Christmas comes early for me this year: I’m finally flying Air France first class!
As you know, my wife and son are already in Europe. Although I was in London last weekend, I flew right home for one more grueling week of work.
But the week is over. In fact, the year is over. I’m taking a break…a real break. It has certainly been a long year.
After my fairly unpleasant flight in British Airways economy class last weekend, I wanted to splurge a bit for my final trip of 2018.
For a couple years now Air France first class has been at the top of my wishlist of products to try. But there is a small problem. Unlike Lufthansa, Korean, and other top-tier first class products, there is no easy way to fly in Air France first class. You’re either going to pay a lot of money or a lot of miles. It’s like SWISS first class.
Typically, I would have waited until the last minute and booked SWISS business to Zurich or Lufthansa first class to Basel via Frankfurt when the space opened. But I’m cutting it close this year in terms of timing and did not want to even risk missing Christmas with my family.
Thus, it became a bit easier to drop 200,000 miles on a one-way Air France ticket to Basel via Paris. The comparatively high business class price for the same flight helped (and was also laughable).
So now it is time to fly, and my expectations are dangerously high.
Let’s see how it goes!
Just curious how u booked this. Are u an AF elite?
This is a valid question for a blogger and I see that it remains unanswered. Why is this? (I use this blog, as well as a couple of others, to research flights. Many of the other bloggers post the method of acquisition of the flights reviewed, albeit other bloggers push the credit cards more than Matthew,
I already answered this in another post. It was booked through a Flying Blue elite account.
I seem to remember that you had to have elite status with Air France/KLM to fly La Premier with miles, is that still a requirement?
I thought these errored out when trying to book?
Awesome! You’re going to love La Premiere, especially the lounge/transit experience at CDG. Enjoy the steak and a fine whiskey on your layover.
That’s a lot of miles…!
Yes it is
Ticket won’t be issued if you’re not FB elite IME.
6 hour connection is a nice value for the lounge time
I didn’t realize that AF flew their 777s to LAX. For some reason I thought that route was operated by their less exciting A380.
So worth it. And well done on the 6 hour connection. Enjoy a great meal in the lounge. Best way to fly bar none (though I haven’t yet tried the new EK suite or the Etihad Residence)
I just flew etihad apartments which I thought was hands down the BEST first class ive ever been on. I’m all about the hard product (I thought the food was pretty average). Blew jal Lufthansa etc out of the water in my humble opinion.
Saying that. I looked in the residence and for e life of me couldn’t understand the premium for it. Still part of the same cabin. Has some bells and whistles (one bed) but I would never ever pay up for it. Maybe paid upgrade for $500-700 but nothing more
I’ve got a review coming up on that. While beautiful, I would not use the word best.
Interesting!! I loved it!! Can’t wait to try again. I know certain things not perfect but I liked the bed and didn’t mind the chair (I know a few people have complaints on this front).
I haven’t flown the new Singapore first or any Emirates first. But I can’t picture old Emirates first being better (I do love old Singapore suites).
Looking forward to your review.
Am flying back to Chicago on Chicago eastern from Sydney with whole fam (3 kids). Will see how it compares to apartments 🙂
Etihad is trash these days. The apartments, while amazing a few years ago when they were first introduced, are now just nice seats on an awful airline that’s more likened to an LCC. And with the further advancements an new F products of EK and SQ, the apartments just aren’t very special anymore.
I personally do prefer EK’s old F to the apartments,