stimpy

Where do you get $10K? Most all the non-sale AF fares I'm seeing for TATL are less than $6K. IAD-CDG-IAD for US$5900 is one example.

And yes that BA sale is over now. I bought a couple tickets within the window so I'm happy.

brunos

New York is my destination, and I can see JFK-CDG-JFK for as low as $7,675 on the old A380 seat in June (7,225 in july/August even on the 77W with a chance to get the new seats).
That is less than they used to charged. But still...

orbitmic

I don't agree that the BA F seat you get from JFK (mostly 744, which i love for the view but is small, quite a few 772 in summer season too) is better than AF's A380's, and as a former sceptic I can confirm the new BEST seat is vastly superior.

Moreover, food is very significantly superior on AF, as is the wine lists, as are the spirits, teas, and even coffee. As for lounge, you are right tat CCR JFK>AF JFK, but frankly, the difference is very marginal compared to the extremely significant difference in favour of AF from the home hub. Moreover, in both directions, the airport experience is vastly superior on AF vs BA, where you are, frankly, a nobody when it comes to security, transfers, boarding, etc.

If your point is that the AF product is still inconsistent and that they need to speed up BEST delivery and find a suitable product on the A380 then I fully agree with you, if the suggestion is that on a JFK-Europe return where for whatever reason the BEST F would not be available then AF is no better than BA, then I wholeheartedly disagree.

Let's be clear, as you say, BA often have good promotions and AF more rarely so and I personally wouldn't pay 3 times the price in such a situation. However, BA does not always have promotions and when they don't (or when you need to fly at a time which is not promotion-compatible, as they are typically restricted to holidays and stays with a Saturday night or sometimes even with a 7 day minimum stay) their prices are not very different from AF's and certainly nowhere near cheap. Moreover, the promotion listed above makes AF F promotional prices compare with BA F promotional prices, and under that situation, I personally would not hesitate for a nano-second to choose AF over BA regardless of airplane used (and that is knowing that I typically routinely choose BA over AF for a number of reasons).

brunos

Your comment is a bit unfair. I was responding to a post that AF was outclassing BA in F and I pointed out that it is not true IMO for the A380. This was specific to a A380/A380 comparison, not to all the other planes. I agree that BA F seats on 747 is not great, and in-between on 777 (I am flying BA F on a 777 in a couple of days). I never stated that AF new F on 777 is worse than BA F on 744. I have never flown new F, so I defer to your judgment.

But note that AF is now offering very few F seats. It offers 90 on the ten A380 (old F) and 76 on the nineteen 77W (end of retrofit). Hence, the old seat is the majority. I would choose BA F on a 777 to AF F on a A380, although marginally.

I disagree with your statement that BA F is usually as expensive as AF F. Sure, on occasions when you need to pay the full fare then BA F is very expensive. But there seems to be so many cases where you can fly at a very decent price (but they are still F fares, so not cheap). Like others, I have taken advantage of the free upgrade to F (one way) on rather cheap business tickets. Like a lot of flyers, I regularly upgrade to F on my dirt-cheap I tickets, and that is widely available and does not cost many miles.
One reason of BA F pricing is that they offer a huge number of F seats (14 seat per plane on a large number of planes) and need to fill their planes now that the City is downgrading travel. But I fly paid BA F regularly and always manage to find decent fares, if not then it is J or another good airline in J.

I have not flown AF F since they upgraded their catering onboard. So I cannot judge the recent improvements. But before that, I found the food and especially the wines really inferior on AF. I enjoy BA F food, especially from HKG, except the lack of caviar. No doubt that the AF lounge and overall experience at CDG is top and better than BA at LHR. But I like the open feel of the CCR, even if does not have the exclusivity of la Premier lounge given the huge number of BA F flyers. AF F wins big at CDG, but poor at outstations.


I also disagree with your statement regarding the recent sale. I hate to do so as you are a BA moderator and you will swing back at me. But F fares exLHR were amazing and not restricted to holiday periods. Actually I bought some great fares and they were available throughout the year. Also the fare exUSA was often much cheaper than AF F sale. That was not true for all itin, but you had plenty of US-Europe fares for less than $2,500. That is much cheaper than AF F promotion.

orbitmic

Ah sorry, I misunderstood. As your post referred to the JFK CCR, I thought you were comparing AF to BA on the JFK route (where BA does not fly the A380) and that the A380 reference was only to AF ones. The post you were replying to mentioned neither the A380 nor JFK so it wasn't obvious that this was the wrong interpretation (and I genuinely thought it was what you were talking about!)

To be honest, I'm not even sure that I would necessarily choose BA A380 F over AF A380 F (especially now that the nice tasting menu is going) but it is indeed the best BA F seat by a margin! Still, for example, the AF mattress, duvet, pillow, are vastly superior and in my view make for better sleeping.

Your turn to misunderstand me! I never said usually. I said that it is not always cheaper, but just that it really depends on context, route, etc. and that while BA often runs promotions (including right now), outside of them or if you are not going on a typical leisure flight (ie with Saturday night stay), base prices are often comparable.

For instance, a mid-week FRA-JFK in October costs £4300 with LH, £5600 with AF, and £7100 with BA.

FCO-HKG on the same dates is £6100 with BA, £6300 with LH and £6700 with AF which is sort of comparable (EK is half the price at £3200 by the way!)

Finally, still on the same dates, JFK-Moscow is £6500 with AF, £6600 with LH, and £9100 with BA.

Even if we look at cheap tickets with Saturday night stay, the current best rate for JFK-CDG return in July is £5000 with AF, £5300 with LH and £6000 with BA. JFK-LHR in the same period is indeed quite a lot cheaper on BA because of the current sale (£3500 vs £4800 on AF and £5000 on LH), but at that rate it is actually even cheaper on LX at £2900. In the other direction, FRA-LAX with same search for cheapest rates comes down to £4000 on BA, £4400 on LH and £4700 on AF.

The question of upgrades is entirely separate from the question of price of paid tickets. As you rightly point out, BA has huge capacity in F and in fact, are probably considering reducing it over time with an 8 seat cabin on their newest aircraft (as opposed to 14 on all previous ones). This includes to cities where it seems dubious that there is any F market at all in this day and age. And yes, with the contraction of its offer, AF has made it all but impossible (or crazy) to use miles for awards or upgrades into P. Clearly, they are only interested in getting paid tickets in P.

Wow wow, I'm not (thank goodness! ) a moderator (BA forum or otherwise!) Just a mere humble forum ambassador which means practically nothing! Yes the current sale ex-LHR is excellent and much less constrained (time wise) than usual, but this is the first time they have it like that (ex-DUB etc have been far more usual) so it is hard to double guess if this is the start of a new trend or just a one off. In the other direction, $2900 on IAD-CDG and $3400 on IAH-CDG has posted on this forum is actually pretty similar to what BA was offering to Paris in the latest excellent F sale ex-USA even though they would fly you to DUB for about $500 less return (I have no clue what the AF price to other cities was in that F sale - it was of no interest to me so I only saw the prices posted on this thread which happen to be to CDG).

stimpy

It used to be that BA was almost always cheaper than AF, but that has changed. At least for ex-USA fares. AF is significantly cheaper every day this summer from what I've seen. Especially ex-IAD where both AF and BA fly the A380. These are normal non-sale fares and AF is cheaper by a thousand dollars each way, or $2K RT.

Any sane person has to agree that the ground experience is vastly better with AF. And most should agree that the F&B is better on AF. And most agree that the seat is better on BA than the old AF seat. But I expect we'd also agree that the CX F seat is better than the BA F seat. Yet on all 3 airlines I sleep just fine with the comfy duvet so to me the difference in seat quality doesn't matter much.

My F next trip is with AF, but as I posted above I also bought a couple future BA F tickets during that super cheap sale because that price could not be ignored.

brunos

I think that we are roughly in agreement, eventhough I would rank BA F a bit higher than you do overall.

I am happy that AF has vastly improve its F product.
I am happy that AF appears to be more reasonable on pricing. It will help them fill their seats.

But I have a "conceptual" disagreement with your statement above.

When an airline is offering a promotion with free confirmed F upgrade if you pay a D business fare, it is basically offering a discounted F fare. When an airline makes it easy for you to upgrade from a dirt-cheap I fare to F using miles, it is basically offering you a discounted F fare. I know that it is not automatic (actually it sometimes is as I ticket on a flight where I know I can opup with miles). All these discounts are part of BA pricing strategy in F.
As you mention BA uses all kinds of gimmicks to segment the F market between the usual F pax who does not mind paying top dollars and the vast majority of F pax who are occasional, i.e. will travel F is the price is reasonable (but never cheap as you point out). But upgrade with miles is very much part of that overall strategy.

As I mentioned elsewhere, AF only has 166 F seats in all its fleet. BA has ten times as many, so it needs to design an agressive overall strategy.
It seems that AF preferred to reserve its empty F cabin to pilots, family and friends. The definition of family/friends is more restrictive than in J as some of the posters here can attest and I will not elaborate. They basically cut the access of awardees by making it outrageously expensive. The problem with that strategy implemented some ten years ago is that they kept very high F fare while offering a mediocre product and lost clients. They now have to regain that clientele of wealthy individuals, movie and sport stars, hedge funds, private equity... The more reasonable pricing policy will help too. And the F pax tend to be quite educated in terms of airlines. SO they will quickly adapt.

San Gottardo

A couple of years ago the only way to get me on board an AF flight would have been to repatriate my coffin. Now I am happy to say that out of the European airlines I usually fly (LH, LX, OS, BA) their new longhaul cabins are the best in Business, and on-par with Lufthansa First and Swiss' First on the A330 and B777.

Of course all their planes should feature the new C cabins, and it's a bother that they don't (which is why on some of my frequent routes such as GIG, MIA and the early CDG-JFK I try to avoid them). And it would be great if they more routes and planes with new P. I like it a lot which is why I found that sale interesting and attractive. Saw it too late.

matinthesky

Just discovered a nice promo in La Premiere cabin on airfrance.fr:

http://www.airfrance.fr/FR/fr/local/...a-premiere.htm

=> Sales until 19th of june
=> Travel from 1st of july until 28th of august:


Pékin dès 3 981 €

Dubaï dès 3 189 €

Hong-Kong dès 4 186 €

Johannesbourg dès 4 678 €

Mexico dès 4 480 €

San Francisco dès 4 681 €

Singapour dès 4 681 €

Washington dès 3 981 €

Shanghai dès 4 481 €

Tokyo dès 4 981 €

New York dès 5 981 €

Nice fares and plenty of availability too (just looked at Washington and Shanghai) so might finally test the new Suites for the first time !!!

SFO777

Just received an email about a current ex-USA La Première sale.
Nice fares from JFK. Malheureusement, not so much from our new LAX home.

Zembla

Me too, quickly need to plan my summer leave in the coming days and will book something! Can't wait to try it! ^

Goldorak

Make the right choice !!! Let us know

brunos

Indeed, this "special" fare from LAX to Paris is above $9,000. Not a bargain.

BTW, I just booked a BA F from Germany at EUR2,735. This is remarkable. It has a 28 days advance purchase requirement but can be booked for any day of the year (from June 1) and valid 12 months. Not only during holiday season. he change/refund fee is only 300. The fare in J is 1.5K.
The same BA F fare from France is EUR3.4. Germany is really a much more competitive market than France.

Goldorak

True. And you have also very often some great fares for AF in P starting from Germany (and with Germany as the POS).

brunos

Indeed. Even if they are not as great as 2.7K all included. More in the 4K range. And it is any-day and refundable/changeable for only 300.

I used to buy my AF F tickets from Switzerland/Germany where I often went for biz. Unfortunately they started to regard their P as "exclusive" and removed their nicest fares, plus imposed no stopovers in CDG. They are coming to their senses again. But a F fare any-day such as BA fare (on A380) is unheard of from the big EU3.