Originally Posted by
Narrow Seat
Would the typical FLYERTALK Member who did not have the money or status for an upgrade try to make the three-leg 35-hour trip without a long layover/hotel rest stop at a connecting city? Or would they realize their physical, emotional limit and break the trip up?
If you go to any of the large travel websites they are selling many reservations to/from Asia from the USA that last for as long as 60 hours with 3-4 connections without a break long enough to check into a hotel and get some sleep. So people are surviving worse journeys than I did.
In my case, I thought I was in better shape than I was and booked the trip acting like I was still in my twenties. I am in my 60s.
I'll bite on this one. In the past year, I've done award trips in economy as I've been traveling a lot for both pleasure and research (I'm a US academic). I'm 50, wife is 62. We both are in Alabama, and we will break the trip up, as time is often on our side in the summer. We've done that SIN>JFK 19 hour monster on SQ, though they only sell premium economy and above. We've done the LAX>SYD route, and have done flights from the South Caucasus/Central Asia to JFK or ATL, using transiting through MUN, IST, or DOH. Neither of us sleep on the plane, and so we deliberately will look for long layovers and stay in a transit hotel. For the LAX>SYD, we got a separate ticket that went to LAX two days before and spent time enjoying LA. We've done 14 hour layovers on the same ticket as well. We've also stopped in places, such as SIN, DOH, and IST that offer stopovers.
The point I'm trying to make--albeit not very well--is that there is no way in hell we could hang on a 35 hour flight in economy (and probably not even in business). We know the risk of separate tickets and put in 2-3 days buffer time in needing to take a position flight out, or we deliberately choose long layovers/stopovers. We always take economy (my work does not allow for business class or above) but know our limits and are aware of the risks we're taking.
It seems to me if you can shoulder the hotel costs, then take longer. It makes the trip less insane and even though we may lose a couple days, it makes the travel more pleasant. My two cents.