A Oneworld Foray
American Airlines was having a sale on Cathay Pacific award travel so I cashed in 20,000 Aadvantage miles that were gathering dust in my account along with 60,000 Starpoints worth 75,000 miles for the 95,000 miles needed to get a First-Class roundtrip from LA to Bangkok on the Hong Kong flag carrier. It had been remarkably easy for me, with no status at all on American, to get through and book my flights. Everybody at both American and Cathay Pacific was a pleasure to deal with and since I was somewhat flexible with my dates I got a 10-day mid-June trip with no problems.
Hunnybear dropped me at the zoo known as the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. I found Cathay Pacific and wheeled my bags to the First-Class line. Since the First-Class agent was busy I went up to the unoccupied Business-Class agent next door and checked in with no problems. She gave me invitations to the First-Class lounges in LA and Hong Kong and pointed me vaguely in the direction of the lounge.
I was on my own going through the long line at security and finding the lounge. Cathay Pacific didn’t have a guide or concierge like United does. They were using the Qantas lounge at LAX so I went in and fired up a laptop once I found an appropriately live phone cord. The lounge was nothing special. They had a self-service bar with inexpensive beer, Australian wine, and liquor. Stale sandwiches and tired-looking sushi sat on trays nearby. I tried an open-faced salmon sandwich and abandoned the stale bread after one bite.
After an hour or so they announced boarding for my flight and again I was left to fend for myself finding the gate. Boarding was a zoo. There were two long lines but it was not possible to see the signs that marked the first line as being for First and Business class so every third group of passengers was turned away and sent to the back of the longer line. As soon as I stepped aboard things improved. My personal flight attendant introduced herself to me, followed soon after by the First-Class purser and then the In-flight Services Manager. I had booked seat 2A in the 747-400 after learning the plane had the new “Betsy” seats. They seemed a hair wider than the United First Suites but had no back massage or power outlet and did not lay as flat. When sleeping I felt an uncomfortable bump mid-thigh, but the seat was certainly comfortable enough for a good night’s sleep.
As soon as I sat down I was offered Krug Grand Annee Champagne and a delicious lobster tartlet. I told the stewardess I drank water like a camel so she brought me a 1-liter bottle of Evian. When I ran dry later in the flight she replaced it with a 2-liter. It took some time to go through the menu, wine list, and personal-entertainment guide that were brought along with a little kit of moisturizing creams, a duvet, slippers, eyeshades, and a very nice sleep suit. I asked for three movies,
Life Is Beautiful, Go, and
Joan of Arc: The Messenger, which were brought promptly. All the food on the flight was cooked to order and available at any time but I did a fairly traditional meal service. After takeoff I ordered a Manhattan (made with Gentleman Jack) because I’d never seen one on a plane before. They didn’t have shakers so I ordered it on the rocks.
Then came generous portions of Osetra caviar with all the fixin’s, accompanied by chilled Stolichnaya vodka which wasn’t quite chilled enough. Osetra is one of the cheapest “name” caviars available. My favorite is Sevruga, which Thai used to serve before the currency crash. I don’t know if they still do. United eliminated caviar with a cock-and-bull story about saving the environment a couple years ago, the cheap .......s.
After the caviar I skipped the soup but had the teriyaki chicken Caesar salad. The chicken was superb but the salad could have used more garlic, cheese, and anchovy like Hunnybear makes it. For the main course there were two Western choices, veal in a cream sauce and rigatoni. Instead I ignored the stewardess’s warnings and ordered the Chinese favorite, cod with a sweet-hot sauce. It was excellent.
I skipped dessert, as I do as a rule, but ordered an espresso with the hopes of staying up another six hours to start the jet-lag process. No dice. I fell asleep most of the way through
Life Is Beautiful but don’t tell Roberto Begnini. When I woke up I just gave in and flattened out the seat to sleep for real.
The stewardesses on this flight figured out a way to keep the Business-Class passengers from poaching on the First-Class restrooms: they keep them “occupied” at all times. That means I had to find a stewardess to open the door every time I wanted to use them, which I found a bit of an inconvenience, but not as much as having them full of business-class or coach passengers.
This was my first time taking a late-night flight to Asia and I was somewhat surprised by the lack of service. Thinking about it, though, it seems primarily a sleep flight and they pretty much left us alone. Towards landing, though, they came around with a nice fruit plate and a made-to-order breakfast. I had a frittata-like thing with bits of smoked salmon, which was OK, but the highlight was the chicken sausage accompaniment. I had five. I ordered decaf twice during the flight and each time they brought me a porcelain pot of it.
Towards the end of the flight I discovered that the video system had some interactive computer games. I started playing Hangman and got halfway toward beating the high score set by someone in row 48 but we landed early and I was denied.
Even in their home airport Cathay Pacific provided no concierge for the First-Class passengers so I found my own way to the fabled lounge. From what I had heard I expected to be blown away, but it was really no nicer than the LAX Red Carpet Club with the addition of private shower and bath facilities. There was a spa downstairs in the Business-Class lounge but it wasn’t open until after I had to leave. Service was minimal. A waiter took my order for a pot of decaf when I sat down then ignored me for two hours. A modest buffet breakfast was put out half an hour after we arrived. I took a nice shower in one of the cabanas with a mysterious door at the back that the attendant told me was out of order. Refreshed, I borrowed a power adaptor and spent most of the two and one-half hours on line, calling Hunnybear with Dialpad, writing, and fighting with the FlyerTalk ads crashing my browser.
There was no announcement of my flight, no departure monitors, and once again no concierge so I asked the agent at the front desk when I should board. She told me they only make announcements when flights are delayed but that I should head out in about five minutes so I popped a couple har gows from the buffet into my mouth, retrieved my checked bags, and found my way to gate 29 for the connection to Bangkok.
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