I’m doing my best to catch up on old trip reports and there is a huge one I’ve never published: my trip around the world with Lucky (One Mile at a Time) last August.
There will be no surprises in this trip report – Ben promptly published his report last year. And while my perspective mirrors his on almost all aspects of our flight experience, I already wrote most of the trip report last year so I’m going to publish it anyway…
Looking back, this was quite a trip. 33,070 miles in a week to be exact. We started by flying from Los Angeles to Shanghai on China Eastern, a flight I consider my first true smoking flight. After complaining on our blogs, we were treated like VIPs the following day when we continued our trip to Colombo.
From Colombo, we caught a Qatar flight to Doha then connected on Royal Air Maroc to Cassabalanca. After a day and a half in Casablanca, we flew flew home…via Doha, Colombo, Jeddah, Manchester, and New York! All without stepping out of an airport…
This trip report will include the following segments:
Review: China Eastern Business Class 777-300ER Los Angeles To Shanghai
Review: Grand Hyatt Shanghai
Review: China Eastern Lounge Shanghai Airport
Review: China Eastern Business Class A330 Shanghai To Colombo
Review: Hilton Colombo
Review: Qatar Airways Business Class A340 Colombo To Doha
Review: Oryx Lounge Doha Airport
Review: Royal Air Maroc Business Class 787 Doha To Casablanca
Review: Hyatt Regency Casablanca
Review: Royal Air Maroc Lounge Casablanca Airport
Review: Royal Air Maroc Business Class 787 Casablanca To Doha
Review: Qatar Airways Business Class A340 Doha To Colombo
Review: Saudia Business Class 777 Colombo To Jeddah
Review: Saudia Lounge Jeddah Airport
Review: Saudia Business Class 787 Jeddah To Manchester
Review: Pakistan Airlines Business Class 777 Manchester To New York
Review: Airspace Lounge New York JFK Airport Terminal 5
Review: JetBlue Mint A321 New York To Los Angeles
In the interest of full disclosure, here is what I paid for the flights–
07/26 MU586 Los Angeles to Shanghai departing 12:30PM arriving 5:30PM (+1 day)
07/28 MU231 Shanghai to Colombo departing 2:05PM arriving 7:00PM
Cost: 70,000 Delta SkyMiles + $190.20 taxes/fees
07/29 QR665 Colombo to Doha departing 10:50AM arriving 1:05PM
07/30 AT217 Doha to Casablanca departing 1:15AM arriving 6:55AM
07/31 AT216 Casablanca to Doha departing 1:10PM arriving 10:15PM
08/01 QR664 Doha to Colombo departing 2:15AM arriving 9:35AM
Cost: ~$620
08/01 SV781 Colombo to Jeddah departing 5:35PM arriving 8:50PM
08/02 SV123 Jeddah to Manchester departing 3:45AM arriving 8:20AM
Cost: ~$700
08/02 PK721 Manchester to New York departing 12:45PM arriving 2:55PM
Cost: ~$900
08/02 B61323 New York to Los Angeles departing 9:45PM arriving 12:44AM (+1 day)
Cost: ~$600
I realize that many of you won’t be going out of your way to fly Pakistan Airlines or Saudia, but my philosophy is simple: providing reviews of as many airlines as possible leads to a clearer and more accurate evaluation of the airlines you will be more likely to fly. And who knows, sometimes there are surprises that make an unappealing airline suddenly appealing…and vice-versa.
Sufficient time has passed since Lucky posted his reviews that I don’t remember most of them.
I will look upon your reviews with the usual excitement !
Excellent!
So for the trip with Lucky you only used miles for the LA-Shanghai- Colombo leg and everything else was paid tickets?
Correct. The trip was really based around the ~$600 CMB-DOH-CMN-DOH-CMB fare and our shared desire to fly Royal Air Maroc. Everything else we built around it. We had considered all sorts of returns, including Kuwait Airways, but finally decided upon the current combo. Had there been more reasonable mileage options, I certainly would have opted for that.
Thanks. It’s always good to know the actual cost of flights as a reference point.
Of course whatever is paid for a ticket is only good for that flight and no one can tell if it might ever be available again.