sepandee

Have to take prem economy this time and wondering what to do. Going from BCN to either LAX or SFO. Option 1 is Air Canada through Toronto. Option 2 is Lufthansa through Frankfurt/Munich.
The Lufthansa option, the BCN-FRA/MUC part is not premium economy, just economy. Short flight, so I don't mind. The second part is with a A350 Airbus. I don't know if they're the planes equipped with the new ZIM seats or not, but if they are I would like to give it a try.

I think overall I prefer AC, because you get more soft perks with it (priority check-in and boarding, for example). AC premium economy I flew with twice. The service is OK, nothing to rave about. But the seats and screen quality and all that, it depends on the plane you get. Last time I flew with them, they had to replace one aircraft with an older one and boy, was it not good. Half the screens were not even working by the end of the trip. But the seat and screens on the newer aircraft were fine.

Thanks

Edit: just read about the Lufthansa strike. So maybe I don't really have a choice!

Antonio8069

While I agree AC may be your better option, there may be other factors to consider........
Transting LAX is not my cup of tea. Mind you neither is YYZ these days. Lots of delays.
What about upgrade status ? If I was flying revenue PE, I would be interested in upgrading to J. Avaialbility ?

sepandee

Can't upgrade status, as I haven't been flying much since covid. It's all started again since June, with 1 transatlantic and 4 European trips under the belt already and two more to East Asia coming up.
And buying outright business class is just too expensive now (for me).

There's also the option to travel direct with Iberia, but I'm with Star Alliance and I think this Iberia from BCN to LAX/SFO is operated by Level Spain, which is the budget version.

sepandee

what do you mean by transiting LAX is not your cup of tea? I'm not transiting in LAX. I'm just going BCN-LAX-BCN or BCN-SFO-BCN, and have to decide if i'm taking Lufthansa or Air Canada (or Air France or Swiss, actually).

angetenar

I would say that if Swiss is an option, go with them 100%. Presumably you'd be transiting through ZRH which is in a much better state than FRA/CDG/YYZ/etc...

sepandee

And if it comes down only to Lufthansa (transit in Frankfurt) or Air Canada (Transit in Montreal), which one should I take?

Fli1

I would choose transit in EU, however haven’t tried montreal yet only toronto.

cas_de

When's your trip?

Transiting through FRA or YUL is not a funny thing these days. In FRA they struggle w/security (it won't affect you on this itin, though) and baggage (could be an issue) and you hear some horror stories where arrival and transit procedures in YUL take a long time.

Leaving aside the current situation I would lean towards transiting in FRA if you have enough time between flights (say 2 hrs, for example). Why?
- only one full security check in BCN, in FRA you are considered clean and you just have to go through passport control and a doc check for a flight to the US.
- no messing around with transit security and getting stuck in Canada where you would need to queue for passport control in case you miss the last flight of the day to LAX.

Are FRA and YUL your only potential points of transfer? What about ZRH, MUC, VIE? No routing available using these hubs?

weero

Isn't PE availability on LX abysmal?

Also, if you have no status, LX isn't an airline you want to be downgraded to coach on. Their cripple-7 planes are horrific in coach.

sepandee

Trip's in 2 weeks! Looking for a 6-7 day trip leaving on August 14th at the earliest and coming back on August 25th at the latest. Good thing is I can either to BCN-LAX-BCN, or BCN-SFO then LAX-BCN, or BCN-LAX and then SFO-BCN, so some flexibility there. Might even be able to do BCN-SFO-BCN.

I most likely won't check-in any luggages. Just carryons. So at least I don't have to worry about my luggage!

weero

If cleaner planes, 2 fewer invasive security-circus harassment sessions, no racist and silly immigration spectacle, and somewhat better food mean anything to you, then I'd fly LH 11 out of 10 times.

Also, should something bad happen and you end up in coach, it will be LH coach and not AC. Meaning still decent seats and meals and space,

As a *G I did enjoy AC PE several times and it was very decent. But the residual nuisances would definitely make me fly LH.

nacho

What about from the US to Europe? Would you pick LH vs AC PE? I bought PE tickets with AC and there is a schedule change in bound so they allow me to change my flight to fly with LH instead. What are the chances that I would be downgraded to coach and if it's the case I should be able to get the fare difference back according to EU 261?