canadiancow

It's not "business" in any sense of the word. It's marketed and sold as premium economy.

shawbridge

Agree. I've heard bad things about Rouge (and have never flown it until now), but the PE service was just fine.

cooleddie

When flying between Toronto to Barbados on a 5.5. hour flight, you only get 2 choices... a pasta or a chicken thigh.... neither of which are very tasty or well prepared.

No cookies, no ice cream, no variety. Meals are nowhere as good as mainline AC.

Premium Rouge J (Business Class) need better food - especially given the prices they charge.

canadiancow

That's the same as you'd get on any mainline non-PLH route.

And given that it's rouge, it's absolutely not P.

So why should rouge get better food if mainline doesn't have better food on similar routes?

flyquiet

OMG this, so much. And my last flight, they offered chicken thigh or pasta, took orders by status, asked me 6th, and were out of pasta (and I was allergic to the ingredients other than chicken in that option). They offered me BoB choice, and were out of that, and brought me a kiddie pizza that had been rethermalized upside down and was thus at one with the box. The dessert was carrot cake, which I detest. The salad was 60% arugula, which I think someone should make go extinct, worldwide, like now. The French red tasted like grass and the other option was Canadian. Thank heaven for the bread roll and vinaigrette.

cooleddie

Because if Im paying for so much already I'd rather have better food.

Can't wait for WestJet to come up with their 2x2 product in the front!

RangerNS

Then you don't like AC, period. AC mainline is identical.

cooleddie

Except for fare class "J"

And on some website materials, it says "business class"

cooleddie

No the food is not identical

YYZ-YYC = 4 choices of food, a premium salad, cookies, fruit and ice cream
YYZ-BGI = 2 choices of food, some greens, no cookies, no fruit, no ice cream

theBeachBoy

I only used rouge once (PY) and the service and food was just like PY on AC.

The overall experience was not really good overall because the entertainment sucked (those iPads have just zero selection and are a pain to use IMO) and the passengers were organized vacation tours so very loud, but that's not AC's fault and I guess it's like that for nay touristy destination..

The plane was quite old but I'm just spoiled as I mostly fly on the 787.

HerpaYvr

Good to know

I booked YOW-YUL-NAS on Rouge (only because of the discounted fare and coupon) and then saw it was an all Y plane.....and the Hilton there has so my bad reviews.....So i canceled!
Booked Barbados YOW-YYZ-BGI and I am upfront as its a 5.5-hour flight and I need to be comfortable and the Hilton there is much better.
My expectations are low, my fantasy is high, I guess I will find out in a couple of weeks

RangerNS

YYZ-YYC is Signature Class, for which you pay an extra premium.

Regular mainline is 2 choices, the same as Rouge.

24left

AC's page with the fares YYZ-BGI does in fact show Economy and Business Class.

I would blame AC marketing people (or whoever manages the design of the AC website) because it should not say Business Class if it is in fact, "Premium Rouge". While we know AC may consider Premium Rouge to be the same or similar to ML J on narrow bodies, it isn't made clear unless you bother to click around - and we know not everyone does that nor will non-frequent AC flyers understand the nuance.


Looking at the page with the fares, you see the words Business Class.





When you click the Business fare, you then see "Premium Rouge" as the title above the brief description.






Now, if you click the words Business Class above the fares, it opens to this page describing what you get in Premium Rouge.







So, in a sense, @cooleddie is right, that AC does call it Business Class - on the fare page.


I've always felt that AC promotes rouge as a brand on the one hand, but on the other, isn't very clear in properly explaining the service differences - and not just on Sun routes, but all routes.

And BTW, it doesn't matter that we here on AC FT may know the differences, have threads about them and some here rant about the poor meal quality or the limited choices. It may matter for those booking what they think is Business Class on rouge, but it really isn't the exact same thing.
.

canadiancow

You're responding to a post from a while ago that was probably merged into this thread, so I can't find the context.

But given what I know and what I said, I guarantee I was not talking about the route you are, where it IS sold as business class.

cooleddie

Is YYC YYZ non flat bed signature class?