A lot of people seem to be comparing apples with oranges here
. If I had an equal or greater chance of sitting in EK J as UA C, I'd undoubtedly fly EK! (ob question: are both J and C business class? If so, why the distinction?). But as noted, I don't. I have 1K status on UA, and peon status on EK, sadly.
This may be useful for you, but since I only need to travel to India (just *through* Dubai in this case), I don't see much of a need for excellent support from the DXB ground staff. Then again, if there are significant flight delays or cancellations into India, I guess this could come in handy. Even so, though... as someone with no status, they wouldn't exactly comp me a hotel room and such, would they? Politeness is nice, but it doesn't put food on the table or a bed under the head
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I don't have Ek lounge access. Can't even pay for it.
I definitely got very friendly and patient service when I called! Though I'm a bit miffed that I seemed to have been given bad info. I asked what the passenger load was in Economy and Business about 4 days prior to my flight and was told, oh, it's looking wide open, sir... plenty of space. Perhaps something crazy happened in the interim (the volcano happened way before), but it seems that literally EVERY seat in Y and J was taken. Bummer
I'm a bit of a spoiled brat when it comes to food. I get fed amazing gourmet food at work, three meals a day. I suppose that could groom me to need similar treatment on a plane, but I'll take more space over better food any time, and in fact I'd be happy to just sleep and subsist on a granola bar or two for a 15 hour flight (I've found I can almost 100% stave off jet lag by consuming substantially less food in the air, and timing it to destination mealtimes).
Excellent point. I'm near SFO. Now does my commentary make more sense?
I've been a lot more lucky in my ~1/2M miles with UA, particularly if you count painless and lucrative VDBs (which a couple of times have also included an upgrade to C!)
Really? No, I wasn't aware of that. For whatever reason, the seat pitch seemed smaller. Maybe I've just gotten exit rows on UA when in international Y and not really thought about it.
Ah, yeah, I sure noticed that. The fella to my left on my recent flight (on a 777) hadn't flown much, if at all, it seems... and didn't quite have the concept down of sharing the arm rest and horizontal space in general, making the crampedness all the more uncomfortable.
Wow, that's awesome advice, thank you! I have great colleagues in India that I am set to be visiting 2-3x per year, and I'm sure they'd be happy to reserve a heavily discounted business class flight for me.
Aw, bummer. Didn't know that, as I've never flown premium economy before. This strikes me as odd, but I guess it's just a mini version of business class pricing: businesses are willing to pay it, so airlines charge it. Meh
Anyway, thanks for all the comments! I do realize that I might be in a unique position, so my objections shouldn't be seen as invalidating your good points, but merely clarifying my own situation and gripes.