laddielad

What if I use JNB as my POT?

Would going in reverse make any difference?

YVR - AMS - CPT/JNB - PER - HND - YVR?

hearna

YVR CPT 076° (E) 059° (NE) 10,229 mi
YVR JNB 054° (NE) 038° (NE) 10,229 mi

If there is it would be negligible....

No the calculation is the same even in reverse. There is a fixed mileage permitted between Origin and POT...

CPT/JNB-PER-HND-YVR works; JNB-PER-SIN-HND-YVR works, JNB-PER-BKK-HND-YVR works; your problem was the YVR-HKG-HND-PER; HKG-HND is a huge detour mileage wise.

Yukonprince

I am ready to book Fredericton - Amsterdam or Brussels - Perth - Auckland - Fredericton with AP points in J for next October for four weeks. Retired and therefore great flexibility

Any advice on routing and airlines to use or avoid please?

Thanks!

rankourabu

Whats your goal? Avoid surcharges or avoid bad airlines?

Suggestion would be SN/UA to Europe, directly to AMS/BRU, then TK/SQ to PER. NZ to AKL (if within MPM), and whatever you can find on the return, probably via Asia.

Yukonprince

Hopefully both !!! But bad airlines first....

Yukonprince

I know the MPM to Perth via Asia and Auckland is around 18,000.

Will it make a difference if I go via Europe and will Perth still be my turnaround point?

JJonahJ

If I'm not mistaken, and @rankourabu will correct me if I'm wrong , it doesn't matter which way you go, the MPM will be the same.

Perth is definitely your POT as it is farther from Fredericton than Aukland:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=yfc-per,yfc-akl
YFC-PER is 11,460 mi
YFC-AKL is 9,277 mi

If to AMS, consider SAS? Though I'm not sure the availability of SK-J these days? I liked the biz product on their retrofitted birds, and SK has low surcharges.
SAS Longhaul Fleet List – Upgrade Thread

emustyle

Hello!

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this so please let me know if I'm in the wrong place!

I'm hoping to make a visit to Turkey in the next year or so, and ideally I'd love to try and fly TK First/Business if possible.

I understand availability on such flights is difficult at best and I'm willing to keep an eye out throughout the year if it does become availble. However I'm not entirely sure how best to: a) plan/book this trip
b) keep an eye out to make changes if/when it becomes available.

My dates are flexible, though I'm leaning towards sometime in Sept-Nov of next year (2018), so I know i'm at the outerbounds of the AP flight availability calendar.

The itinerary I'm hoping to book won't be overly complex:
YVR > IST (routing through any NA city that TK flies to?)
IST > Croatia (Either ZAG or DBV)
Croatia (ZAG/DBV) > KEF
KEF > YVR

I started by using the multi flight (omitting the KEF leg for simplicity) on the AP site (YVR > IST > DBV > YVR)

However every route seems to want to go YVR > Europe > IST. I couldn't find any that would route to YUL/YYZ or even through the US in order to go direct to IST from North America. (No filter on class yet)

I also tried one way from YUL/YYZ with no joy.

Is this simply a matter of there is no availability on any North America to IST route?
Or am I doing something wrong or missing something?
Is this something I would need to call in for?

I'd appreciate any assistance the experts here could lend in planning this out. I've done some looking and know routes exists, I'm just not totally sure how best to approach this to initially book and/or how best to keep up to date in case I need to change/upgrade

Thanks in advance!!

rankourabu

Its likely there are no connector flights to one of the TK gateways, you will need to search by segment. I ran into the same thing, AC wants you to fly AC/LH thru Europe so they can scam you for hundreds of $.

You will need to find TK space ex-USA, and then connector separately.

laddielad

What's the best way to identify if you are getting the best Biz product?

Putting together a mini RTW but would like to know if certain planes (Eg. South African Airways) and certain models are any good. Is there any rankings of sorts of this anyway? Any recommendations?

jasdou

Use Google/Youtube to find blogs and trip reports on the airlines you are considering. The interwebs are filled with travellers that crave attention and want to share every details of their premium experiences.

Any unified list ranking airlines and business class products tend to be pretty useless in my books as these experiences are so relative, depending on the criteria used. Just consider that some people will rank airlines after taking a single flight with them. Also, an "ideal" business class seat for a couple will be very different from a business class for a solo traveller. Also - do you want a solid hard product, or soft product? Would you give more importance to the catering or the comfort of the seat/bed? Routing? Schedule? Hence, most lists are crap but can be useful at least to identify the crappiest products out there. So do your homework, pick out the best you can based on your readings, forget about the other options that you could have booked and enjoy the experience.

rankourabu

https://skift.com/2015/02/09/the-wor...d-by-region/#1

But as the post above says, it really is a personal opinion. Some people wont like certain airlines based on past experiences.
In general though, I wouldnt preoccupy yourself with finding the 'best'. They will all be fine as long as there is a flat bed.

Maybe instead make a list of ones to avoid, like anything with slanty seats, domestic seats posing as biz (AC Rouge), 8 across configurations (some UA 777s), 2-3-2 configs (some TK)

In the end, after having flown all (but SK,JP) Star business products, I personally dont think there is one business product worth the surcharges over another, for example TG over CA, OS over LX, AC over LO, etc.

ScGhost0

I agree with rankourabu and jasdou in that the "best" experiences are subjective. Some people value food quality most, other value the seats, etc. There are a few that you might want to consider leaving out solely based on surcharges (e.g. LH, AC, some OZ flights) who may have a great actual gate-to-gate experience.

That being said, you can always search for the segments you want and see what the options are for the particular route, assuming you're going to hubs where multiple airlines operate. For example, I just booked a mini-RTW which features SIN-TPE-BKK where the only purpose for TPE-BKK is to try out EVA Air 77W J product. I also booked KIX-ICN-JFK rather than leaving from Tokyo so I could try out OZ A380 in F. It's all personal preference. Take a look, find your flights, and do the research. There are TONS of blogs, articles, and YouTube videos on different aircraft/experience reviews for most (if not all) airlines in *A.

CanuckFlyHigh

Stop searching from YVR. Find every Canadian and US city that TK flies out of, and search the trans-atlantic flight first. IE YUL-IST, or ORD-IST. Then work backwards to find your domestic flights on each end.

Pay for Expert Flyer. It's worth it.

Bohemian1

Although I also use Expert Flyer, I would also add KVS Tool for consideration.

It worked really well for a recent NZ/Fiji/Oz reward trip I booked.