I’m home and happy to report a smooth and most excellent flight in SWISS First Class!
My family traveled from Zurich to Los Angeles and the superior service started service directly at check-in. We were traveling with a great deal of luggage and the agent actually stepped out from behind the counter and helped us place it onto the conveyor belt.
There is no escort through security for first class passengers, but just past security we were driven to the E-Gates where our flight would depart from.
We enjoyed a delicious brunch in the First Class Lounge before boarding our flight to LAX. I ordered reindeer and it was delicious.
First Class was only booked 5/8, meaning Augustine had his own suite even though he was traveling as a lap child.
Service onboard was tremendous, with genuinely friendly FAs who carefully cared for my family.
Food was also amazing, with a multi-course feast after takeoff.
Best of all, though, was the quiche prior to landing…so delicious and coincidentally the identical pre-arrival meal I enjoyed last time I flew in SWISS First Class in 2011. See what I mean?
Upon clearing passport control at LAX, a representative was waiting for us at the baggage claim belt. He had already placed all of our luggage onto two carts and wheeled it out to my car for us (I took one, he took one).
A full trip report will be coming soon as well as a special post on traveling in SWISS first class with a lap child.
CONCLUSION
The Aeroplan issue aside, flying SWISS First Class is truly a treat. First class on SWISS rivals that of the leading carriers of the world.
cute baby!
Thank you! All credit goes to his mother for that.
How is it to travel with baby this age? We are planning our vacation and not sure what to expect?
The key is to travel as late as possible in the day, so the baby can get to sleep ASAP. I’ll have a separate post addressing exactly that question.
Please, looking forward as I am making our travel plans.
second that. new father and need all the tips so i can keep flying!
You didn’t get any alcohol on the flight?
I did. Had some champagne. Was disappointed there was no Rosé champagne or wine, but will outline in full trip report. There was an otherwise robust wine menu.
That was my first thought as well.
It would be for you Andy K…
3 seats empty!! They could have just accommodated your Aeroplan ticket. What a waste on their end. I know they want to guard their first class for their own members but it would make better business sense to release unsold seats few days before like Lufthansa does. At that point any revenue would be better then sending out so many empty seats. I hope they pay you properly for the Aeroplan cancellation and please ignore all the haters out there, they’re just jealous of your hard work which you deserve to enjoy. You and everyone at Boardingarea do a fine job and keep up the great work!
My thoughts exactly! Corporations are so stupid. They do as they please and your only recourse is to sue them and convince a judge that you’re right and entitled to stuff (no easy feat- as judges are “the dumbest” person in the room). Utter nonsense.
My daughter got her own BA first seat over the summer when she was 9 months. She slept curled up like a ball in the footwell.
Sounds great!
Footwell? Wow. Germ city.
So when AIMIA goes bankrupt probably next year this will all be worth it.
Looks like a fun trip! Curious, and I mean no rancor by the question, but is buying a lap child ticket (I assume it’s discounted) and then putting the child in an empty suite equivalent to a self-upgrade? The FAs allow it, and I see it all the time in economy as well where parents will move to an empty row if available so an infant can have a seat, so no harm no foul. Just wondering if there are T&C around it or if it’s just the norm.
It’s a fair question and I don’t have the answer. I do know that the FAs invited us to take a third (and even fourth) seat.
My two bits. If you place the child in the seat / move to a different row, its not an upgrade as long as you are doing this within the same cabin / class of of travel.
If you do this before the doors are closed, I think its just a feeling of entitlement, as you do not deinitely know that those seats will remain empty till doors locked.
If you do this once doors are closed, then, IMO, you are merely utilising available unused space, which would, most probably, in economy, be used by some other pax with a similar need. In First, I dont see much of an issue, especially when the load is 5/8, and you constitute 3 of the 5.
I’m always of the opinion that if it’s there, spread out! Thanks for the reply – honestly curious as it seems that domestically there’s such an emphasis now on staying in the seat on your boarding pass, even more so since emergency rows became reclassified as premium seats. I guess it probably comes down more to fare class booked than specific seats or number thereof. Nice to hear that the FAs were common-sense about it. I would hate to one day put my bag in the empty middle seat, and have the FA charge me for European business class!
Oh wow – so you didn’t even wait for Swiss to respond to your demand letter before spending tens of thousands of dollars on revenue tickets? I didn’t realise your trip was so soon. I hope it was worth the price you paid for it because you will never see that money again. You are completely delusional for thinking that because you decided to spend the money and then fly the product before Swiss even responded to your complaint, that they are going to refund your enormous outlay of money. The most you will ever get as compensation is some miles (either Aeroplan or Swiss miles).
It’s like saying ‘I bought an item on sale from Vendor A, the sale was then voided so I bought the product again at full price from Vendor B. Vendor B should therefore refund me the full price and let me separately pay the discounted price’ to Vendor A.
That’s not how it works and that is not going to happen.
Hope the flights were worth the revenue price you paid for them.
PS – you haven’t suffered any loss. You got your Aeroplan miles refunded and then you spent money on a revenue fare which you then received (flew). The most you can hope for is specific performance which is to allow you to book and fly the flight for the Aeroplan mileage amount. You will never see the revenue fare money you spent ever again.
@Ben: A couple things.
SWISS did respond to my DOT complaint and told me to go pound sand.
Aeroplan miles were never refunded nor was any sort of workable solution offered.
Imagine this. Seller A sells you a specific car you like. There are other cars, but this is the one you really want for a number of reasons. Two weeks later Seller A has seller’s remorse and re-possesses the car. And keeps your money. You try to reason with them to get the car back, but they don’t listen. So you buy the car from another source and sue Seller A for damages…
Don’t underestimate…
I see – I thought Aeroplan had refunded your miles.
I believe you were offered other routing options in J class but chose not to take them because they were not as ideal as direct on Swiss.
Your example with buying the car – if you took Seller A to court you would refunded the amount you paid to Seller A, i.e. the miles you spent. The fact that you elected to go and pay a (much) higher price through another seller (and then received the product you paid for) would make no difference to the amount Seller A owes you.
What loss have you suffered other than the miles you have not been refunded?
The question remains – was the flight worth the revenue fare you paid for it?
@Ben: thousands of dollars to replace a unique and one-time product I already purchased but was stolen.
Aeroplan and Swiss shouldn’t have to be on the hook for consequential damages, even if it is proven to be their fault, which I’m sure is in their T&Cs, and you mostly likely had a duty not to exacerbate the damages, if there were any. You converted a slightly indirect routing in a lower class of service into thousands of dollars of real damages after initiating a dispute. Aeroplan and Swiss can’t be liable for those actions.
I think you need find someone who’s flying to see a dying parent (or similarly dire situation) and accidentally books a mistake fare that is cancelled before we’ll see the appropriate attention from the media and the DOT on this issue.
We’ll see.
But that’s not how contract damages work, especially if they want to argue that they accidentally offered you the seat at the fare you paid. Yes, you can argue that the fare you paid is the standard fare for F redemptions from US-EUR, but both Aeroplan and Swiss note that Swiss F is not supposed to be available for Aeroplan redemptions. Neither Swiss nor Aeroplan owed you anything more than a seats on a flight or flights that got you from ZRH-LAX in F or a refund of the miles and money you spent on the flight if they couldn’t come up with a satisfying alternative. While you were right to refuse to accept the refund if you are trying to litigate this, that isn’t going to change the fact that you probably won’t prevail, especially now that you went and unilaterally added to the damages by purchasing F tickets yourself, despite plaintiffs typically having a duty to mitigate damages in these cases.
How could I have mitigated by damage? There was only one product available and I booked it, exactly as planned, after giving Aeroplan a month to makes things right themselves. Saying to buy business is like saying to buy a C-Class instead of S-Class. That’s not what I wanted nor contracted for.
@Matthew: I’ve been reading all of your previous posts on the Aeroplan issue. However, given the fact that Swiss didn’t even bother providing you with a decent answer to your complaint (their “expert” literally showed everybody the middle finger), I find a bit shocking that you are planning to write a more-than-enthusiastic review of this flight. For me it’s like compensating them with free advertising after such a horrible customer service.
I hear you. Totally fair point, but I want to separate the two issues. SWISS is an ethically suspect, dare I say immoral, carrier…but the onboard product was great.
“SWISS is an ethically suspect, dare I say immoral, carrier”
The irony is delicious
Flying with infants is the easiest in F – I would always do that again too!