I’m presently in route (about 4 hours more to go on the SFO-TPE sector) between Boston and Shanghai on EVA Airways. Before embarking on this journey I browsed some of the many vlogs about BR premium economy, and these seem to sum up the experience pretty well (e.g. comfortable seats, okay food, friendly FAs). As such, I’m not going to devote too much time to these matters. Instead, I want to focus mostly on aspects that surprised me or weren’t fully prepared for.

I started monitoring BOS-PVG PE fares in late January. At the time, BR, CI, CX, and AC were priced in the same ballpark, and other options were at least twice as expensive. CX and AC had moved into the twice as expensive category by the time I was ready to buy, so it came down to BR v CI (AC wasn’t a contender anyway).

Both BR and CI aggressively target Boston, even though neither flies there. Furthermore, the schedules they push are almost identical (e.g. BOS-LAX/SEA/SFO leaving at ~6p followed by LAX/SEA/SFO-TPE after midnight). I saw JFK connections pop up a few times during my searches, as well, but these weren’t aggressively priced (I assume O&D demand is strong).

Anyway, BR are worked out slightly better during my preferred date range, so that’s what I bought.

I booked on EVA’s website because that’s where Google Flights sent me. As I suggested above, BR pushes the SFO routing ex-BOS. For BOS-SFO, they offer AS and B6 (sort of UA too, but not really).

I went with B6 because I place more value on decent legroom, good Wi-Fi, and solid IFE than airplane food.

My dad dropped me off at Logan at around 330p (crazy early, I know). I had to check in with a human because of document verification requirements. This line moved surprisingly slowly (~40 minutes total despite it not being especially long).

Next, I had a good and fast TSA experience (shoes on, laptops and even phones can stay in bags, one big bin for each person). This left me with a solid hour to chow down at Legal.

BOS-SFO was fine (I can’t think of much else to say about it). Upon arrival at SFO, it dawned on me that EVA had provided zero instructions about how to connect with them in SFO. This wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme because I figured it out (i.e. I didn’t have boarding passes yet à get them in the departures lobby). I only mention it because EVA is nearly impossible to catch on the phone and doesn’t respond to emails (there is a thread on this topic in the EVA forum; I assumed posters there were exaggerating until I tried reaching out to them myself).

The only unassigned seats in the PE cabin were inside middles. I asked the check-in lady if she could improve upon that. The initially said “no”, but she ran my request past the manager when she was walking by, and I ended up with an outside bulkhead aisle. While there isn’t any under-seat storage, I think the extra space makes up for this shortcoming. The seat doesn’t look fancy, but it is incredibly comfortable. I’m also a big fan of the comforter and pillow.