Luxury Airline Travel

Part 1: Seven Hours in ORD
Part 2: Cathay Pacific – First Class (CLE > ORD > HKG)

One of the premium business & first class products in the world is Cathay Pacific. When planning our trip, I knew it was a requirement that we try this product. There were a couple different options to fly Cathay to Hong Kong: Fly American metal from CLE > ORD > SFO and then Cathay metal from SFO > NRT (Japan) > HKG (Hong Kong), or the fast, more efficient route: ORD > HKG. I’ll take option #2. I will tell you that complex award tickets and travel takes time and patience, and for those who know me, know this is not a virtue I hold. So if I can handle it, I’m confident just about everyone in the world should be able to as well.

NSPfiance and I began searching for flights roughly eight weeks prior to our departure date. Given than we were locked into November 30 – December 3 for our stay at the Conrad Koh Samui, our travel dates really weren’t flexible: We were departing from the US on Thanksgiving Day. Roughly one week into our search a business class seat opened up. Cathay Pacific award space bookable with American Airlines miles can be searched very easily by using the British Airways web site. American also allows a hold on an award seat for five days. I held that seat hoping a second seat would open up. Five days later, no such luck. I cancelled the hold and NSPfiance picked it up. Five more days went by and nothing. Japan Airlines, also known for having a good product (though not nearly as nice as Cathay) had two first class seats available, so I put a hold on those. The next morning, NSPfiance was up at 4:30am to head to the gym, and lo, two Business Class seats on Cathay were available!

Cathay is known for releasing one or two first class seats roughly 330 days prior to the flight and then not opening up seats until roughly a week before the flight, although it seemed that starting around the beginning of November, award space leading up to flights were almost non-existent! Poor timing for us. We were checking British Airways site daily, and roughly eight days before the flight, a single seat opened up! While such an arrangement could wreak havoc in the NSP-household (one of us would have to “rough it” in Business, #FirstWorldProblems), four days before our flight was set to take off, NSPfiance saw the most beautiful screen:

First Class is Available!

And thus, a pair of first class flights valued at over $11,000 each were secured for 62,500 American Airlines miles each (American’s World card gives a 10% discount on Award Tickets, up to 10,000 miles per year, so the actual mileage without that credit card would have been 67,500 each).

Knowing this would be our flagship trip, we were excited for the 15-hour 50-minute journey. The seats/pods/suites were huge:

First Class Seat(ing Area)

We started out on the tarmac with a glass of Krug Grand Cuvee (Champagne that retails at $169 a bottle!). OK – maybe I started out with a few glasses:

Pre-Flight Toast

…but it didn’t stop me from changing into my pajamas – 16-hours, I better be comfortable:

Krug Grand Cuvee

I began my spread: Tablet in side compartment area, old clothes hanging up in my own private closet:

Personal Closet

Takeoff was a good opportunity to check out the menus for the flight (as well as the special wine menu):

I opted to start out with the caviar and sushi-grade salmon:

Caviar

Oh, one other nice thing about the First Class suites, they are set up for two people to enjoy their meals together:

Eating Together

The delicious appetizer was followed by scallops and salad:

Salad with Scallops

Then the true Thanksgiving staple came out: Lobster! While a glass of Krug would have been a perfect accompaniment, I chose the Chateau Haut Brisson La Reserve, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2009 that was a limited-edition to their wine menu (retails between $50-$70 per bottle).

Thanksgiving Dinner

Of course, no meal on Cathay would be complete without hand-written notes from the amazingly attentive flight attendants:

Hand-written Notes

It was then time for the fact that I only had three hours of sleep in the previous 55 hours to kick in. I put down my seat into a fully lie-flat bed, pulled up the duvet, donned the eye-mask that was included in the Ermenegildo Zenga amenity kit…:

Amenity Kit

…and went soundly to sleep for about three and a half hours. After waking up, I ordered coffee, which unexpectedly arrived with an almond biscotti and chocolates. I was still too full to take advantage of the offered snack of Haagen-Dazs!

Coffee and Chocolates

I decided to scan through the large collection of movies and settled on The Great Gatsby. After finishing the movie, I decided I wanted to get up and be vertical for a bit. With only six first class seats in the first class cabin and only two other individuals in the canon on the opposite of the plane, we essentially felt like we had the entire cabin to ourselves with the high walls of the suite. I decided to freshen up a little and was delighted that a razor and shaving cream were provided in the lavatory:

Post-shave, I chose another movie: Now You See Me on the rather-large TV:

Large TV

After another couple-hour nap, I was awakened by NSPfiance who was craving the dinner selection which started out with a fruit plate:

For the entrée I selected the seabass, chive mashed potatoes and green beans:

Dinner is Served

Dinner was finished with tiramisu:

Dessert

We then settled in for the final hour of the flight. Overall the experienced lived up, and even exceeded, the almost impossible expectations. We knew it would be tough traveling “down” in Business Class on our next flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok. I can tell you that I am already in the works to figure out how to plan another trip on Cathay. Laos? Cambodia? Myanmar? I know this one will be in:

On Wednesday, NSPfiance and I are heading to Alaska for a cruise. How much did the pair of tickets cost us? How about $30 for the pair? How we are doing it:

• CLE > SEA: Southwest – 12,000 points and $10. I received 100k points in January for 2 card sign-ups, and then with a little magic received a companion pass valid for 23 months. The one ticket was 12k points and $5 in security fees. The Companion pass gives NSPfiance an identical itinerary for only the $5 security fee.
• SEA > JNU > SEA: Alaskan Air – 15,000 British Airways Avios and $5. I received over 140k Avios last year with one signup and some creative spending. British Airways are one of the best redemption values for short-haul flights in the US, only 4,500 one way for any flight under 600 miles and 7,500 one way for any flight under 1,151 miles.
• SEA > CLE: United – 25,000 Miles (first class). We could easily have spent only 12.5k miles for economy, but 6 hours on a plane after a ridiculously awesome vacation warrants some extra pampering. Plus, earning miles is just so easy…

Total Costs for Two: 12k Southwest points, 30k Avios, 50K United Miles and $30. Pretty good value considering Alaskan Air is the only jet to service Juneau, keeping prices quite high. I`ll soon post pictures of the king crab, salmon and halibut that I catch!

I spoke about Aegean Airlines about six month ago. The highlights:

• Signup and receive 1,000 miles (counts toward elite status)

• Earn 3,000 additional miles to receive Star Alliance Silver Status

• Earn 16,000 more miles within 12 months of achieving Star Alliance Silver Status and receive Star Alliance Gold Status

The cool part about this status? Most report the status is good for 2-3 years, and since it is earned through an International Airline (not United/US Airways), it gains you access to any Star Alliance Lounge in the world, provided you are flying on one of their alliance airlines!

A few months ago I had to fly to New Orleans for work, and lucky enough, one of the cheapest flight options was on U.S. Airways (which earns 100% miles on Aegean). I now have 9,300 tier qualifying miles with 7 months to fly another 10,700 to gain lounge access for, hopefully, years to come!

I`m thinking a trip to the west coast for a weekend is in our future. NSPfiance and I each have a $99 companion pass on US Airways that came with their credit card, so even a $400 fare turns into a $250 fare for each of us. It also helps that most flights route through CLT. That will net close to an extra thousand or so miles.

Oh, and this came in the mail last month:

Aegean Blue Status

Free checked bags? Check. Priority security access at multiple airports? Check. Again, one of the best parts? Take a closer look at that expiration date!