This is now me. Granted I wasn’t flying international first class, but business. Had enough points/status I usually found my way into business for personal travel. But I don’t have to travel for work in the UK, so the related perks are gone.
I could afford to fly better but after having it subsidized for so long I just can’t bring myself to 
.
I’m not sure I’d ever feel I could afford a $6-10k or more airline ticket. That’s most of the cost of a total vacation to me! When the price of a single thing (except maybe a car) is more than my mortgage payment, I have a lot of trouble getting my head around it. We’ve learned to travel very well without spending huge amounts of money, and that kind of cost on a ticket doesn’t fit for us. Everyone’s budget is different of course.
It doesn’t necessarily have to cost that much. I had always flown up front with points, but like others, life changed and I fly less and don’t earn the points and status anymore. So this last trip to France was the first time I purchased a first class ticket. I used Google to track prices and after a few months ended up under $3800. Still not cheap, but a lot less than I anticipated.
Flying steerage to Istanbul on Friday. Was always at the front of the plane (or upstairs) in my working years. Front of the plane is better, but we survive
In the end, my employer and our business partners settled on Japan Airlines (JL or JAL, right?), business class. Tokyo-Haneda layover. The long leg is on an Airbus A350-1000 - looks nice! I’ll report once we take the trip.
If you like Japanese food, pre-order the Japanese meal. Menus are shown on line.
Hopefully it’s their newest “J” cabin.
Which is probably the only option as it’s their newest aircraft.
Oddly they don’t even show it in their fleet on the website
Make sure you sneak into first class and steal a bottle of Salon
Not surprised. Haven’t seen many employers willing to spring for First international!
Unlikely, they only board one bottle.
never mind the “sneaking” into and stealing part
Seems cheap. which airline?
The Grayhound of the skies. Delta.
price makes more sense as they don’t have traditional “F” cabin.
Delta One is J
United Polaris is J
American is the only US carrier left with an international F cabin which is painfully outdated. It will be gone shortly
No kidding. I am astounded at how expensive first class is. $25,000-30,000+ round-trip was the norm as I was looking.
This is a special circumstance and our partners were likely to pay for the full ride, but in the end it seemed unnecessary to go to that length so we let them off the hook at business class.
My last few flights on these were pretty mid at best.
Polaris has a pretty nice hard product but otherwise the experience is wanting. Wine was horrible.
Had one good Delta One flight several years ago when I got a new plane and the seats had the door. The door wasn’t such a big deal but everything else was pretty good. Flight I had a couple months ago was older plane and everything was just OK. A fair penny to pay for OK.
I had yet to blow points on premium cabin on a US airline.
breaking my streak in 2 weeks in AA J. Unless something better pops up.
plan to eat in the flagship lounge, then take a Lunesta chased with a few gin and tonics til I pass out
55k Alaska miles + $5.60 on AA is better than 55k + $996 on BA
BA’s YQ makes redemptions completely useless on them.
The sad fact is there aren’t many great products in J between US and Europe. I’ve done about 12 LH J flights this year on Lufthansa, and their business class is complete garbage. The seat wasn’t great when it was introduced like 15 years ago, and it hasn’t aged well.
Still much better than being at the back.
I’d look for a way to opt out if company made me travel in anything at the back of biz class, with that very long-haul of a flight.
Also, JAL business class is already very good in itself.
Some friends flew the new LH business class out of Vancouver a couple of weeks ago and the photos looked great.
Yes, but I think YVR is the only Allegris route for now.
And its been coming for like 5 years now. I fly a lot of Lufthansa J (just yesterday flew MAD-FRA-HKG), cant wait for them to get it out more.
LH 787 is decent too but thats another rare bird.