Is First Worth It?
 

I am planning a 4 week holiday in July for my wife's 50th birthday and we were looking to fly in J. We did a search and Emirates was cheapest at roughly £12,000 for 4 adults. We then did a search for F to compare prices and found it to be just £3,000 more at £15,000. Do you think it is worth the upgrade to F on the 345?

All opinions are greatly appreciated,


773ER

We travelled First to Australia and it was worth every penny, but only on the A345. The LHR/DBX legs were old cabin and not worth the extra at all. They have chauffer drive with no mileage limit. Price you've got is a bit expensive. We booked first class for £2800pp, flying out a few days before Christmas. Try www.travelmood.com we always seem to get the best prices with them.

Gone on treat your wife for her 50th.

Thanks for the advice,
We have booked with travelmood before and thought they were very good ^ I had a look at the website and did a search for GLA-MEL and it came to £4,488pp :( and that is with J class on the GLA-DXB flight :( :(

IMHO it is worth it. The F on the 345 is truly spectacular

Sadiqhassan,
Do you know of any websites that have quite cheap fares for an F/J combination for GLA-MEL?

Emirates.com is offering a more reasonable GBP 3,844.90.

777ER - F is most defintley worth it. The 345 cabin is brilliant, with small individual cabins, great service with a restaurant style menu, IFE, etc. I am on a flight to MEL in 3 hours in F, and am looking forward to it.

If you don't mind the inconvenience starting your trip in Milan can be much cheaper.

I would do something like that if it was much cheaper but there is no direct flights to Milan from scotland i believe. :(

Just had a quick look and you're probably correct about the direct flights. Ryanair :eek: fly Prestwick to Bergamo, so don't know how much this helps.

It's a shame because I have found plenty of availability MXP-DXB-SYD. (It is possible to find the non-stop DXB-SYD leg, but not always).

How does £2700 in F sound? That's a saving of nearly £5,000 for 4 people.

That's an awful lot of frequent flyer miles, especially if booked on Emirates.com

Like the others, I would say it is worth it on the A340-500.

We've just returned from GLA-DXB-SYD in J class and it was excellent. On the way back on the SYD-DXB leg, my seat footrest broke about 7 hours into the 14 hour flight. The FA was very helpful and after deciding it couldn't be fixed, offered me the rest of the flight in F.

For a variety of reasons, including the look on my poor wife's face (there was only one F suite available) and the fact that my seat fixed itself half an hour later, I declined.

However, for that long segment, good as the business class seats are, I reckon the beds and pyjamas in First would have been excellent.

Aside from F vs J, I found the whole Emirates business class experience seamless and impressive:
Chauffeur drive from our home in Edinburgh to GLA
Lounge access at GLA
Priority boarding at GLA
Good J seat on the 777-300ER to DXB with full ICE with 500+ channels
Overnight in Dubai at Le Meridien courtesy of Emirates due to the 10hr layover
Re-entry to DXB in the morning through the dedicated First and Business class terminal
Excellent A340-500 J class 13.5 hr flight to SYD
Chauffeur drive at SYD to our hotel.

In any routing from GLA, the benefit in F will only really be from DXB to your final destination. As I'm sure you're aware, GLA only operates with a 2-class 777-300ER. From DXB, you also have to check the onward flights carefully. For example, there are 2 daily DXB-SYD flights. One with a 777W via BKK which has the newer First seats for a 777, but not the suites of the A340-500. Or there is an A340-500 flight direct to SYD complete with the sliding door suites. That plane's final destination is actually Christchurch.

Looking at Travelmood just now, I can see J clas flights to MEL from GLA for 2177 GBP and F to MEL at 2757 GBP. So if I'm right, that would make it 8k for four of you in business, or just over 11k for four of you in F.

Thanks for all the help! :D
I am going to go down to my local travelmood whenever i get the chance and see what they can do!

773ER.

I should certainly hope it's worth it. I am flying on a companion ticket in F LHR-DXB-SIN-BNE SYD-DXB-LHR next Feb. I will get to sample both the 77W and the 345 (how much am I looking forward to those suites!!)

My original plan was to fly J class with either BA/CX/SQ but the travel agent said for the same price we could fly F with Emirates. Seems like a no brainer to me, especially when you factor in the free chauffeur at each destination point, the quality of the food, the ICE...etc.