This entire 6-month round the world adventure was fantastic experience which I am remembering about everyday now, almost 2 years after completing it. Planning the whole logistics with flights, hotels, trains and other tours was an experience in itself and it took me several months of work before actually starting the trip. As an aviation-geek, I had the chance to fly quite a few different airlines, and quite often in premium cabins, including First class. For 99% of the people, flying business class is already the experience of a lifetime (and I am still feeling like a kid when I seat in business class on a long-haul trip !), so imagine flying in International First class !
My first time in First class was on BA in 2015, upgrading a business class segment with Avios between LHR and PVG. Back then, I was already thrilled by this experience, although now that I think about it, BA's First is more like a very good business class than a true First.
The following year, I got lucky and found myself upgraded at the gate on a revenue business class ticket on AA, while travelling to a conference in Southern California on board AA's flagship 777-300 between LHR and LAX. True First class on North American carriers is not as good as on European, ME or Asian carriers, but the experience was still very enjoyable nonetheless, with the hard product quite satisfactory, and thanks to a very friendly FA on board this flight, I could visit during the flight some of the guts of the aircraft : the cockpit crew and cabin crew rest areas.
The same year I had the chance to enjoy a flight between FRA and HND on the nose of a Lufthansa 747-800 in First class, and return with Swiss on their new 777-300 between HKG and ZRH, using Miles and More miles and a senator companion discount to fly with my girlfriend (who was my best friend back then) to Asia. That was one level up, with a proper First class service on the ground, like car transfers (unlike BA), a more intimate cabin than BA and fancy catering.
But there was still a holy grail I was missing : Flying my home country flag carrier "La Première" product, usually VERY expensive when booking a revenue ticket, an award ticket or wanting to upgrade a business class ticket, and hard and expensive to score using miles. (If I had to name just two things I would have hoping to fly more than AF's First class would be to fly Etihad's residence (don't think that will ever happen !) or fly onboard Concorde (and that ship is looooonng gone - although I got to be in one for the first time, but that's for the next post).
I wanted to score a First class ticket on AF during this trip, but the prices requested were just too crazy for me (I almost had a million FB miles, but it took me 10 years to earn this, so I was savvy in my decisions) and almost booked to start my year 2019 with a one way revenue ticket from Tunis to Hong Kong for just 1700 Euros in First (well, only the CDG-HKG would have been in First), but I opted instead for my multi-stop BA AMS-BKK trip to start 2019 and the second part of my RTW trip, with the advantage it was a roundtrip ticket... But I still had to find a way to fly this exclusive product which is AF La Première.

Going back to my schedule, I was now in California and had to reach Argentina to be able to be in Ushuaia, at the deep south of the American continent, where I had to be 9 days later so that I could take my Cruise relocating from Antarctica to the warmer seas of the Pacific. For such a long flight, I wanted to travel in business class initially, and since fares from the US to South America in premium cabins are not always very cheap, I looked for award availability about 9 months in advance and did not find anything on AA or LA using BA Avios, and could only see some scattered availability using Flying Blue miles on Aeromexico from the west coast to Brazil via MEX (with the first leg usually on a 737), and on DL to Sao Paolo or Rio de Janeiro on a 333, but this ticket was only available in business class starting from Atlanta and the timing to get there was quite inconvenient.
After a month or so looking for options daily, with all the bugs associated with the use of the AF/KL websites and apps when looking for award tickets, I made a mistake on day when selecting the cabin, and choose First class. I was flabbergasted by the options proposed : SFO-CDG-GRU, with both segments as night flights, and a full day in Paris in between. Since the transfer was less than 24 hours, Flying would after all only charge me the price of a first class ticket between North and South America (where a direct routing does not exist anyway on SkyTeam) : 200000 miles + an infamous carrier surcharge of 374 Euros. Considering 200000 miles is the price for a one-way ticket between SFO and CDG and a one-way between CDG and GRU is 320000 miles, this option was a no brainer (for any person with full sanity, spending 48 hours in a plane and airport to get between California and Brazil via Paris would be insane, but I was crazy enough to consider it and I am sure my most of my fellow Flyer Talkers would have done the same :-))
On this beautiful day of July 8th 2018, I therefore decided to book those flights, with the joy of selecting seat 1A for both segments on an empty 4-seat first class cabin...


Booked !

Besides visiting the fantastic destinations I got to discover during this adventure, This particular trip was on the top 3 travel experiences I was the most looking forward to do.

After a restful night at the Holiday Inn express in Belmont (which compensate my previous short night), from where I did the online check-in for this flight the day before (Unfortunately, the seat map showed up as full, unlike SFO777 in a similar TR), I left the hotel under the rain around 11 and after a quick supermarket and refuel stop, brought the car back to SFO, check-out at Hertz took me more time than expected and I arrived in the terminal at 1pm.




Views from the airtrain





By US standards, SFO international is a good terminal I think

I am aware that the check-in for international flights usually opens about 3 hours before departure and I wanted to be sure to plan plenty of time ahead of the flight to fully enjoy La Première services, but this delay at Hertz, combined with the airtrain I just missed and the transfer to the terminal made me arrive there at 1pm, "just" 2 hours 15 min before departure).


Paris for my next destination, but certainly not on United !

A dedicated counter was available for the 4 La Première passengers, and when I showed up there, the friendly lady assigned to it told me that I was the last one to check-in. She immediately asked me about this unusual routing and I briefly explained how excited I was to fly this route.


The red carpet was just waiting for me !

I have to admit, I was pretty excited !


After tagging my luggage with the famous red tag (not shown below), showing that it was belonging to a "La Première" passenger, my boarding pass, with both flights combined was handed over in a red holder. I asked my bag to be tagged only until CDG as I wanted to offload some stuff from it to send to my parents using the airport post office in CDG.





The same agent then logged off from her desk and escorted me through security and later brought me to the lounge. SFO International has a priority security line on top of the general line, and both were quite crowded. I think she brought me through the staff/crew line to get in front of the crowd, but asked me wait for a few seconds as she had to ask for this access to the TSA agent on duty that day, who was thankfully fine with this. The entire security process just took 5 minutes or so (and I had a lot of stuff to put on the belt). I think that a smoother process than this would be to fly private !


The "faster" fast track

But she needed to ask TSA to bring me through

She then escorted me to the Virgin Atlantic lounge, used for AF's first class passengers and Club 2000 / KL Skipper members I think. It is located upstairs the AF/KLM lounge where Elite plus and business class passengers are welcome to use.

She wished me a pleasant trip and asked me when I wanted to board the aircraft, to which I replied that I would like if possible to board at the beginning. She mentioned to me that one of her colleagues will be bringing me to the gate a few minutes before priority boarding.

The Virgin clubhouse is a pleasant place to spend time. Thanks to its relatively small size, It felt private and cosy, but it could feel crowded before departure of VS flights to LHR hours later. The lounge has outside views and a staffed bar with plenty to offer. There is also a kitchen which prepares on-demand dishes and those are brought by waiters. I could not recall that there was a self-service buffet, so this was definitely a nice lounge, at least by US standards ! Washrooms are located within the lounge. The decoration was modern and the space well maintained. All the staff was cheerful and friendly, I guess its nice to work in an environment like this one !


Virgin clubhouse SFO






I guess this lounge is also used by Fiji and China Southern premium passengers



I opted for a seat located at the end of the lounge and ordered a glass of water with citrus and a glass of white wine to start my lunch. Food and beverage menus were handed to me by a friendly waitress.













As you can see above, the food and beverage selection was quite good, considering this remains a business class lounge for Virgin passengers, especially if you compare the same thing on UA for example...


Tarmac views from the VS lounge. Back then, Qantas was still operating their 747-400 on the SFO-SYD route.


I took the table at the end of the lounge


Souvenir boarding pass. That one got framed :-D


To start...


The carry-on back got tagged as such, even in F...

I wanted to fully be able to enjoy the dinner on board, and opted to have a relatively light fish taco and cesar salad in the lounge. It was very good. This was completed with a small slice of strawberry mousse cake, also tasty.


Fish taco and Cesar salad


Strawberry mousse cake

I noticed that the couple seated nearby was speaking in French, so I assumed that they would both be on the same flight as me. Our escort came in the lounge at 14:20 to indicate that boarding would begin soon and while getting ready to leave the lounge I exchanged a few words with the French couple. It appeared that the lady was working for a famous French Jewellery company and was travelling for business in San Francisco. Her partner/husband was a fresh Air France A320 pilot, who was supposed to begin his career next month with the airline and came with her for the week. The gentlemen indicated that while his wife was lucky to travel in F, he could not score anything better than an aisle seat in coach, as the flight was completely full that day (the agent later told us that some passengers has to be refused and booked on alternative flights as the flight was oversold).


Our escorts came at 14:25 to pick us up from the VS lounge


AF 777-300 in SFO






We indeed boarded before the masses :-)






There was one jet bridge just for the front cabin

5 minutes later, we arrived at the gate and I politely asked if I could board first so that I could snap a few pictures of the empty cabin. After the agent briefly asked the crew, I managed to do so.

Next post : Flight report of AF83 SFO-CDG in La Première