Is this any way to run a business? I wanted to buy tickets for myself and my wife (both Silvers) for a European cruise in September. Washington to London with a return from Nice. We wanted to fly business class. My preference was to buy a coach ticket and use miles to upgrade.

On Continental the coach fare was $1,050. It would have cost 40,000 miles plus up to $900 to upgrade to business. That's amost $2,000 plus $40,000 miles. But as usual with Continental, there were no confirmed upgrade seats available for when we wanted to travel so we would have to be put on the waitlist. This wouldn't work since we wanted to make sure we'd fly business and not have to worry about clearing the waitlist.

So I ended up buying two confirmed business class tickets on Air France for $2,128 each -- almost the same price as I would have paid on Continental if I we were lucky enough to clear the upgrade list and shell out 80,000 miles. By the way, business class tickets on Continental would have cost $4,400 each.

So Air France gets $4,200. We get two business class tickets, plus 150% EQM on Continental (Air France is a Skyteam partner), and don't have to burn 80,000 miles. Continental gets nothing.

I would have given Continental the $4,000 and 80,000 miles but they wouldn't take it without putting me on a waitlist. This can't be a good way to do business. Tom.

I think we have all ben confused by this. There of coure can only be one logical answer. They are actually selling th BF seats at $4,200 a clip hand over fist.

If they are tha RA RA for them.

If not it's bad business practice.

Enjoy AF and the 150% EQM. Consider the latter your payback.

CO has a similar $2,100 fare WAS-NCE, but they unfortunately don't seem to allow you to combine it with an open jaw of another fare, such as the $2,500 WAS-LON.

Seems they're being competitive on price, but tighter in terms of restrictions. Had these two been combinable, CO would have been in the ballpark at around $2,300.

Of course AF BC does not compare to CO BF. AF BC is like old BC (2-3-2 seating) and not a great seat pitch - better than coach - but not up to par with the newer expanded business classes like CO, DL, NW, Virgin, etc.

Any biz class you can get into is still better than one you can't. CO's waitlist policy, 30-day rule, 72-our rule, and surcharge policy are the pits! The worst int'l upgrade policy in the industry. AF deserves the revenue.

True that! ^

Me loves the new flat bed on LH. And I can actually just to the site right now and either book an upgradeable ticket or a reward, to anywhere I darn please.

Wish NW/CO could see that revenue slip away. Maybe they'd think about it. Well, NW might.

Really????? I thought l'Espace Business was 61" pitch and 21" wide. That's better than BF in any of CO's 762 or 764 aircraft. The CO 777 is the exception though with 78" pitch. So blanket statements that CO biz beats out other airlines' biz are simply not accurate. And like Paulo said, that confirmed 61" seat will hands down beat the low probability of snagging a BF upgrade on a 777.

My return flight from Nice on Air France is actually a code share on Delta metal. So I look forward to comparing the two. I agree. Business class you can get into is better than business class for which you have to waitlist. Tom.

"Something is wrong here" what?

oh.

Oh come on!