It’s Christmas time, Heathrow is heaving, kids are screaming, queues are endless and I am sipping free champagne, totally oblivious to the mayhem happening outside of the executive lounge.

The executive lounge is basically of a haven for rejects that can’t afford business class airfares. The décor is drab and dated, and the wireless is not free. But as far as places to sit go, at least we have a seat. They also do a very nice flapjack. Oh, and did I mention the alcohol is free?

We have a 24-hour flight ahead of us, so it is nice to sit and chill after the hectic week we have had.

We are flying premium economy on AirNZ. I am hoping they have wireless functionality on board. I quite fancy having a good blog at 30,000 feet.

Our check-in wasn’t as uneventful as I hoped. As we’re flying premium economy, we got to use the business class check-in. This was all well and good, no queue, straight in, until they realised our return date from NZ was more that 6 months away. This is no issue for people such as me who are on a dual nationality passport, but for British folk (Mike), this is an issue.

We aren’t planning on spending more than 6 months in NZ as we are heading to Aussie in January, but we haven’t yet booked flights for this. This is apparently an issue. The lady behind the counter looked concerned. She took our tickets and passports and went to seek her supervisor. The supervisor returned looking concerned and asked many questions. In the end, they took our tickets away and changed our return date to May. Luckily we have flexible tickets, so can change the dates in the future for a small fee.

Anyway, back to the free booze and a fresh blog from 30000ft.