finny52

I'm actually blown away (in a good way) at award availability from the New York area to BKK next spring. I have found a TON of availability for 2 persons in business class at 140 / pp / RT.

The following airlines are an option:

-Korean Air (A380 / 777 with flat bed)
-China Southern (777 herringbone flat bed)
-China Eastern (777 flat bed)

I haven't flowing Korean in a few years and hear good things. All else being equal (schedule, cost, etc...), how would you consider the hard / trade-offs of each of these award partners?

Thanks!

DLATL777

Korean

MSPeconomist

KE partly because it's wise to avoid connections in China unless you plan to use the TWOV rules to see bit of Beijing or Shanghai.

However, I'm not a fan of the KE hard product compared to DL. The A380 is 2-2-2 seating on the upper deck (with forward and aft bars) while the 777 is 2-3-2. I think it's horrible to have middle seats in business class. Also, I wouldn't call these seats, on either aircraft type, genuine flat beds. They don't quite recline all the way to 180 degees.....and the pillow and duvet aren't as nice as DL's Westin heavenly bed.

exwannabe

I agree with KE (and also agree I like DL's hard product better).

Be careful when buying though. When searching for business, DL will present many routes that are business on the long haul but only economy on the intra-Asia connection.

lamont2718

I disagree with most of the posts above. The new J cabins on the CS 773 and the MU 773 are very nice and feature much better seats than found in KE J. CS and MU will both have 1-2-1 flatbed seating with direct aisle access.

However, the CS and MU soft product will likely not be as nice as on KE. There are tradeoffs here, but I would choose direct aisle access over slightly better service. Check out the reviews below for more info:

CS 773: http://thedesignair.net/2014/05/05/a...-777-interior/
MU 773: http://thedesignair.net/2015/02/04/c...ded-advantage/

Sez_Who

Agree about the middle seats. Well, unless there are three people in your party.

You usually fly alone, so do I, so it makes sense to prefer the other airlines with single seating. However, the OP needs two seats so this may be perfect for them...

JohnnyRockets

Have you flown KE recently??
I have never seen the A380 J full. If you pick your seats wisely there will be no one next to you. I know direct aisle will beat this any given day, but it is not as bad as it seems. If I'm correct KE still flies 747 to BKK, so the 747 UD will be again a 2-2 which is hardly full.
Still the new J on MU or CS does indeed look nice but when you combine the soft product, KE is better.
Standards are so high that you MUST get warmed nuts in F and never in a bag, or else.... is history.

I would say avoid transit in China and go with KE

MSPeconomist

Yes, I flew KE TPAC less than two months ago on the A380. Is that recent enough for you?

Note that the airline code for China Southern is CZ, not CS. You might want to correct that in your posts to avoid confusion. [IIRC CS was/is Continental Micronesia, aka Air Mike.]

davetravels

@:-) How high are they?!?!? @:-)

<Giggle Giggle Giggle>

pbarnette

I agree that KE would be wise to avoid the Chinese connections. I also agree that the KE hard product is not special (A380) or terribly outdated (777).

FWIW, I actually didn't think much of KE's soft product either. Middling food, nice but not terribly good service, and poor drink selection. The lounges are very weak as well, both at JFK and at ICN. My wife did like the face cream in the amenity kits though.

MSPeconomist

I agree, although I would add that the older main terminal lounge at ICN is much better than the new satellite turquoise and white plastic lounge for partners.

People rave about the service on KE, but I was shocked when I was told that I couldn't have a glass of white wine in the A380 bar as they only served cocktails there. This was a flight that was only about 30% full, so that capacity of the bar was not an issue.

RealHJ

While this doesn't apply to this particular routing, but for overall long-distance travel to/via Asia on SkyTeam, VN and GA both come highly recommended. VN has the best food quality & selection of any SkyTeam airline by far that I've experienced, and on the mid and long haul aircraft very spacious and good lie-flat seating (few medium haul routes excepted that are on A320s, but even those have much better recline than short-haul configured A320s), plus highly attentive service. GA also is supposed to very good, but I can't speak from first hand experience. Both options beat the risks and hassles connecting in China, though MU and reportedly CZ product for long-haul are also good (but their irrops handling is attrocious).

These would be options if flying from Europe or elsewhere, not for the long-haul out of US, though.

MSPeconomist

Whenever someone mentions IFC on the CZ A380, I remember the hysterical review that One Mile at a Time did in his blog detailing how FAs came up to the FC cabin to use (and mess up) the FC toilets and sleep in the flat beds It's not a pretty picture and I understand that the powers that be at CZ were very upset by the review, including details of the cheap wine that was "provided" or shall we say "served" by the FAs to FC passengers.

pbarnette

VN does not yet have lie-flat seating on any planes.

31693884

I actually just did JFK-ATL-ICN-BKK-TPE-JFK, two seats in J.

ATL-ICN was a 77W (A380 when we booked )
ICN-BKK was a 773, but it's the same product.

TPE-JFK was on CI's new 77W.

CI's J seat was worlds better than KEs, but CI's food was terrible. DL domestic F terrible.

It looks like MU's hard product is the same as CI's.

Neither had that great a selection of movies and TV shows. AF's was way better.