SFO777

And start your trip someplace other than CDG.

silx

Well, sorry if I was not clear, I booked the P flight with Miles, so I need to take the return as a single leg (unfortunately not enough miles for a return, even in Economy). Actually it all started because I wanted to book a return trip (paid by work) and upgrade one leg with Miles to La Première, but as I found out, there is no way to upgrade to P except from J (even if you are ready to spend the 200k miles of an award flight in P). This is why I had to do this (award miles in P, and one-way ticket for the return, fortunately paid by work, but still on Norwegian rather than AF which was above 2k€)

ijgordon

You can also buy a SFO-CDG-SFO round-trip and just not use the "return" segment of that ticket. Technically against most airline's policies, but not much they'll really do if you don't make a habit of it.

silx

Klems

Ah sorry, my bad, I had forgotten about that piece of information. Then yeah in that case that doesn't change anything whether you book a round trip or not.
Either way I'm very jealous, I haven't travelled in AF P in almost a year and I miss it hah!

silx

Thanks, I wish I was travelling P every year, but this will probably be a one shot for me (it took me a few years to pack this amount of miles, and with the new FB system, it will take even longer!). Anyway, reading the various trip reports and thread, I am very much looking forward to the experience!

ranskis

If booking an AF D fare is compliant with your corporate travel policy, then that might be the best thing todo: if you are in D on the flight in which you can book P, then you can upgrade with miles for 75k I think. But CDG SFO CDG direct on AF is certainly not cheap in D. Also starting the trip somewhere else might be cheaper than from CDG which is AF captive market, so it could help your case against the evil corporate policy forces

Edit: just checked the CDG SFO fare out of curiosity: 3000 EUR half round trip in D and 2500 EUR half round trip in F (if booked 60 days in advance). Great incentive to pay 500 EUR and 75000 miles extra to upgrade

silx

indeed 2500 EUR is quite a good price for half the round trip fare in P (the J ticket come out at 1800 EUR one-way for me). Still out of reach for my pocket as well as for my employer's (I am in the public sector so technically it is taxpayer's money, so premium economy is already a stretch to the normal policy).

EDIT: I assume if I book an award ticket in J for 72 000 miles, there is no way to upgrade it to 75000 miles to P ? (this would save me 53 000 miles from the 200k award to P, but sounds too good to be true).

ijgordon

For what it's worth, I just called to inquire about an approaching trip and was told that the purchase of ground services was not possible for two reasons. The first was that, on a connecting itinerary (long-haul to long-haul in my case), both flights must not offer LaPremiere (only one does for me so I thought perhaps on that basis they'd let me do it). The second reason was that they are at capacity on my date of travel. No mention of not having flown LaPremiere in the past 12 months (it was about 20 months ago for me), although I didn't ask him.

BobTL

Actually I upgraded an Y paid tickets with miles to J at the moment of booking via the PSL (for 45k miles). When checking in at JFK, I was offered to upgrade to P on a 'special offer' for, wait for it, 190k miles. Needless to say I didn't take it.
The amount of miles is astonishing high. And that was the 'special price' on that day.

Sjondorn

Just out of curiosity - who of you have booked award round trip ticket in P? Closing on 400K miles + Amex points, but not sure if I want to use them on P or keep it in J.

NumbThumb

I have, but one-way as it was the Mrs. and I and 400k miles was all we had. We flew AMS-CDG-SFO with the CDG-SFO sector on the 777. It was hands-down the best travel experience of our lives. We were able to use the VIP lounge in AMS which was a unique experience and then made sure to enjoy every second of the 5 hour layover in Paris. Massages, lunch, whiskey...it was excellent. On-board was equally amazing. We felt like kings and queens throughout the whole day.

It's a ton of miles and hard to justify but we figured you only live once and, at least for the foreseeable future, dropping €10k R/T pp isn't in the cards. I know, I know, they have "deals" for weekend getaways but €4-5k/ for 4 day trip is equally bonkers for us.

With some of the miles being quoted for J when I've looked, P isn't that far off and the experience is far superior.

Goldorak

Question for the P experts here : I have a trip in P coming soon. When I return to CDG, I land in the morning and, in the afternoon, I have another long-haul trip in J (separate ticket, AF-marketed and operated, flight with no P). Several hours between the 2 flights. Instead of being driven to bag claim/exit, can I ask to make my connection at the P lounge ? I am talking here about free access, not a paid one.
I think the answer is yes (remembering some similar cases reported here) but would like to confirm from recent exp here before calling AF.
Thank you

rosensfole

I think it won't do any harm to call the La Première number to ensure they do the right thing. +33 1 56 93 10 05

Interestingly, I'm in P on Friday and received the usual email 2 weeks ahead from AF which was a standard email rather than the La Première one so I had to dig through old emails to get the number.

Goldorak

thank you rosensfole. Of course I will call, but I wanted to have the opinion of FTers before