Like any addiction, the flying compulsion rears its ugly head without warning and with great force.
I had to chuckle at Ben’s recent piece entitled, “My Very Logical, Methodical, Review Trip Planning Process…” He and I think about review trips in precisely the same way. Before I even take a look at award space or fares, I’ll spend all day exploring airline, routes, and timetables I am interested in. This process usually starts as the excitement from my last trip wears off (the moment I land…).
I’m not into sports and don’t have a TV at my house…but I do love searching for flights!
Typically, my review trips are built around one particular flight. From that flight, I will construct a front-end and back-end itinerary around it. Time is a precious commodity and I don’t want to leave my family and compromise my productivity unless I can kill many birds with one stone.
And while I know I still owe you the India/Maldives review and the Balkans review (the last of my two “classic” trip reports), I am looking ahead to my next trip.
I’ll often start by putting all the routes I want to fly on a map (I prefer using gcmap.com). That’s quite a lot of flights that I wish to review:
- Korean Air A380 First Class
- Korean Air 747-8 First Class
- Royal Air Maroc 787-9 Business Class
- Delta A350 Business Class
- Egypt Air 787-9 Business Class
- Aeroflot 777-300 Business Class
- Royal Jordanian 787-8 Business Class
- EL-AL 787-9 Business Class
- Air Italy A330 Business Class
- TAP A330neo Business Class
- Philippine Airlines A350 Business Class
- Virgin Australia 777 Business Class
- Emirates 777 New First Class
- Singapore Airlines A380 New Suites
With that list (hardly exhaustive), I start plotting out ways to link multiple flights together. Like flying Virgin to Sydney, connecting to Asia on Singapore Airlines, taking Royal Jordanian to the Middle East, Emirates to Europe, then Air Italy home. Or something like that…
But that makes me think of all the people I could meet for my other business during the trip. I start looking up client addresses and checking specific schedules.
CONCLUSION
In the end, I didn’t book anything. But the process starts anew each day.
And while the exercise is fun, I need to get something booked. Fast.
Any preferences from you, dear readers?
I’d be curious to see how TAP does on a fairly long West Coast route.
My preferences for the reviews are below. Some weight is given to if I might fly the route and some weight is given for novelty.
Virgin Australia 777 Business Class
Delta A350 Business Class
Singapore Airlines A380 New Suites
Korean Air A380 First Class
Korean Air 747-8 First Class
Emirates 777 New First Class
Air Italy A330 Business Class
TAP A330neo Business Class
EL-AL 787-9 Business Class
Royal Air Maroc 787-9 Business Class
Royal Jordanian 787-8 Business Class
Philippine Airlines A350 Business Class
Egypt Air 787-9 Business Class
Aeroflot 777-300 Business Class
Keep up the good work!
My top three choices are TAP, Virgin Australia, and Aeroflot, though I think from a pure “avgeek” perspective, comparing the KE 747-8i and A380 would be fun.
Are there still award seats on your travel date?
Unfortunately not – F and J both sold out.
El Al is of interest to me, if only because it is now possible to redeem Qantas points for travel ex BKK ( and that one of their 2 daily flights is a 787).
Royal Maroc as well, but I’ll wait for their O/W integration.
Well, with KrisFlyer, if you don’t want to pay cash or the Advantage rate you really only have one option to fly the new Singapore A380 Suites. I think Singapore-Shanghai has some saver award space but that’s about it. I’d probably fly Delta to the U.S. from there, but I’m interested to see what you come up with!
And my preferences are Emirates’ 777, Philippine Airlines’ A350, and Royal Air Maroc/Egyptair’s 787s (if you fly the fifth-freedom Bangkok to Hong Kong route, allow me to treat you to a coffee, your schedule permitting)!
Fly on the Super 80 before they’re all gone!