My wife and I are flying to JFK for Succot. We are not "frequent" flyers and we have no elite status (simple TL). We fly 4-6 times a year on the least expensive class available and have little chance of reaching even SL on LY. we usually fly LY just for convenience of direct flights.

For this trip, we decided to travel C instead of Y. ElAl wanted ~$5,000 for the seat while Air France was $2,700! Even to upgrade for points, the required full fare Y ticket on LY was $2,700.

Does ElAl think that their product is so much better? Or do they not need to compete for business? Guess which airline we are flying?

You will always pay a premium traveling on direct flights.

Also, what you pay for your flights as Im sure you know is in direct relation to how far in advance you book, or what fares are still available on your flight.
I�m not surprised the cheapest flights on LY were $5000 as its Succoth.
Travel in November and you will pay just $3,679 in C.

As for whether LY are better then AF, well they probably are, but not $2300 better.

As long as you can live with the fact that you will only be traveling in true Business class on your CDG-JFK-CDG sectors.
for TLV-CDG-TLV you are going to be traveling in a cabin that is no different to Y other then slightly better food and a certain, since AF treats TLV as short haul, seats are practically the same as Y.
Aircraft will be a narrow bodies A320.

Did you check any other airlines such as LX. LH, or BA?

Try to find something in the middle to get much much better C class-
Try BA, LH (Z fare is great) and LX.
At least in the first 2 you get a great C class ALL the way to TLV.

and on LX as long as it's the A340 and not A320 operated flight (i.e. needs to be Afternoon flight out of TLV, and morning flight out of ZRH)

No longer need to be so careful on LX. Until December both flights are on A340, past December both on A330 (which is inferior to A340 but better than A320 or Air France/OS etc).

Did you tried getting W (Paying) Class on ELAL, Should be cheaper than full C,
Also always say you are from a Yeshiva, They get special prices, sometimes
as 40% less than a normal customer (They do special prices for the religous).

Depends on the amount of points you have, you can take either Q + Upgrade.
or get at least one ticket in W (Free Fare) and pay for the second.

I dont think ELAL is expensive as its a direct flight,
I had same story from TLV -> LHR -> TLV, ELAL was 2300$! in Economy,
BA were 2500$!!

Prices simply went crazy, Fuel is already at 77$ and no one take prices down.

True, but they tend to make last minute changes on the night flight out of ZRH and replace the A340 with an A320.
Already happened to me twice.
Maybe I was just very unlucky.

I suspect it's more a case of when LX can spare the A340s they use them on the TLV route but if they need the birds, TLV would be amongst the first to lose them. The afternoon LX flight from TLV and the morning LX flight from ZRH are not immune to changes either. Had an equipment change for the afternoon flight from TLV on 7 October from A340 to A320. The return flight from ZRH in the morning was already scheduled as A320 when the ticket was issued. When I first came to Israel in June, I got the A340 which had the unexpected bonus of getting me upgraded into F at check-in in S'pore (flew LX all the way from SIN-ZRH-TLV) presumably on account of my *A Gold status with SQ.

Do LX offer full first class ervice on tlv - zrh or just open the seats for elite status J class pax?

btw - i heard from an AF flight attendant that there is talk of an equitment change on cdg - tlv.

Not sure since I only started flying LX this year due to my shift to Jerusalem. I actually wasn't assigned the F class seat until only when I did online check-in was I allowed to actually select it. Seat 2D and according to my stub, I was still classified as Business. The A320s are however only JY birds. The seats are like SQ's regional J class (Ultimo?) seats perfectly adequate for the ZRH-TLV run but the non-AVOD not to mention the "it's either A or B" nature of the movie programming is a pain.

Off topic but when I arrived back in TLV on 16 October, I made it from aircraft touchdown to the lift lobby of my building in Har Hatzofim in 1 hr, taking nesher. Must be something of a record. First time I arrived in June, I didn't clear immigration and customs in 1 hr.

As far as I know , and I was flying LX many times ,
there is no F service to TLV on LX , just the seats

Lior

where did you get that idea?
I have flying EL AL for over 40 years and never heard anything like that
Sure Yeshivas and Seminaries probably get a discount when they send groups (my last flight had 100 seminary girls on it), but discounts for walk up yeshiva students does not sound right
And by the way, meaning no disrespect, neither does the tone of "they do special prices for the religious"

Chag Sameach

You could get the direct flights TLV-JFK on Delta. If you do it 4 times a year, you will be Silver Medallion and earn 25% mileage bonuses on future flights. If you do it 5 times a year, you will be Gold Medallion and earn 100% bonuses.

(I am talking about flights in Economy. If you take Biz Elite, you will reach these levels more quickly.)

No they are not.
Not if you paid for a full business class service, thought you were getting a proper Business products, and end up with seats that are practically the same as Y.

As for the Upgrade to First, as mentioned, there is no First on LX on the route, but it�s nice to be able to allocate a First seat!
They are basically held back and only pre allocated to HON's.