I love my iPhone, and am never very far from it. I use it all the time for as many things as I can (which is probably why I have got 3 portable chargers to keep in my man-bags for the inevitable eventuality when I run out of charge.

I am flying with British Airways to Belfast for the wedding of a good university friend. It will be the first time I have been to Northern Ireland, so an afternoon in Belfast is an exciting prospect. More will follow on that trip, including how it cost me 2250 Avios and £17.50 to fly LHR-BFS, my thoughts on British Airway’s Hand Baggage Only fares, and the pros and cons of using points or cash to stay in hotels.

BA A319

In order to get there, we need to check in and I like to do this as close to T-24hrs as I can to get as good a seat as possible. I have no status with British Airways (yet!) so cannot choose a seat earlier, and I am loathe to pay for something that I will get for free later, so I tend to wait. The aircraft is an Airbus A319 in domestic configuration like the one in the picture, so there is no difference in any of the seats. Except, that is, in the exit row! Just above the wing you can see a small hatch which is the emergency exit. According to Seatguru this means that row 10 has extra legroom. By checking in as soon as I could, I was able to get 10A/B for the flight, meaning that I will be able to luxuriate in 80 minutes of not having my knees rammed into the seat in front. Of course, I could have paid to select a seat at the time of booking for about £15 each, but I took my chances and it paid off.

The other benefit of checking in online is being able to use the British Airways App. This allows me to get my boarding pass as a QR code on my phone which is scanned whenever I would need to show a boarding pass. It means one less piece of paper to misplace and adds to the ease of paperless travel.