’t drink this junk - they ran out of ice about 2/3 through the flight and I literally had to drink a warm g and t Other than that I actually thought the flight was fine! It’s really strange but actually the above things weren’t actually that disturbing of a generally ok experience, but they should just do so much better! Out of interest, do you reckon it’s worth a complaint? I hadn’t even thought of this. Oh and final point- as I had to pay the “taxes” it still cost me £450 a seat for this flight..!

There was clearly some sort of UK immigration intervention to stop arriving passengers mingling with other arriving passengers and possibly claiming to have flown on other flights . Years ago BA's flight from Rio had a procedure whereby once the doors opened sniffer dogs were taken up and down both aisles simultaneously while passengers were required to remain seated . Always surprised me that the suspected drug mules were usually kindly old grandmother types on their first trips abroad who had been sweating buckets since take off at Rio. Neither of Rio's two airports provide views of the main sights of RIO on departure or arrivial although SDU provides some very beautiful and uinque sights.... theres nothing to see on arrival or departure at GIG. Hope you'll do more flying in Brazil , its such great country for avgeek travels, it's a golden age of travel in Brazil :-)

Did this trip last year but in the old Club World cabin. AA lounge in Rio .. now you’re talking. Staff phenomenally rude and the place was freezing so needed a blanket which they clearly thought that I was going to half-inch so insisted on having my boarding card as security. Ridiculous! There was also another passenger in the lounge (not on our BA flight fortunately) who was absolutely smashed and slumped in a seat near to us, covered in food that he had attempted to eat and left most on the floor. He looked like he was going to be a real liability on his flight so I spoke to reception who were totally uninterested in my concerns of him being fit to fly. Rio was astounding however. Did you get to Santa Teresa district? Nice report Matt. David.

Good negotiation on the Avios! BA are generally improving based on my experience but disappointing to see so many issues on this flight. Don't know what it is about AA lounges...I've not been to many, but pretty much every time I've found the entrance staff to be rather unpleasant. I think rudeness must form part of their training...

I would imagine that the army were conducting an exercise where someone would have been permitted to by pass the security as part of the exercise or that a combination of things might pose a threat where individually they would not

We (family of 4) regularly fly BA in only Club and First. In October, we flew with BA from Las Vegas to London. We were in row 8 (on the A350) a grave mistake. Apparently, according to the crew member service in row 8 is always ‘the worst’ and ‘awful’.

BA is in need of some major work, I've given up on them and tend to use KLM and Air France more presently. There are major trade offs, KLM lounges aren't great but their staff tend to be very friendly and happy to help. Air France lounges are good and their planes are usually well fitted out and I love the A220 when travelling in Europe, try one of these. Amazing in my own opinion, small with some big pulling power.

Double or even tripling frisking and security checking is so frustrating. if you think that's bad you should try flying in Sharm El Sheikh 🙂

Your experience on the return is much closer to mine on BA. I'm also bemused by how your issues were resolved in 3days but a no notice cancellation, failure to provision the replacement 2days later...has taken 6months+ so far understandable to prioritise those with status but is withholding over £1k for this long acceptable? Good to see they can do service recovery in a timely fashion when they want to.

Would you recommend ba club suite or first class? I read first class has not been refurbished so is an older cabin with an older screen? But does have additional benefits of course

My experience is that those secondary military checks are not that unusual in LATAM. Here in Medellin having one or more soldiers beyond security and before immigration is pretty common in the International terminal. Not everyone gets frisked and if you are male there is a higher chance. In Colombia I’ve often thought it might be connected to checking for drugs and additional requirements pushed less by Colombia than the destination countries like the US.

Great video as always. Shame about the food and drinks (or lack thereof). Have you left feedback/complained in the past that they removed Cognac? Well done on the compensation, i think I was amazed when I got 15k avios for no amenity kits in club loaded coming back from LAS last year, thought that was very generous Surprised Ba Silvers can’t use the arrival lounge on a WT/WTP long haul, has that always been the case?

And there was me thinking ill try Club world next year to Brazil .... might just do Latam after all ...

It’s a shame that business class is so hit and miss with British airways. Great video never the less 👍

Whenever Daddy Matt does a review of any BA product (and it's always deliciously SCATHING!!! LOL), I don't know whether to grab some popcorn...or aspirin! The main course looked alright though, as did the breakfast. I've no plans (so far) to fly and film BA on my trip to Europe next month, but going to have my very first brushes with SAS, Volotea and Ryanair.

The BA arrivals lounge looks pretty big at LHR, far superior to Virgin's. At least you got a decent breakfast Matt ;) .

What a hideous livery. Had they left it overnight in a railway siding? Good review. Best line: 'I won't do so again here.'

Whats your full opinion of AA? Ive never had a great experience on them!

I'm amazed how airlines fail to deliver on product and service and yet get away with it.

Don’t worry about the army. They have the same at airports in Pakistan. It’s more of ‘show of strength’ stunt than anything else!

Re the army frisking, could it have been drugs related? I'm sure that's rife in Rio and possibly there's a variant which wouldn't show on the normal scanners, or could be taped in clothes which wouldn't be checked.

BA offered me 10,000 avios when I complained about absence of hot water on the two club Europe flights back from Bucharest to Jersey-maybe I should have pushed them for more-have you had experience of double tps not being awarded if so how did you claim for missing tps?

i have yet to try the T5 Arrivals lounge, but i'll bet it feels good to have a hot breakfast & shower after a red-eye flight in Economy!

Can't decide if BA finds it cheaper to refund avios to a few passengers including the bad PR or providing a proper expected service

Does it seem sily for BA to be using these old aircraft. Id thought a lot of them would be sold of them shortly. I was working for BA when these come into service

The moaning paid off then

Any travel tips on beijing matt?

GIG airport has had some seriously bad press recently with drugs and weapons smugglers where airport staff was involved. That may explain the additional check

I bet the BA crew had snaffled all the booze for their layover

Without the video you sound like Tony Robinson!

No wine whatsoever on the same flight in economy in mid-Nov

Those storage bins on the new club suite are terrible, the lids are so flaky and have been broken on every flight I have taken.

3 days to get compensation from BA, what madness is this.... June of 2022, I took 8 family members to Amsterdam from Vegas, BA cancels the LHR-AMS legs, but protects us by putting us on a flight that leaves 35 minutes before the Vegas flight is due to land....As I pointed out, there was no way we were going to make that connection and just how did they figure it was a legal connection in the first place? BA offers to put us on the first flight out in the morning, I counter with no thanks, just cancel the LHR-AMS leg and I will book on KLM, no issue there, except a week later BA canceled the LAS-LHR leg, along with the PRG=LHR-LAS leg, a quick call to BA results in BA offering to rebook us in WT+..... Yeah, no thanks we are in Club..."oh"... A quick, meaning 2 hour wait to find out that yes indeed we are in club ! and oh, there is an issue. I should point out here, by now my PA was ready to never call BA again. but a couple of days later, hey we are back in club. The suite was nice, but hey, row 3 and I get the "I'm sorry sir, we only have the vegetarian option left", this is on a 350-1000, 56 club suites and after 8 of them they were out of food choices. Okay, LAS messed up the catering, it happens, the crew were good, I grab something from the WT+ menu which was so good, I can't even begin to tell you what it is. Of course, just to prove it wasn't LAS's fault, on the LHR-LAS they ran out of choices at row 4. Now here is the funny part, after spending $40k on those flight, I also had another 8 LAS-LHR-LAS flights to go over the summer, including one where I was supposed to meet with BA to go over the contract for them to become our preferred airline for our UK guests. So fast forward to August, LAS-LHR and yep, no food choices and this time a crew that was frankly right up there with Spirit airline in their service standards, this time I landed at LHR, I got hold of my PA, had her cancel the remaining flights and had her call BA to say I would not be at the meeting. BA did offer me 10,000 miles, I declined as there was no way I would be spending my money or my companies money on BA while they worked to the standards set by Alex Cruz, which judging by this flight, stay still do.

Not brilliant, was it, that flight. Interesting comments of 'cystomer-recovery' negotiations. Good video though. There was a joint Brazil-UK operation in force when you travelled to pin-point intended asylum seekers appearing as flight-bloggers.😉

Wonder if the army was there for drug searching

The army at the airport is there to help the federal police combat cocaine smuggling.......Yeah I know, to put it another way, it's to give the impression that the President is actually trying to do something about the amount of cocaine being smuggled out of the country and the rise in crime that comes with it. Rio has not been a safe place for a long time, go into the wrong area and you can be in deep trouble, the problem now is, go into the right area and you can also be in deep trouble.

Were they not looking for drugs considering it was Brazil?

But you still had to appeal

Astonishing no matter how many months I leave between viewing videos probably at least 6 months since the last I see the same bloke moaning incessantly Quite bizarre

wow, so fussy/pedantic. It's a flight, did they not get you from A to B in one piece? Anything else is a bonus.

Another dreary review - if you can't sleep it's not BA's problem nor the weather across the planet and some issues are Heathrow's- and sometimes there are operational problems- ask for another seat. Often you get impromptu passsport checks- not BA's issue- personally I'm tired of you tube grifters- aren't you?