Garuda Indonesia suspends its London Heathrow service

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Garuda is suspending its Heathrow to Jakarta service on 28th October.

Passengers will be re-routed via Amsterdam, which is their other European route, on fellow SkyTeam member KLM.

No official announcement has been made but the schedule has been amended on the airline website.

There are rumours that Garuda may start a direct service from Heathrow to Bali instead, although if this is the case then it has left it a little late.

The airline needs to do something with its valuable Heathrow slot or it will be lost, so it may end up being leased out for a period.

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This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Patrick says:

25 Aug25 August 05:21

I did the challenge and got platinum premier.

Might be a system issue, because as you “earned” platinum in the old system, you should get platinum premier now…
@mkcol says:

25 Aug25 August 05:39

I’d love LHR-DPS direct *fingers crossed*
Tom C says:

25 Aug25 August 06:33

Garuda F is a world class product – right up there with the best. Sad to see this, as they’re a good routing option when going out to Asia and beyond, often at half the price of Singapore Airlines.
- Michael C says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 06:41
  
  Yeh, I was looking at prices of 1200 GBP just last week for LHR-KUL or BKK via Jakarta.
  That extra AMS change takes the shine off as the timings in Jakarta weren’t great either.
  However…DPS would be fantastic!!!
  - Laineyling says:
    
    25 Aug25 August 10:28
    
    What dates were to looking at for this price please? I am interested in a trip to Asia and am flexible with dates and routings.
    
    Best regards
  - Lady London says:
    
    25 Aug25 August 12:37
    
    I suppose it would be relatively easy to take the new Eurostar route to Amsterdam. At least on the way to Amsterdam you don’t have the messy stop in Brussels that takes the time on the way back.
    
    I’ve only flown once on Garuda, that was a long time ago and in Y and the food was brilliant.
- vlcnc says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 10:49
  
  Yes sad to see this go as an option – was hoping to try it at some point!
Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

25 Aug25 August 06:50

You absolutely can book premium cabins in the Virgin flight+hotel packages. You get upsold after you’ve chosen a hotel. I did a quick check and the code works in itineraries that include travel in Premium and Upper.

Interestingly, you get free transfers if you book with Virgin Holidays but not when you book flight+hotel with Virgin Atlantic (although it only wanted a tenner in my test itinerary).
Nate says:

25 Aug25 August 06:56

OT. Has anyone else noticed a decline in Amex customer services since they have outsourced their call centre to Manila? If there is ever a problem it seems to take forever to get through to someone who can help, and often they need to transfer you through to Brighton which can take ages!

I saw the 20k points upgrade link online to platinum (https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/content/platinum-charge/upgrade/) which I have used before for my gold chargecard. I now have a gold CREDIT CARD and wanted to upgrade it and couldn’t see anything on the website in the terms and conditions which should have stopped me. However I called Amex to verify (and was clear I had credit card) and was told in no uncertain terms that I would definitely receive the 20k bonus points.

A few days later got a call from the new accounts team who said, as I had a credit rather than charge card, I could not benefit from this offer. I spoke to a manager, who listened to my original call with the Amex representative. They apologised I was misinformed and could offer me a maximum of 5k as a compensation. Furthermore they could not reverse the credit check on my file (which would have been carried out with the application). This seems unfair to me. Does anyone know how I can take this up further?
- Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 06:59
  
  Amex should have advised you that you can take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you’re unhappy with the outcome of your complaint.
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 07:38
  
  The reason you saw nothing in the terms is becuase the link is targeted. It’s not meant to be an offer available to everyone.
  
  Did you make it clear to the first agent that you got the link from the Internet and not a targeted email?
- Crafty says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 08:12
  
  Yes, the service from offshore is terrible. This has been compounded in my view by the closure of secure messaging and the introduction of the absolutely hopeless online chat.
  - Pangolin says:
    
    26 Aug26 August 15:56
    
    Agreed, the big dropoff in service standards is one reason I decided not to keep Amex Plat.
    
    Even when I rang the Platinum line I found I would go through to the general line and then wait 20 minutes or so (the agent actually told me this was how the system now worked unless you specifically asked for the Insurance, Travel or Concierge).
Sam G says:

25 Aug25 August 07:23

I started a long thread on Flyertalk about the Garuda closure as the inventory has been closed for a couple of months now

The rumour is the route will operate via DPS as a summer seasonal, which makes sense as this is the main tourist season for Bali. My understanding is the Heathrow slots aren’t particularly desirable so may not be an issue to get each summer, though this is putting it firmly into tourist category so operating out of Gatwick wouldn’t be the end of the world anyway. They would also almost certainly reconfigure the aircraft into two class config.

@Rob – do you have any insider info on when this is going to be officially announced? As the flights are still active in the GDS (just zero’d out )and my booking is still intact. I’m headed to Singapore so will probably just get a refund and go with Norwegian rather than a two stop flight and 06.40am start !!
- Michael C says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 08:04
  
  Sam, have you any experience on Premium with Norwegian to SIN?! Would be interested to hear how it compares to BA.
  - Sam G says:
    
    25 Aug25 August 09:47
    
    I’ve done Scoot to Berlin which is a very similar seat and I’ve done BA WT+ over the Atlantic and from Asia more times than I care to remember.
    
    BA
    
    BA seat is slightly more spacious and
    I personally prefer cloth to “leather”,
    Entertainment better,
    Food better.
    
    Norwegian
    
    From what I’ve read the new 7 row seating config on Norwegian is a little tight when everyone reclines,
    The food service is economy style (looks nice enough though and you can buy extra from the BoB
    TV doesn’t have much choice.
    No interline partners if something goes wrong, need good insurance and a credit card
    Includes priority security, lounge and boarding – BA you won’t get this if you don’t have status
    Big pro on this occasion for me – one way pricing !
    
    But from a pure product overall not really much in it and I wouldn’t pay much of a premium for BA WT+. vs Norwegian & personally I just don’t find the entire WT+ proposition over the BA upper deck A380 exit row worth the cost.
    
    Worth bearing in mind you can easily pick up an ex-EU in Business Class (BA AMS-LHR-BKK-SIN-LHR-AMS for example) for the same kind of 1500 quid price if you can spare the time
    - BJ says:
      
      25 Aug25 August 16:20
      
      You can pick up exUK seats to seAsia in business class for £1500 return no trouble at all, no need to go exEU.
    - Michael C says:
      
      25 Aug25 August 17:23
      
      Great info Sam, cheers!
- Rob says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 09:07
  
  No, no fresh info
Ian M says:

25 Aug25 August 08:10

SPG Amex double points offer update….

For anyone that missed my post yesterday afternoon..

I spoke to the woman dealing with my complaint yesterday. She had listened back to the original call when I was offered double points for 3 months. She accepted my complaint. She said she will go through all my August purchases and issue all the missing points. She will also ensure all future purchases up to the end of my 3 month offer period are issued correctly.

Finally, after 3+ hours on the phone and an hour on their useless chat service I have a successful outcome. Really shouldn’t have been so hard though!
- Doug M says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 10:06
  
  I hope you’re spending enough to make all that time worthwhile. It’s enormously frustrating when stuff is not ‘as sold’ – but sometimes the effort to fix it is just too great.
  - Ian M says:
    
    25 Aug25 August 10:47
    
    I’m spend a lot! That’s why I was not going to give this up without a serious fight
    - Will says:
      
      25 Aug25 August 11:14
      
      I’m in the same position, my call was worded “1 additional starpoint per £, so you’ll earn 2 starpoints instead of 1 per £ spent”.
      Better prepare myself for a very long session on the phone.
    - Ian M says:
      
      25 Aug25 August 20:20
      
      Have you got a formal complaint in progress Will? 1 Starpoint is 3 new points. They can’t argue with that.
Pug206 says:

25 Aug25 August 08:28

Looking to go to Bali next September. Am currently gathering flight info so am ready to book outbound as soon as it becomes available in next few weeks. Shortest journey time is 17hrs 50 which is a mix of BA and Qatar.

Worryingly, seems like you only have 1hr 5mins to change aircraft as BA123 lands in DOH at 0705 and QR960 leaves DOH at 0810. Am I reading this right pls?
- JamesR says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 09:31
  
  That is very very tight. You dont have an hour and 5 minutes as the gates will close 20 minutes before departure. Plus being 15-30 minutes late departing seems to happen on most flights im ever on. So that gives you 10 minutes to traverse the airport go through security, possibly have to catch the shuttle to the gate. I very much doubt this is going to go in your favour. Best off looking for a longer connection.
  - Nick says:
    
    25 Aug25 August 15:56
    
    I wouldn’t. I would be booking the shortest possible connection (that meets the official MCT) safe in the knowledge that the vast majority of connections work out but if it didn’t I’d be getting a later flight, extra meals and enough compensation to cover a decent chunk of the original flight cost. YMMV of course.
- Axel Heyst says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 09:49
  
  Using SIA to DPS is about an hour shorter and an overnight flight. Might also be option of stopover in SIN to give more flexibility to holiday especially on the return
  
  Will really miss the Garuda flight from LHR as excellent lontong sayur and overnight. I only counted 3 passengers in J on my last flight to CGK and they could have been aircrew!
- BJ says:
  
  25 Aug25 August 16:30
  
  Given the tax and fees involved you would very likely be better off with a cash flight, exEU if necessary, and taking 0.5ppa on hotel.