We paused our 50 state road trip a few days ago to head to the UK. One of my best friends is getting married, so Shae and I flew back for that (I’m from the UK originally).
We found out about the wedding about 6 months ago, so started searching for flights straight away. Flights from the east coast tend to be fairly reasonably priced, although they weren’t too cheap when I looked. We’re also on a tight budget for our road trip and so like to save money where possible.
Thankfully there were reasonably priced award flights on Delta, so we were able to use some miles instead. Seeing as we were heading across the Atlantic, we wanted to fit in a few days in another European country too. We therefore booked a flight from Boston to London, with our return flight going from Amsterdam to Boston. Our flight from London to Amsterdam was booked separately with British Airways Avios.
Here’s a review of our flight back to the UK.
Delta Airlines 58
Boston (BOS) – London Heathrow (LHR)
Scheduled Departure Time: 20:12 March 18, 2019
Scheduled Arrival Time: 07:00 March 19, 2019
Seats: 25B (me) and 25A (Shae)
Flight Class: Main Cabin (Economy)
The boarding process was fairly straightforward, although they’d called my name and several others over the loudspeaker before boarding. That’s because they needed to check my passport; it had been checked before we set off from Norfolk VA, although that set of flights was booked separately to this ticket, so that might’ve been why they needed to recheck it for this one.
No matter the reason, it only took a moment and we were soon on the plane. There was a total of 42 rows, so we were just over halfway back.
The Economy class cabin has seats in rows of 2-3-2. Seeing as it was only Shae and I, we picked our seats on the left side of the cabin (i.e. on the right side of the plane as you walk back). Shae prefers a window seat as she rarely gets up on flights, whereas I prefer aisle seats as I like to get up a few times during flights. Our seats were a reasonable width and were fairly comfortable for a ~6 hour flight.
I took that photo during the flight as I realized I hadn’t taken a photo of it yet. That meant I didn’t get a photo of the pillow and blanket waiting on our seats when we arrived. I tried taking a photo of an unused seat as we left after the flight, but that turned out pretty blurry.
I’m 5’9″, so legroom isn’t an issue for me when flying in Economy (which Delta calls Main Cabin). I can imagine the seats wouldn’t be as comfortable if you’re over 6 feet tall.
Every seat in Economy has its own IFE (In-Flight Entertainment) system. It has a touch screen which was very responsive, although mine required that you press the screen slightly to the left of the button in order to work it.
The options themselves were pretty good. There was about 35 new release movies:
I’d initially thought it was a poor selection of movies as I’d missed that the dropdown box at the top of the screen had defaulted to ‘New Releases’. When selecting ‘Movies A-Z’, there was probably closer to 200 movies to choose from.
I’m not normally a movie person when flying, but I decided to watch The Usual Suspects as it had been close to 20 years since I last watched it.
The screen had tabs on the left to select other forms of entertainment including TV shows, games, music and flight details.
When watching a movie, tapping the screen brought up the pause button, volume control, etc. In the above photo, you can also see a blue button at the bottom of the screen. Pressing that displayed a few additional buttons on the screen, including the light control button for your seat.
Beneath the IFE was the headphone jack and USB port. I think the seats also have an outlet to plug in laptops, but I didn’t notice where that was and forgot to look in order to take a photo.
After a couple of very warm flights on the way up to Boston, I was pleased that this flight was kept at a more reasonable temperature. The air nozzle above the seat was also pretty powerful, so there were no issues with me overheating on the flight. Overeating on the other hand was more likely seeing as we’d already dined at Jerry Remy’s before the flight.
Before pushing back from the gate, the flight attendants offered headphones and eye masks, although neither of us needed those. They also passed out menus listing our choices for dinner, along with all the beverage options. What’s nice is that even in Economy, you have a good selection of complementary beers, wines and spirits to choose from.
Once the flight was underway, we were offered a warm towel which was like a slightly warm, damp, thick, paper napkin. Not as nice as the cotton ones you get in business class, but better than nothing.
About 30 minutes after takeoff, the flight attendants came round with bottles of water.
They followed up 20 minutes later with a full drinks service. Hoping that it would help me snooze after dinner, I asked for a Woodford Reserve on the rocks. That came with packs of Cheez-Its and Biscoff cookies.
Once the flight attendants had served the drinks, they came through with the dinner service. I was still somewhat full from my tuna sliders at Jerry Remy’s, so ordered the Thai chicken salad.
The salad was OK, but it definitely needed the sesame ginger dressing as it wasn’t the most flavorful thing I’ve ever eaten. With the meal came a pretzel roll (not great, although airplane bread rarely is), cheese and grapes, fresh fruit and a chocolate chip blondie which was better than I expected.
The fork, knife and spoon were made of thick plastic and were certainly substantial enough to not worry about them breaking while eating.
Shae ordered the chicken option. She thought the chicken and green beans were pretty good, but was disappointed in the truffle mashed potato. She loves truffle-flavored stuff, but it wasn’t very good; I tried it and wasn’t particularly impressed either.
Her meal came with a side salad with ranch dressing rather than fruit, but everything else was the same.
Once the flight attendants had handed out all the meals, they came back round with another drinks service. I hadn’t quite finished my Woodford Reserve, but asked for another. They were out of it by that stage though, so I went for Jack Daniels instead.
At about 10:45 pm – 2.5 hours into the flight – they turned off the lights in the cabin. Seeing as the flight was only due to last about 6 hours, this didn’t leave much time for sleeping. That’s why I’m not worried about redeeming at least double the number of miles for business class flights from the east coast to London, as there’s little time to take advantage of lie-flat seats.
The restrooms in Economy were slightly larger than expected. They certainly weren’t sizable, but they weren’t too cramped either like some we’ve experienced. I only used one restroom, so I’m not sure if all of them have a baby-changing table, or only select ones.
The cabin was only dark for ~2.5 hours, as the lights were turned back on at 1:10 am ET, about 5 hours into the flight. Breakfast was served at this point and was served in a box with a small tub of orange juice.
The breakfast box contained a peach muffin, honey yogurt and a slice of cheese. The pack containing the plasticware also had some chocolate mints.
Once breakfast had been served, the flight attendants also came around with the drinks cart. I’d been hoping for a Diet Coke, but the selection was limited to water, tea and coffee, so I asked for a cup of tea. The tea wasn’t great, but thankfully I was on my way to the land of good tea. Whenever I visit the UK, I stock up on PG Tips, so I’ve already got 480 teabags ready to come back to the US with me.
The breakfast service didn’t last long and so the lights were turned back out 30 minutes after they’d come on.
They didn’t remain off for long though, as at 2 am ET, the flight attendants came back round offering some candy to passengers.
The clocks had gone forward in the US a couple of weeks before our flight, but not in the UK. That meant even though it was 2 am ET, it was 6 am in the UK (rather than 7 am like normal). As a result, we were treated to a nice sunrise as we passed over Wales.
20 minutes later, we landed at London Heathrow after a relatively quick, smooth flight.
Cost
I didn’t make a note of how much flights cost when I originally searched, but I think they were ~$750 per person when including a checked bag. We try to travel with only hand luggage, but with us needing additional clothes and shoes for the wedding, plus the desire to bring back two giant boxes of PG Tips teabags and other British snacks, we wanted to bring a checked bag.
We therefore booked our flights with Delta SkyMiles as we didn’t want to spend $1,500. Our round trip flights (from Boston to London Heathrow, then Amsterdam to Boston) cost 35,000 SkyMiles and $49.13 in taxes per person. That’s great value as Delta was having an award fare sale at the time.
As we were originally leaving from Norfolk VA, we had to book separate flights up to Boston. Thankfully Delta was having a separate domestic flight sale, so we got flights from Norfolk VA-New York LaGuardia-Boston for only 11,000 miles round trip and $11.20 in taxes per person. I’d have preferred it if that could’ve been combined with the international flight, but it was pricing out at something like 60,000 miles, so booking separately for 46,000 miles made more sense.
Final Thoughts
As transatlantic Economy class flights go, this was a very good experience. Boston to London is a short route, so I’m perfectly happy sitting in those seats for 6 hours.
While the flight attendants weren’t overly warm, they were hard working and competent. When I’m flying in Economy class, I don’t expect much in the way of service, so they actually exceeded my expectations.
I’m also impressed with Delta’s offering in a few areas. It’s great that they provide a menu to all Economy passengers as it makes it easier to decide ahead of time what you want to eat or drink, rather than flight attendants having to go through the options for each passenger as they go around.
The IFE system had a wide selection of movies, TV, music and games, so there’s no need to be bored. Little touches like the hot towel at the beginning and candy at the end of the flight were also appreciated.
The biggest downside with this Boston to London Heathrow flight is that it’s so short, although that’s obviously not Delta’s fault. That means that there’s very little opportunity to sleep, especially seeing as the cabin is only dark for 2.5 hours. Given the flight landed at 6:20 am, that meant we still had a full day ahead of us.
Overall though, if you can find a good price – whether cash or miles – for this flight, Delta is a perfectly comfortable way to fly and I’d happily do it again.
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