LeisureClassy

It was my first long-haul business class trip, and I had a 6 hour layover in Copenhagen, so I had my first mini-trip to Scandinavia


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This summer I had to go to Europe for 3 days for work.

As instructed, I purchased the cheapest economy ticket, which happened to be on SAS.

After much consideration, I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to my maiden business class voyage. After all, this was a legitimate business trip, no?

It turns out that the easiest way to upgrade a flight on SAS is by paying through a portal called Optiontown. For $500, those fancy bed-chairs with the endless alcohol and frequent flyer mile bonus can be all yours. Eh, why not?

I discovered that people who fly in the front of the plane all appear to be raging alcoholics. The woman sitting next to me had two glasses of champagne before we even took off. She then had another once we were in the air. She had two glasses of white wine at dinner, followed by an after dinner cocktail. So this is how the other half lives.

On the plane, I watched a Danish movie about construction company price-fixing. Despite that description, I enjoyed it.

The food parade was endless. I was slightly embarrassed of how much food I ate, thinking that it must be obvious to everyone this was my first time being allowed in high society at 38,000 feet. On second thought though, everyone was probably too drunk to notice.

I landed in Copenhagen with a 6.5 hour layover before my flight to Brussels.

Even a rich people airport lounge will get boring after that long. Obviously, the only reasonable thing to do was go into town and explore.



I took out some Danish kroner from an ATM, bought a train ticket into town, and 20 minutes later I was getting off the Nyhavn stop to explore.



I spent several hours walking around, taking pictures, and watching people.



I was pleased to see this random shout-out to the capital of Portugal, right in the capital of Denmark. Cod fishing countries, unite!

Then it was time to get back on a plane.

72 hours later, I was back in Copenhagen, albeit with too short of a layover to leave the airport. I also waited too long to upgrade my flight again, and I must say, the SAS economy seats leave a lot to be desired.

I was very excited though, when we flew over the Faroe Islands.



Now I need to visit the Faroe Islands.

SMART51

Second empty posting

LeisureClassy

Sorry, Smart51, I was having some issues with the coding for the images and went back into edit it. I think it will be empty until they approve my changes.

:/ Embedding images was harder than I thought, but i've got it straightened out now.

shefgab

For trip reports, it's generally easiest to write it in a document, embed the picture codes in that, then paste it into Flyertalk, then Go Advanced, the Preview Post. If it looks odd/wrong, then go and fix it on your doc. Don't just post it, then go and edit it.

Madone59

Years ago SAS was one of my first business class flights ever - I hope you are able to post more photos.

LeisureClassy

Thank you!

Got it figured out

Skipcool3

I don't worry so much about what other people drink. I am guessing it didn't descend in to a Viking night flight of fighting. I worry more about rubbish fast food taking over.
$500 for the upgrade sounds good. Might as well get some value. More fizz!

Thanks for posting.

LeisureClassy

Hahahaha now THAT would have been interesting. I would have taken part.

LH4116

Hmm two glasses of Champagne at boarding, one before dinner, two glasses of wine at dinner and a cocktail is just a normal amount of alcohol consumed on a flight. Wouldn't call anybody an alcoholic for that.

Pangro

I think it's more a matter of what you're used to. I grew up with non-alcohol drinking parents (not any religious stuff, more health related) and with that I've never understood this fascination of drinking while flying. I've been travelling in business class from Scandinavia and the US several times - and it surely amazes me the need-to-drink people have. Even more so in their trip reports, but of course - in the written media you can always brag upon yourself more than what you actually drink. So who knows if it's just big words or an alcoholic problem. To be honest I wish the focus on "fancy" travel (C/F-cabins) was less on the alcohol side and more on the actual experience of flight. But I still respect that for some people it seems like booze is the only good reason to fly First. I'm glad it's not me

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Thanks for the report Classy Leisure - nice to hear you had a good trip with SAS

LeisureClassy

Pangro and LH4116,
I'm not judging anyone's drinking habits, I've been known to have a drink or two myself from time to time, especially when champagne is involved. Just a humorous observation.

Seven drinks in one flight is technically a binge, though, and to those of us haven't inherited the alcohol-processing gene, it's impressive someone could even set up straight after that!

DTS

I wouldn't call that a raging alcoholic either.
An observation that I made though: with alcohol being so expensive in Scandinavia, some Scandinavians tend to have one or two drinks more than usual, if it is free. With that being said, the last time I flew LH F TATL, I had three glasses of champagne pre departure, another one pre lunch in the air, one with lunch, a glass of wine with lunch, and a glass of scotch and a glass of cognac afterwards. I usually do not have more than two alcoholic drinks per week.

LH4116

On my recent SAS flight from Tokyo to Copenhagen in Business Class, I had one glass of Champagne at boarding, another one after takeoff, then two with lunch along with two glasses of white wine, and then a small glass of Sauternes with dessert. This was all over the course of two and a half hours and it didn't get me drunk, at all. The total amount was around equal to a 0,75 liter bottle which a pretty standard amount to drink.

I would be more concerned with people binge drinking on hard liquor and acting rowdy, or if somebody drank a whole bottle of wine in one go. That's alcoholism in my books.

Marambio

I have to say I really liked the report, well written and very humorous. And yes, I agree with the fact that people up front do drink quite a lot - can't blame them though, if there's good alcohol for free just go for it!

LeisureClassy

Thank you, Marambio!