Best Premium Economy to Paris?
 

I'm exploring how to fly from NYC to Paris at end of September. Decided to look in to Premium Economy, but can't really get a handle on which airlines have that option.
Any ideas, suggestions, preferences? Many thanks.

Oh, I just found that SeatGuru has a long discussion and comparison of all the Premium Economy seats.... in case any one else is interested, and I'll check it out tomorrow morning.

would still be delighted to get comments on what people's experience is with premium economy on various airlines.

I'd pick non-stop over one-stop. That means one of the AF flights. Delta is adding premium economy later this year, but not sure about this route at that time. Another alternative is the "Biz Seat" on Openskies from Newark to Paris-Orly.

I'm new here, very pleased to join this forum

I flew Open Skies IAD-ORL a couple of months ago. Damn fine experience for 1,000 r/t.

www.airlinequality.com

good info reviews on this and airlines generally

BA.com Openskies my favs

We have done Open Skies, and might do it again. Prices are going up though.

Quo vadis: I've checked that site, and nobody seems to think much of Air France. Is it that bad? Does everyone on AF have attitude? Because we can do PE on AF much more cheaply than Open Skies in the fall, but I'd sort of hate to be in the hands of imperious FA's and truly lousy food and service.

Anybody?

There's quite a bit of difference between PE on Air France and Biz Seats on Open Skies. PE on Air France is typical PE, about 38" pitch, slightly wider seat than economy. Biz Seats on Open Skies are 52" pitch, typical international business class seats from about 10 years ago before airlines moving to lie-flats and now flat beds.

Here's a bit of a different thought - SAS flies to Paris with a stop in Copenhagen. {They may have other routes}. Buy economy and then try for an upgrade using optiontown.com You can try for either economy extra or business. You pay a fee for the upgrade and if you don't get it, they refund the money.

We are flying next month on SAS and have signed up for these possible upgrades. For EE it is about $200 per person for the overseas portion and about $400 for the Biz class.

Wow, DebitNM, thanks! I'll certainly check that out!

If you don't mind connections, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have tonnes of flights NYC-London Heathrow with premium economy. KLM also has PE to Amsterdam, but their seats don't seem to be any wider, and not that much more pitch.

DebitNM - have you used optiontown.com before? It sounds like a great idea, but I can't imagine how they are able to do that...

This is my first time using optiontown. There is a huge thread on flyertalk and another on tripadvisor discussing this and the success [or lack] that people have had.

http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTo...rsekutuan.html


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sas-e...unning-25.html

The discussion on flyer talk is long [25 pages] and uses a lot of airline seat/class codes that I don't fully understand, but from what I can get from both of these threads is YES they do work and if you don't get upgraded, you only have paid $5 [per person] for the chance. Seems like a good risk to me.

Of course, you have to be flying on one of the airlines that participates.

No one seems to know what makes one person get an upgrade and others not. Some say the more times you try for different flights, the better your chance. Other say if economy is full, others say if there are empty upgrade seats etc etc.

I was willing to take the chance, hey if it works, great. If not, oh well, it was worth $5.

rkkwan: Delta DOES have a Premium Economy flight JFK to CDG, but it's an Air France run.
So how do you or anyone think that would be? I gather not many people like Air France, even in PE.

I'm trying to decide whether to spend the extra $$$ to fly Open Skies, and it's a tough choice.

Any body want to venture their own opinion about best PE?

Both AF and DL operate their own aircraft on JFK-CDG (AF has up to 5x daily, DL 1x), and both codeshare on each other, as they have a joint-ventureship.

AF already has Premium Economy seats on their planes. DL has announced they're going to install them later this year.

So if I hear good things about Delta, and bad things about Air France, what could be the difference, if they are codesharing the flights?

I only saw one DL flight, and it seemed only to show Business Class seats (prob. not true, but I didn't go further with that one, and can't remember the time, etc.)

Oh, sorry, thanks for the answer, RK

DebitNM - thank you, I will take a look at those threads.