Premium or Business Class Tickets US to Europe
Feb 13th, 2022, 08:09 AM
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Premium or Business Class Tickets US to Europe
As we get older we are finding flying coach class harder and harder. Neither my husband or I are able to sleep on flights and since my husband is quite tall and I have trouble getting in and out of seats easily with bad hips, etc. seat pitch, width etc. are becoming more and more of an issue. So we are looking to find a way to get comfort plus or even business class tickets at prices that aren't over the moon. And really I am looking for a good airline I can "commit to" so that when I do buy more expensive tickets, I can actually start to accrue points to build up to free tickets.
Are there airlines that you all think have particularly good economy "comfort class" or business class seats that are good ones to stick with? We don't really need a true business class ticket-we are fine with a class of service that has only 2 seats on the side so either a 2-3-2 configuration or a 2-4-2 on a plane. We don't want to fly on a plane where we can't choose 2 seat with no middle seats. We used to fly Norwegian from Seattle to Gatwick in there Premium class, but alas-they are not doing the US to Europe flights anymore. I think in September we are going to fly Virgin Atlantic from SEA to London Heathrow, but they have quite high fees on their tickets bought with points and their one way tickets are very expensive-so you really need enough points for a round trip tickets.
We have kind of been considering French Bee SFO to Paris (France is usually our final destination since we are US French nationals so go to visit family), but other might be Air France/Delta from SEA to CDG. But we might even consider Lufthansa or others if we feel like their comfort plus or premium type tickets are worth it. So any ideas to explore would be welcome!
Also, has anyone used Scott's Cheap flights as a paid subscriber to get less expensive economy plus or premium class tickets? Or are there brokers out there worth talking to?
https://scottscheapflights.com/
Are there airlines that you all think have particularly good economy "comfort class" or business class seats that are good ones to stick with? We don't really need a true business class ticket-we are fine with a class of service that has only 2 seats on the side so either a 2-3-2 configuration or a 2-4-2 on a plane. We don't want to fly on a plane where we can't choose 2 seat with no middle seats. We used to fly Norwegian from Seattle to Gatwick in there Premium class, but alas-they are not doing the US to Europe flights anymore. I think in September we are going to fly Virgin Atlantic from SEA to London Heathrow, but they have quite high fees on their tickets bought with points and their one way tickets are very expensive-so you really need enough points for a round trip tickets.
We have kind of been considering French Bee SFO to Paris (France is usually our final destination since we are US French nationals so go to visit family), but other might be Air France/Delta from SEA to CDG. But we might even consider Lufthansa or others if we feel like their comfort plus or premium type tickets are worth it. So any ideas to explore would be welcome!
Also, has anyone used Scott's Cheap flights as a paid subscriber to get less expensive economy plus or premium class tickets? Or are there brokers out there worth talking to?
https://scottscheapflights.com/
Feb 13th, 2022, 06:22 PM
#2
Any flights changing in London tend to have high taxes/fees tacked on. Look at flights that don't stop there. Delta has been adding a premium class to many of their international flights so you might consider that. They are a step up from Delta comfort +. Premium has a bit more recline than comfort + and a foot rest with push button controls. Delta's biz and first seem to run higher than some other airlines.
Feb 13th, 2022, 06:23 PM
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If you're fine with a genuine Premium Economy product (not Economy Plus), from SEA we've tried American, Air France (didn't enjoy on the way over to Paris but was a tiny bit better on the return) and British Airways Premium Economy cabins.
We've found AA's PE to be the most comfortable overall. But their PE cabin has a 2-4-2 configuration. We book well in advance to secure the front row seats on the sides, 2-2, with foot rests, which makes the trip far more comfortable.
We've used the PE AA cabin the most often because we both have Platinum status and have often been upgraded with miles or miles/dollars to business.
Recently in these pandemic days, within the last year we've splurged for business class seats:
in Dec/Jan ($2,431), in March ($2,253), summer ($2,500) and again in Oct/Nov when Business Class fares have been the most "reasonably" priced, but for this fall we had to pay $3,600/p. (ouch)
But today I just checked prices for our already booked fall trip, and the Business Class fares have gone through the roof!
We've never used a broker for business class tix.
We've found AA's PE to be the most comfortable overall. But their PE cabin has a 2-4-2 configuration. We book well in advance to secure the front row seats on the sides, 2-2, with foot rests, which makes the trip far more comfortable.
We've used the PE AA cabin the most often because we both have Platinum status and have often been upgraded with miles or miles/dollars to business.
Recently in these pandemic days, within the last year we've splurged for business class seats:
in Dec/Jan ($2,431), in March ($2,253), summer ($2,500) and again in Oct/Nov when Business Class fares have been the most "reasonably" priced, but for this fall we had to pay $3,600/p. (ouch)
But today I just checked prices for our already booked fall trip, and the Business Class fares have gone through the roof!
We've never used a broker for business class tix.
Last edited by Maribel; Feb 13th, 2022 at 07:13 PM.
Feb 13th, 2022, 11:17 PM
#5
One thing to explore is an airline 'holiday'. I've only used AA (several times - AAvacations) but know that BA, United and probably other legacy carriers have the same types of plans.
By booking some 'ground arrangements' along with the airfare it becomes a package and you get a very large discount. It doesn't mean you need to book the flights and every night in a hotel or a car rental for the whole time. There will be some minimum -- like 2 or 3 nights hotel booking or a 4 day car rental or something like that. Last time I used it was this past November. I flew R-T from California to London in Business and 3 nights at the 5 star Savoy hotel and the total cost was nearly $1000 less than just R-T flights alone. The rest of my trip I stayed in a lower cost hotel I booked separately. So say you were visiting France for 2 weeks -- fly RT in/out of Paris, book 2 or 3 nights in Paris and the business class package wouldn't cost much more than just the flights in coach and/or premium economy.
Another trick is to book business over and coach or economy+ for the return. That way you have the lie flat beds and special service/meals on the overnight legs and sit up on the daytime flight home. That saves a lot than business both ways.
And weirdly -- you will sometimes even find business class tix costing less than premium economy -- especially now that business travel is down worldwide. Economy and Economy + is more geared to leisure travelers and there is more pent up demand for vacations than for business meetings.
Re high taxes/fees flying through London -- that is really primarily for departures out of LHR and a couple of other airports. So for instance flying open jaw in to LHR and out of CDG or AMS etc wouldn't be a problem.
By booking some 'ground arrangements' along with the airfare it becomes a package and you get a very large discount. It doesn't mean you need to book the flights and every night in a hotel or a car rental for the whole time. There will be some minimum -- like 2 or 3 nights hotel booking or a 4 day car rental or something like that. Last time I used it was this past November. I flew R-T from California to London in Business and 3 nights at the 5 star Savoy hotel and the total cost was nearly $1000 less than just R-T flights alone. The rest of my trip I stayed in a lower cost hotel I booked separately. So say you were visiting France for 2 weeks -- fly RT in/out of Paris, book 2 or 3 nights in Paris and the business class package wouldn't cost much more than just the flights in coach and/or premium economy.
Another trick is to book business over and coach or economy+ for the return. That way you have the lie flat beds and special service/meals on the overnight legs and sit up on the daytime flight home. That saves a lot than business both ways.
And weirdly -- you will sometimes even find business class tix costing less than premium economy -- especially now that business travel is down worldwide. Economy and Economy + is more geared to leisure travelers and there is more pent up demand for vacations than for business meetings.
Re high taxes/fees flying through London -- that is really primarily for departures out of LHR and a couple of other airports. So for instance flying open jaw in to LHR and out of CDG or AMS etc wouldn't be a problem.
Feb 14th, 2022, 08:02 AM
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Thanks all-this is very helpful. We still aren't exactly sure what we are going to do because our plans are moving around a bit. I did notice that fees are high at LHR, but oddly enough if you book 2 one way premium tickets on Virgin with miles/points (versus booking a round trip flight with miles) the fees are much lower. One possibility is that we fly one way to LHR from SEA and then fly French Bee back from CDG to SFO in their premium class.
I will check out AA-they traditionally have been our least favorite airline, but to fair, haven't flown then for over 8-9 years (since they destroyed a brand new piece of luggage and just looked at us like "so what"). So I might look at them again since it opens up some options using miles/points.
I have noticed that on mileage tickets at least, that sometimes business class is cheaper than economy but haven't' yet seen this to be true for tickets bought with "cash".
Here's a little chart I made showing the various airline choices and French Bee doesn't stack up too badly. Has anyone flown them?
I will check out AA-they traditionally have been our least favorite airline, but to fair, haven't flown then for over 8-9 years (since they destroyed a brand new piece of luggage and just looked at us like "so what"). So I might look at them again since it opens up some options using miles/points.
I have noticed that on mileage tickets at least, that sometimes business class is cheaper than economy but haven't' yet seen this to be true for tickets bought with "cash".
Here's a little chart I made showing the various airline choices and French Bee doesn't stack up too badly. Has anyone flown them?
Feb 14th, 2022, 08:30 AM
#7
A few thoughts and suggestions...
First, suck it up and learn how to use ITA's Matrix search engine - Search flights || ITA Matrix by Google (itasoftware.com) . This is a very powerful tool and one that is used (anonymously) by the likes of Kayak and other online travel booking services. This lets you search for multiple destinations, open-jaw routes, month-long availability and pricing details, and, if you want to learn its "advanced syntax," can even let you specify connecting cities, aircraft types, alliances (for miles and points earnings) and numerous other things. ITA is owned by Google, and has links so that you can book flights through Google Flights once you've found them on ITA.
Second, always think about alternatives. Could the trip be timed differently? Could you fly into (or out of) some other airport and make ground connections on your own? For example, especially when using points tickets, you can avoid high departure taxes out of the UK by using Amsterdam or Dublin as your departure point. Or for those of us in Seattle, often you can get better business class pricing on flights out of Vancouver BC (a $40 train ride away.)
[A note about award tickets involving British Airways and Virgin Atlantic: In addition to paying UK Air Passenger Duty - basically a departure tax - that presently sits at £180, and £185 starting in April for longhaul business class tickets involving a departure from UK airports, both airlines also charge "surcharges" on tickets obtained using mileage awards. Originally these were called "fuel surcharges" until US courts ruled that the title was baloney, so both airlines just changed the name and carried on as before. These fees, which can amount to several hundred, or even thousands of dollars on round trips, are imposed on top of whatever the mileage redemption "cost" might be for the tickets, the effect of which is to reduce the value of your points almost to the extent that they're "pointless," if you get my meaning. Both airlines seem immune to criticism of this practice, so I recommend consumers vote with their feet. Both the fees and surcharges are built into the retail price of tickets bought for money, so if you see a cash price for BA or Virgin that seems okay, don't be dissuaded; it's only on award tickets that they run this scam.]
Third, make a plan. Now of course some travel is unplanned - family emergencies, business trips etc. - but that doesn't mean you can't have what I'll call a "five year" plan (or two or three) in which you set out travel goals and aspirations. This doesn't have to be some bloodless calculation exercise but having a plan of sorts might help you decide, for example, when the best times of the year are for your destinations, or when tickets are at their (historic) cheapest. For example, in years past (pre-plague) business class tickets to Europe from North America were at their cheapest in the middle of the summer, right when economy tickets were at their most expensive. The reason? Because business travel was at its low point as the businesspeople were on holiday themselves. Or if you want to visit Africa or Asia - when is monsoon and/or mosquito season, or major migrations of wildlife? Having a plan can help schedule your travel so that it works best for you.
Fourth, make a travel investment budget. I'm struck at how people will do minimal research before popping for plane tickets costing 2 or 3 grand while at the same time agonizing over whether to spend $400 or $500 on some kitchen appliance, going through all the consumer reports etc. How much can you afford annually for travel? If you skimp in one year can you splurge in the next? In the past I've cited a scheme my late wife and I used successfully for a decade or so. In year one we'd buy business class "round the world" air tickets - good for a year, with 16 flights included in one price. There were lots of rules, of course, but nothing we couldn't live with. So over the first year we traveled around the world - Africa, Australia, Europe, Asia, South America... and in the course of that world banked many many thousands of frequent flyer miles. The next year we used those miles for longhaul trips and for short domestic trips to see friends etc., then in year three we started the whole process again. The result was that over the space of two years we typically flew 20 - 25 flights in first or business class at an average cost of under $300 per flight. That's not bad for Seattle to Chicago, but terrific for Seattle to London or Doha or Hong Kong. Travel timing and finance plans paid off.
Fifth, let others do some looking for you. While 90% (or more) of the trips listed won't be applicable to you, the "premium fare deals" board on Flyertalk - Premium Fare Deals - FlyerTalk Forums - can be a terrific resource, especially if you're able to respond quickly. This board is where the consummate pros on smoking out good deals post their discoveries. For example, right now someone has found round trips in business class on Turkish Airways (a quality carrier) from Los Angeles to Dubrovnik, Croatia and back for US$1900 or so, good through "EOS" - or end of summer. Somebody else found round trips in United business from Chicago to Cape Town for $1750 for this June, and on and on. Would it be worth a couple grand to you to fly on your own to and from Chicago in order to capture that fare? It sure would if it was me. If you plan to use the Flyertalk forum, you'll need to learn airport and airline codes, but that's not a big deal.
Anyway, welcome to the world of premium cabin flying. You probably know this already, but it's awfully addictive. Happy planning!
First, suck it up and learn how to use ITA's Matrix search engine - Search flights || ITA Matrix by Google (itasoftware.com) . This is a very powerful tool and one that is used (anonymously) by the likes of Kayak and other online travel booking services. This lets you search for multiple destinations, open-jaw routes, month-long availability and pricing details, and, if you want to learn its "advanced syntax," can even let you specify connecting cities, aircraft types, alliances (for miles and points earnings) and numerous other things. ITA is owned by Google, and has links so that you can book flights through Google Flights once you've found them on ITA.
Second, always think about alternatives. Could the trip be timed differently? Could you fly into (or out of) some other airport and make ground connections on your own? For example, especially when using points tickets, you can avoid high departure taxes out of the UK by using Amsterdam or Dublin as your departure point. Or for those of us in Seattle, often you can get better business class pricing on flights out of Vancouver BC (a $40 train ride away.)
[A note about award tickets involving British Airways and Virgin Atlantic: In addition to paying UK Air Passenger Duty - basically a departure tax - that presently sits at £180, and £185 starting in April for longhaul business class tickets involving a departure from UK airports, both airlines also charge "surcharges" on tickets obtained using mileage awards. Originally these were called "fuel surcharges" until US courts ruled that the title was baloney, so both airlines just changed the name and carried on as before. These fees, which can amount to several hundred, or even thousands of dollars on round trips, are imposed on top of whatever the mileage redemption "cost" might be for the tickets, the effect of which is to reduce the value of your points almost to the extent that they're "pointless," if you get my meaning. Both airlines seem immune to criticism of this practice, so I recommend consumers vote with their feet. Both the fees and surcharges are built into the retail price of tickets bought for money, so if you see a cash price for BA or Virgin that seems okay, don't be dissuaded; it's only on award tickets that they run this scam.]
Third, make a plan. Now of course some travel is unplanned - family emergencies, business trips etc. - but that doesn't mean you can't have what I'll call a "five year" plan (or two or three) in which you set out travel goals and aspirations. This doesn't have to be some bloodless calculation exercise but having a plan of sorts might help you decide, for example, when the best times of the year are for your destinations, or when tickets are at their (historic) cheapest. For example, in years past (pre-plague) business class tickets to Europe from North America were at their cheapest in the middle of the summer, right when economy tickets were at their most expensive. The reason? Because business travel was at its low point as the businesspeople were on holiday themselves. Or if you want to visit Africa or Asia - when is monsoon and/or mosquito season, or major migrations of wildlife? Having a plan can help schedule your travel so that it works best for you.
Fourth, make a travel investment budget. I'm struck at how people will do minimal research before popping for plane tickets costing 2 or 3 grand while at the same time agonizing over whether to spend $400 or $500 on some kitchen appliance, going through all the consumer reports etc. How much can you afford annually for travel? If you skimp in one year can you splurge in the next? In the past I've cited a scheme my late wife and I used successfully for a decade or so. In year one we'd buy business class "round the world" air tickets - good for a year, with 16 flights included in one price. There were lots of rules, of course, but nothing we couldn't live with. So over the first year we traveled around the world - Africa, Australia, Europe, Asia, South America... and in the course of that world banked many many thousands of frequent flyer miles. The next year we used those miles for longhaul trips and for short domestic trips to see friends etc., then in year three we started the whole process again. The result was that over the space of two years we typically flew 20 - 25 flights in first or business class at an average cost of under $300 per flight. That's not bad for Seattle to Chicago, but terrific for Seattle to London or Doha or Hong Kong. Travel timing and finance plans paid off.
Fifth, let others do some looking for you. While 90% (or more) of the trips listed won't be applicable to you, the "premium fare deals" board on Flyertalk - Premium Fare Deals - FlyerTalk Forums - can be a terrific resource, especially if you're able to respond quickly. This board is where the consummate pros on smoking out good deals post their discoveries. For example, right now someone has found round trips in business class on Turkish Airways (a quality carrier) from Los Angeles to Dubrovnik, Croatia and back for US$1900 or so, good through "EOS" - or end of summer. Somebody else found round trips in United business from Chicago to Cape Town for $1750 for this June, and on and on. Would it be worth a couple grand to you to fly on your own to and from Chicago in order to capture that fare? It sure would if it was me. If you plan to use the Flyertalk forum, you'll need to learn airport and airline codes, but that's not a big deal.
Anyway, welcome to the world of premium cabin flying. You probably know this already, but it's awfully addictive. Happy planning!
Feb 14th, 2022, 10:56 PM
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We just returned from a trip from London to the US. Flew into SFO and back from LAX in Virgin Premium Economy and were very impressed. OK teh plane was half empty, whether because of lack of demand or deliberate passenger distancing I am not sure. They spaced out passenger so that no one wa sitting next to a stranger. The 3 seat centre section middle seAts were all kept vacant. Nice to have that extra space. Seats were. Comfortable with plenty of leg space and decent recline. Food was good and service could not be faulted. Only gripes were the lack of charging points (important in these days of vacc certs etc.) and somewhat limited entertainment options.
Have flown cross Atlantic with BA in PE, BIZ and First and Virgin compared well. Miles better than BA PE almost on a par with BAs older business class. First of course is on a different level!
Missed the lounges of course, especially in LAX - not an impressive airport, at least in the terminal we used.
Have flown cross Atlantic with BA in PE, BIZ and First and Virgin compared well. Miles better than BA PE almost on a par with BAs older business class. First of course is on a different level!
Missed the lounges of course, especially in LAX - not an impressive airport, at least in the terminal we used.
Feb 15th, 2022, 06:52 AM
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Thanks for the great info. Gardyloo, yes I think we may have to start looking at the round the world options once travel becomes a bit clearer in terms of covid. And that is a great reminder about ITA. I have used it in the past and will spend more quality time with it.
As you all know-it can be kind of crazymaking. I did book a flight one way 2 days ago on Virgin for 27.5K +$280 SEA-LHR. And for the round trip ticket fees would have been >$900. But today I am going to book my DH (had to wait for points to accrue) and now the same ticket is 15K + $150....so that is good, but wish now I had waited!
I do expect the experience to be better on Virgin than most. But we would be willing to fly Air France or KLM to CDG or AMS or even Lufthansa to FRA or Aer Lingus to DUB, but at the moment those prices aren't competitive at all either for dollars or points.
Also, I notice the airlines are all seeming to go back to the "bad old days" where you can only get good pricing by booking roundtrip. That was one of the things I loved about Norwegian since we spend 3-6 months at a time sine we retired and have dual nationality, so can stay over 90 days. They made it easy to book one way. We are considering on our way back next winter booking a round trip CDG-SEA and just using the return leg for the beginning of our "next year's" trip. But we may find a round the ticket might work better for us in that case.
Anyway, thanks again-it is nice to have the input of others. I do agree that premium travel is addictive-but mostly just really helpful as we get less mobile. So far we actually find the premium economy class seats more comfortable than the little pods that many carriers have in their business class. We don't really like/need to lay flat since we can't sleep and it makes us kind of "air/sea sick". But maybe I could used to business or first class too
As you all know-it can be kind of crazymaking. I did book a flight one way 2 days ago on Virgin for 27.5K +$280 SEA-LHR. And for the round trip ticket fees would have been >$900. But today I am going to book my DH (had to wait for points to accrue) and now the same ticket is 15K + $150....so that is good, but wish now I had waited!
I do expect the experience to be better on Virgin than most. But we would be willing to fly Air France or KLM to CDG or AMS or even Lufthansa to FRA or Aer Lingus to DUB, but at the moment those prices aren't competitive at all either for dollars or points.
Also, I notice the airlines are all seeming to go back to the "bad old days" where you can only get good pricing by booking roundtrip. That was one of the things I loved about Norwegian since we spend 3-6 months at a time sine we retired and have dual nationality, so can stay over 90 days. They made it easy to book one way. We are considering on our way back next winter booking a round trip CDG-SEA and just using the return leg for the beginning of our "next year's" trip. But we may find a round the ticket might work better for us in that case.
Anyway, thanks again-it is nice to have the input of others. I do agree that premium travel is addictive-but mostly just really helpful as we get less mobile. So far we actually find the premium economy class seats more comfortable than the little pods that many carriers have in their business class. We don't really like/need to lay flat since we can't sleep and it makes us kind of "air/sea sick". But maybe I could used to business or first class too
Feb 15th, 2022, 07:54 AM
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Thanks for the great info. Gardyloo, yes I think we may have to start looking at the round the world options once travel becomes a bit clearer in terms of covid. And that is a great reminder about ITA. I have used it in the past and will spend more quality time with it.
As you all know-it can be kind of crazymaking. I did book a flight one way 2 days ago on Virgin for 27.5K +$280 SEA-LHR. And for the round trip ticket fees would have been >$900. But today I am going to book my DH (had to wait for points to accrue) and now the same ticket is 15K + $150....so that is good, but wish now I had waited!
I do expect the experience to be better on Virgin than most. But we would be willing to fly Air France or KLM to CDG or AMS or even Lufthansa to FRA or Aer Lingus to DUB, but at the moment those prices aren't competitive at all either for dollars or points.
Also, I notice the airlines are all seeming to go back to the "bad old days" where you can only get good pricing by booking roundtrip. That was one of the things I loved about Norwegian since we spend 3-6 months at a time sine we retired and have dual nationality, so can stay over 90 days. They made it easy to book one way. We are considering on our way back next winter booking a round trip CDG-SEA and just using the return leg for the beginning of our "next year's" trip. But we may find a round the ticket might work better for us in that case.
Anyway, thanks again-it is nice to have the input of others. I do agree that premium travel is addictive-but mostly just really helpful as we get less mobile. So far we actually find the premium economy class seats more comfortable than the little pods that many carriers have in their business class. We don't really like/need to lay flat since we can't sleep and it makes us kind of "air/sea sick". But maybe I could used to business or first class too
As you all know-it can be kind of crazymaking. I did book a flight one way 2 days ago on Virgin for 27.5K +$280 SEA-LHR. And for the round trip ticket fees would have been >$900. But today I am going to book my DH (had to wait for points to accrue) and now the same ticket is 15K + $150....so that is good, but wish now I had waited!
I do expect the experience to be better on Virgin than most. But we would be willing to fly Air France or KLM to CDG or AMS or even Lufthansa to FRA or Aer Lingus to DUB, but at the moment those prices aren't competitive at all either for dollars or points.
Also, I notice the airlines are all seeming to go back to the "bad old days" where you can only get good pricing by booking roundtrip. That was one of the things I loved about Norwegian since we spend 3-6 months at a time sine we retired and have dual nationality, so can stay over 90 days. They made it easy to book one way. We are considering on our way back next winter booking a round trip CDG-SEA and just using the return leg for the beginning of our "next year's" trip. But we may find a round the ticket might work better for us in that case.
Anyway, thanks again-it is nice to have the input of others. I do agree that premium travel is addictive-but mostly just really helpful as we get less mobile. So far we actually find the premium economy class seats more comfortable than the little pods that many carriers have in their business class. We don't really like/need to lay flat since we can't sleep and it makes us kind of "air/sea sick". But maybe I could used to business or first class too
This website has a wealth of information including reports on seat comfort.
Good luck with your planning
Feb 15th, 2022, 09:13 AM
#11
Fifth, let others do some looking for you. While 90% (or more) of the trips listed won't be applicable to you, the "premium fare deals" board on Flyertalk - Premium Fare Deals - FlyerTalk Forums - can be a terrific resource, especially if you're able to respond quickly.
The best was the United CNZ fare. Fully refundable and upgradeable business class for US to NZ at around $1756 roundtrip. Had to fly UA to Australia and connect to NZ. I did LAX-SYD-AKL roundtrip twice. Upgraded the UA legs to F using SWUs. Used NZ in C for the AKL legs.
The icing was that it was during a DEQM offer period, so about 37,500 EQMs for each trip. One in November and the other was outbound in Dec and inbound in Jan. That was what I needed to requalify for 1K and start the next year with 18K EQMs. Ton of award miles.
I took a look at the ORD-CPT thread. My plan was to try to find that fare and if found see what it would be for LAX-CPT. That one ticket could be cjheaper than using two tix (LAX-ORD and ORD-CPT). I gave up when the best fare I could find with flexible dates for ORD-CPT was $3500. The OP on that trip had an 8-day trip, IIRC. That might be available but too short for me. ITA Matrix has a new interface.
Feb 15th, 2022, 11:47 AM
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Thanks for the https://www.airlinequality.com/ link, I will check it out! Also just to correct my earlier post, the Premium ticket on Virgin is still 27.5K +$280 SEA-LHR. The website is so bad that it defaulted back to Economy from Premium when I changed the date. So for now we did decide to bite the bullet and at least fly into LHR since with points, the $560 in fees doesn't seem too bad. Since we are staying 80 days we re going to wait a bit before booking the return and decide whether to to book another one way or a round trip that will take us back to Europe.
Yes, I noticed the new interface on ITA matrix-since it has been many moons since I have used it, at least I won't have to re-learn it lol!
Yes, I noticed the new interface on ITA matrix-since it has been many moons since I have used it, at least I won't have to re-learn it lol!
Feb 16th, 2022, 07:27 AM
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Yes, I beleive our non-stop options from SEA are London (LHR) or either Virgin or BA, CDG on Air France/Delta/KLM, Amsterdam on Air France/Delta/KLM, Iceland on Iceland Air, Frankfurt on Lufthansa or Helsinki on Finn Air. We have flown all these routes except the last 2, which both take us kind of further than we want to go since our final destination is typically Bordeaux. But oddly enough, Bordeaux can be kind of hard to get to (for instance you only have a connection from Gatwick in the UK), so Frankfurt or AMS sometimes work for us.
Feb 16th, 2022, 07:30 AM
#16
What's the question? Virgin, Delta, Air France and KLM are all codesharing SEA departures - DL carries VS, KL and AF codes to Paris and Amsterdam; VS carries the others' codes to London, in addition to Delta's own nonstop SEA-LHR service.
Feb 16th, 2022, 09:10 AM
#17
You're right, I should have just asked the question.
Why buy a VS award ticket to LHR when you are going to France? I was assuming the destination was PAR but BOR works.
There are lots of possible answers to that questions, of course:
1) We couldn't get two tickets in the COS we want during the time period (day/week/month) we want to travel.
2) We could find two tix but the itin had 2 stops.
3) We hate DL and/or AF
...
Why buy a VS award ticket to LHR when you are going to France? I was assuming the destination was PAR but BOR works.
There are lots of possible answers to that questions, of course:
1) We couldn't get two tickets in the COS we want during the time period (day/week/month) we want to travel.
2) We could find two tix but the itin had 2 stops.
3) We hate DL and/or AF
...
Feb 16th, 2022, 05:14 PM
#19
**ITA Matrix has a new interface.**
Yes, but missing some old features and doesn't seem to be functioning well at times. There's is a feedback link on the webpage and they were asking for feedback on Flyertalk. There is still a link to the old version on their webpage.
FWIW - Some of the fares mentioned upthread from Flyertalk went through Turkey and had long layovers. If you read the thread, people were posting their flights were getting cancelled or they were getting switched to flights with more connections and not the original level of travel.
Yes, but missing some old features and doesn't seem to be functioning well at times. There's is a feedback link on the webpage and they were asking for feedback on Flyertalk. There is still a link to the old version on their webpage.
FWIW - Some of the fares mentioned upthread from Flyertalk went through Turkey and had long layovers. If you read the thread, people were posting their flights were getting cancelled or they were getting switched to flights with more connections and not the original level of travel.
Feb 17th, 2022, 07:47 AM
#20
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You're right, I should have just asked the question.
Why buy a VS award ticket to LHR when you are going to France? I was assuming the destination was PAR but BOR works.
There are lots of possible answers to that questions, of course:
1) We couldn't get two tickets in the COS we want during the time period (day/week/month) we want to travel.
2) We could find two tix but the itin had 2 stops.
3) We hate DL and/or AF
...
Why buy a VS award ticket to LHR when you are going to France? I was assuming the destination was PAR but BOR works.
There are lots of possible answers to that questions, of course:
1) We couldn't get two tickets in the COS we want during the time period (day/week/month) we want to travel.
2) We could find two tix but the itin had 2 stops.
3) We hate DL and/or AF
...
For us the reason we decided this time on VS was that we had gotten a VS credit card that gave us points to get us one free premium ticket. And asid3e from that, AF/KLM/DL flights were very expensive in $$ and we don't have enough points to help there yet. Also, we don't hate AF but they honestly don't love them and we really don't love flying into CDG. We lived in Paris for many years and just find it a much harder airport to get in and out of compared to AMS or LON airports. We were spoiled when Norwegian was flying SEA to LGW. It was so easy since we could connect to either BA or Easyjet from LGW to BOD, but those days are over. We had a very bad experience on American (although 10 years back) and we generally try to get our flight leg to or from SEA all the way over the Atlantic versus changing in NYC or ORD for example. That is just personal preference.
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