The Long Way Back to Frankfurt (via YVR, HKG, IST)

After a refreshing week away from the office, I am on my way back to Frankfurt today. To spice things up a bit and to take advantage of a great deal Turkish Airlines ran earlier this year on their new Premium Economy class product, my routing is a bit circuitous. No–I will not be flying Los Angeles to Frankfurt via Istanbul. Instead, I will be in the air a bit longer:

• Los Angeles to Vancouver in Air Canada Economy [$125 – revenue ticket]
• Vancouver to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific Business Class [$167 in taxes – award ticket using 50,000 BA miles]
• Hong Kong to Istanbul in Turkish Airlines Premium Economy [$399 – revenue ticket from Hong Kong-Istanbul-Los Angeles ticket purchased in May]
• Istanbul to Frankfurt in Turkish Airlines Economy Class [$105 – revenue ticket]

Ideally, I would be flying in Cathay Pacific First Class today from Los Angeles or San Francisco, but this trip came together at the last minute (a few days before British Airways devalued their Executive Club award chart) so I had to work with the award seats available–I could not get a first class seat from any Cathay North American gateway so business class it was.

I will be flying for over 30 hours with only short breaks between flight (sadly, my six weeks of vacation have been used so there is no time for a side-trip to Cambodia or Singapore this time around) and imagine I will be quite tired when I land in Frankfurt on Wednesday and proceed directly into work, but hopefully I will sleep through a portion of my Cathay flight and most of my Turkish flight (their Premium Economy product is like a domestic first class seat).

This should be fun…