Originally Posted by
dilanesp
[EDIT: I will add something else. It was harder to get into F without buying a F ticket at full fare or close to it. Frequent flyer program benefits were a lot less available back then. You didn't have this opportunity to earn hundreds of thousands of points not flying, there weren't large numbers of status upgrades- you could upgrade or "purchase" a premium cabin ticket with miles, but you weren't going to get to do that too often. And there were no TOD cash upgrades. So most people who flew F paid the full price for it.]
Redemption prices were much less though and a better value. I don't recall when they stopped, but I remember mostly booking 2 person rewards, which was an actual category with even less mile on a per person basis. The last one I booked in the 1990s was 2 people in TPAC F for 180,000 points (still the days of Dom/Caviar and the 747 OP configuration). The points about less full planes are correct. I remember one 1990s westbound TPAC were the flight attendants requested the F&C main deck passengers to keep the window shades down, but if you wanted to look out the windows as we were going over Alaska...you could go to the upper deck (which was empty and being treated like a lounge...watching the western Rockies/Mt Mckinley while being served drinks and chatting with the other travel geeks that never tire of looking out the window for that part of the flight...had a similar experience on one of the first polar / Siberian routings as well
)
I completely forgot that the cocktails came out 2 at a time your drink + another little liquor bottle...even in economy if I recall correctly. On the original thread given UA was mostly domestic with a few international routes until they bought the Pan Am TPAC division ~1986, I'd say the F experience was far better than today and also involved the multi-course meals with trolley's to make salads, carve meat, select deserts and after dinner drinks as many have mentioned. Just about any major market from west coast to ORD or transcon was on a DC10 or 767; and they still used the DC-8s on secondary routes (ORD-Sacramento) that had a lot of F seats and were quite comfortable. A lot of the DC-10s then did short turns to places like ORD->CLE, DET, YYZ, PIT...as well as major east coast markets like BOS and PHL. ORD-->FL routes were pretty standard to have at least a few DC-10s as well. + the long lost Channel 9 was always an entertaining option if you didn't like the movie. I also remember being given free bottles of wine leaving the plane.
Frequencies weren't as great, but honestly, I'd still rather pick a domestic widebody with comfort and great service that runs every 2 hours to an hourly 737/A320 for a 4 flight. Great to see these are starting to come back into the rotation in some markets.