Going [through] MAD as a QF Gold.

[albatross710]

Hola!
Just a quick trip report about about a short flight we are doing with Iberia. We needed to do a flight between MAD & LIS. There are a few choices on the LCC but we found a flight with IB for about the same price.

The experience has been quite good given that our last few intra-europe flights have been LCC and most recently Ryanair.

Booking our tix on line with Iberia went well. They recognised the QFF Gold status during the booking process and afforded me free seat preference which included Mrs Albatross sitting next to me.

QF Gold as OneWorld Sapphire use the Business Check-in counters. The staff member seemed happy to meet us and offered to check some additional cabin bags. I found out later they were offering this to everyone but in any case, saved us clearing the carryon through security. My boarding pass was printed with Fast Track but unfortunately Mrs Albatross did not get Fast Track.

The Iberia lounge is immediately after security. The lounge attendants were helpful and gave some extra attention. Made sure we had the wifi password in english.

Much of the lounge are tables with an adjacent power, usb and light setup. Quite a relaxing setup.

The lounge food and drinks offering are excellent. Wide selection of drinks alcoholic and non-alcoholic. The menu is available by QR code and can be found online here.

No boarding announcements in the lounge. Which is great! Unusually though there are people receiving 'private calls'. I did get a little excited that I was going to see some action when a "Mr Wick" was called to the front desk but sadly no gunfight.

I'll post a few pics here.

Oh, I should mention I did go with Mrs Albatross through standard security and marital harmony continues on this adventure. The common theme in each airport is she gravitates to the queues whereas my thought is always "hmmm there must be a way to bypass this queue"


Full scale bar & barista station.

The buffet with updating food selections.

The tables and workstation setup.

 

[Vic]

Was there a couple of weeks back connecting from ORY to VLC.
It took FOREVER to find the way upto the lounge from the concourse. A complete lack of signage to find the lift upto the inside of security.
I could see the lounge up above, I could only see down escalators. I could see the lounge disappearing behind us as my partner said follow the signage, which took us to a different paid lounge.
They kindly sent us back to the hidden elevator in behind the down escalators from security.

Very nice lounge once inside. I think this one is called the Dali lounge, and there is another IB lounge but the name escapes me.

 

[tdimdad]

Oh, I should mention I did go with Mrs Albatross through standard security and marital harmony continues on this adventure. The common theme in each airport is she gravitates to the queues whereas my thought is always "hmmm there must be a way to bypass this queue"

Is she Bri'ish, by any chance? Been in similar situations with a partner who had that very tendency (and me seeking for the easier way through) - and a rather Anglo upbringing.

I wonder if the check-in agent would have been able to issue fast-track to Mrs Albatross, too, if requested?

 

[albatross710]

Is she Bri'ish, by any chance? Been in similar situations with a partner who had that very tendency (and me seeking for the easier way through) - and a rather Anglo upbringing.

I wonder if the check-in agent would have been able to issue fast-track to Mrs Albatross, too, if requested?

I did request when I saw it. Then I just thought I could wing my way through with her in-tow as I do with ABTC access. But the barcode scanning access to the Fast Track took the responsibility off the security guy.

 

[blu]

Our experience with MAD was that it doesn't move large groups of pax well (April). Like 300 pax converging on two escalators down to the baggage carousels/exit.

 

[SYD]

Just did the reverse LIS-MAD but included a few trains and cars with just a short hop on IB (Air Nostrum E190) from SDR to MAD. Departed on time and arrived early.

We booked via BA.com (for some reason it was cheaper than booking direct on IB - go figure, but we’ve seen that before). I’m sure at the time of booking (several months ago), we had seat selection and I plonked us (2x OWE) in the front row of whY.

After flying BA LHR-LIS, the next trip in the QF app was this flight but wasn’t showing any seats. I went into BA and then IB and sure enough - no seats. Cabin was by then showing full’ish up front and the best I could select was Row 11. Looking at EF, the flight was pretty empty and the front 6 rows were blocked and then window seats row 7 to 10 blocked. Weird. Try RJ.com and MH, but couldn’t get seats further forward to stick.

Cut along story short(er), anyone else seen funny things like this flying IB?

I was overly concerned since it was only 50 min flight and we still had two seats together but seemed strange that we lost some preferential seat selection along the way.

Our experience with MAD was that it doesn't move large groups of pax well (April). Like 300 pax converging on two escalators down to the baggage carousels/exit.

Only one of those escalators was working today….

As an aside, it’s now 7.50€ in from MAD airport if you don’t already have a Madrid metro card (2.5€ for the card, 2.5€ fare and 3€ for airport access fee).

We’re flying out next week on CX. I believe the IB lounge at T4S is quite good - will report back.

 

[SYD]

We’re flying out next week on CX. I believe the IB lounge at T4S is quite good - will report back.

Flew out of MAD a bit over a week ago. As mentioned above, signage is non existent. After getting to T4S (satellite terminal), the IB lounge is quite decent but when you leave, you’re back in the duty free maze with zero signs. It’s a bit like swimming out of a rip but once you get close to the shore you get the idea which direction you need to go…. We were the last to board the flight (I think)….