nomii

I've always used miles to redeem economy flights (domestic and international), mostly because for say 50k miles I an get multiple economy flights instead of blowing it all over on one first class.

But one of my aspirational goal is to experience the true first class just once and here is what I want:

- One way first class is fine (don't need to experience it twice)
- Want the true full shebang experience which includes: lie-flat bed, atleast one catered meal offering, cabin/shower (basically I'm thinking first class of Emirates/Etihad/CX calibur etc?). I've experiences domestic first class through upgrades and its underwhelming - if I'm paying top mileage dollar I don't want domestic standard first class where mostly what you get are some free drinks and a bigger seat.
- Lounge & limosine experience? This might mean my one-way is actually a two-segment going through Dubai?
- Cheapest possible first class mileage+taxes redemption one-way satisfying above in terms of miles needed (preferably Alaska miles since its easiest to earn for me, but I can always sign up for credit cards for United/AA etc to earn those if needed). By this I mean - I know I can pay top mileage dollar to get first class to newzealand or whatever, but I don't want to burn all my miles accumalated for just 1 experience. I'd rather experience first-class international for one time one way, and then use my saved up miles for several economy trips (since I value redeeming more econ flights over few business/first flights).
- Preferably starting from Seattle or somewhere in US, but I travel extensively to Europe & Asia also so start and stop points can be anywhere there too. Avoid India, China, or Russia (visa issues there for me), or any other problematic countries for visas for US citizens.



Once your collective hivemind provides me some good routes to aspire towards, I can apply for appropriate cards etc to get miles (I have mostly exhausted my Amex applications due to their lifetime policy, so anything which avoids those will be perfect).

macdonaldj2

look at miles into CMB and then pay $$$ ex. to somewhere like LHR if you're interested the full on bling air. Fares are reasonable for one way out of there. 2K USD+ OW for F.

guv1976

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Well, you won't get limos or on-board showers, but it's tough to beat the value of JFK-YVR or YVR-JFK in F on CX for 32,500 AA miles. (Not sure what AS charges for that redemption, though.)

CDKing

Slightly more for AS miles 35K each way

flyertalker00156

I think you should look at Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines. maybe look at some trip reports before you pick an airline

farbster

I think you might be disappointed...Lounges are not all equal for one. And in the end, it's still just a quieter place to sit and maybe take a shower and charge your phone. They can be very mediocre at best, and some can be great.

If I were you, I'd apply for some cards or do whatever to rack up some points and then take a trip in 1st or biz to a destination you're excited about...

CDKing

CX lounge would only be exciting of one were departing HKG in F.

Once you fly international F its hard to even go back to even flying business.

nomii

Well I typically don't get addicted to luxury just because I've tasted it once - this has been true of other luxurious experiences (hotels, foods and so on), so I'm not too worried about going back to economy (I still don't mind domestic economy even after being upgraded few times and trying domestic first & the local lounges).

Thanks for the YVR-JFK tip, seems like good value so far. If there's some short EY/EK routing which is cheap and comes with the high-end arab luxuries, that'll be even better

sdsearch

Yes, but you have to separate the simply "luxurious" part of the experience from the "practical much better" part of the experience (for which business class these days is more often just as good as first class).

Fancy food, pajamas, etc, all that is luxury.

But being able to lie down horizontally flat (or even just slightly titled flat) on a 10+ hour flight vs just being able recline a coach seat a little bit for some people makes the difference between being able to sleep well (and then do a full day of whatever when arrive), rather than hardly be able to sleep and thus be unproductive (whether at work or on the first day your vacation) or worse dangerous (if you have to rent a car right after you get off the long plane flight). So I'd say it depends on how well you sleep in longhaul coach as to how addictive "trying" first/business on longhaul could be.

IMHO that's not akin to comparing a luxury hotel room vs a Motel 6 room. That's more akin to comparing a Motel 6 bed vs sleeping on a sidewalk!

But, of course, if you do sleep well in coach, then it might not be addictive. (Some people can sleep well in coach, some can't.)

But if that's the one part of your expereince you do get addicted to, that's found more and more these day in just plan business class (not needing to go all the way up to "true" first class).

And most people only really need to sleep in the eastbound direction (except maybe on the very longest flights, mostly across the Pacific on a diagonal).

So if you only used it in one direction, business class rather than coach would typically raise the cost to as little as 75k (from 50k all coach) for a round trip, though that varies with the FFP program.

... But, of course, if the YVR-JFK flight is a daytime flight (I don't know if it is), then the sleepability improvement is the one part you wouldn't necessarily be able to experience/evaluate on such a flight.

guv1976

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"If there's some short EY/EK routing which is cheap and comes with the high-end arab luxuries, that'll be even better"

EK flies JFK-MXP; SQ flies JFK-FRA.

Gardyloo

In F on CX, JFK-YVR is better as it's an hour longer (headwinds.) Read this trip report.

Thunderroad

I'd think this would be your best deal in terms of your wanting to experience international F without a big mileage splurge. (Though confirm that this route in fact offers F. I'd expect that it does, but a few CX international routes do not.)

Now, if you want to splurge a bit (62.5K on AA, I believe), then CX HKG-USA would be great and is often available using AA miles. Wonderful service and suites that are pretty private, though not enclosed unlike a few other airlines. As someone already suggested, booking it in this direction gets you access to CX's very nice F lounge in HKG.

For even more miles (though I'm not certain how many), a longer trip and an even better experience, you might consider SQ on its SIN-NRT-LAX route on the A380. Roomy, private, enclosed suites make this option stand out. (CX is great, but not enclosed suites.) Plus access to the Private Room in SQ on your way out. You can accumulate points that you can convert into SQ miles for this via the Chase Sapphire, Ink and Bold cards; Amex cards; and Citi Thank You points cards. Book online and you get a 15 percent points discount.

An option that includes the limo pick-up is Etihad in F, I believe 100K AA miles from the USA to AUH or vice versa. I haven't personally flown it, so can't compare for certain with SQ and CX, but I know that like SQ it has the enclosed suites. Service might be less consistent than SQ and CX from what I've read, however.

MSPeconomist

SQ exSIN in FC gets you access not only to TPR but you can also use their FC check in lounge and dedicated passport control line. AFAIK this works for any route with FC, not just the long hauls. IIRC some SIN-HKG flights, but not all, offer FC. Avoid the regional aircraft routes, with don't have FC and offer a somewhat inferior business class product.

The YVR-NYC CX routes are cheap for FC, but you miss the experience of a real Asian FC lounge like SQ's TPR at SIN or the CX FC lounges at HKG.

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

EK A380 offers a shower ^

Book two segments and take two showers

Hard to find space, but can be spotted close-in.

I'd go for a tpac or tatl myself- a tcon is too short to fully appreciate what F is.

farbster

Don't you mean Emirates? Maybe you had auto-correct issues? I don't think Cathay flies the A380....