PROLOGUE
Both fortunately and unfortunately, much of my 2019 travel has been decided by unknown Flyertalkers posting into the “Premium Fare Deals” forum. Fortunately, because I’ve managed to relax up the pointy end more than I’ve sat cramped down the back. Unfortunately, because I’ve spent 80% of my annual travel budget in the first third of the year. On flights. Typical.
This particular deal popped up in late November: 1500EUR from Frankfurt to Sydney, return. A no-brainer, given I have to make the long journey down to Australia from Sweden at least once a year to see family.
Booking the ticket was painful, and required no fewer than ten attempts over the course of 15 hours. Nonetheless, I was still quite excited when I finally managed to ticket it: 40 hours in business class awaited me, and 20 of these hours would be on the upper deck of a 747-8 – a plane I’ve been dying to fly. In the end, my itinerary looked like this:
ARN-FRA: Scandinavian Airlines, A320, Economy (9:00hr layover in FRA)
FRA-PEK: Air China, 747-800, Business (13:45hr layover in PEK)
PEK-SYD: Air China, A330-300, Business
SYD-PEK: Air China, A330-300, Business (8:30hr layover in PEK)
PEK-FRA: Air China, 747-800, Business (1:35hr layover)
FRA-ARN: Scandinavian Airlines, A320, Economy
Whilst the transits in Beijing were long, I managed to get Air China to book me free hotels for both inbound and outbound daytime layovers which made things considerably more pleasant.
Given the short, nondescript nature of most intraeuropean flights, I'll only be covering the long hauls on CA as well as the airport lounges. Plus maybe some of the fun during layovers. Next up: the Air Canada lounge in FRA!