When to redeem miles for first class?
 

How do you guys generally decide when to fly first or business class? Is there a way to know which planes or which flight routes have updated and/or well appointed first class seats? There are many flights I've been on where I'd have been really upset wasting hard earned miles on those first class/business class seats.

Is this one of those things you just come to know through experience and reading lots of blogs or is there some source or formula you use to decide?

Depends on what carriers and aircraft you're flying. It's never worth it to fly domestic F.

Is that based on the fact that all domestic flights have sub par first class cabins or is it just personal opinion?

I was bumped from coach to first class several years ago on an SFO->JFK flight on United and it was quite nice.

Wecome to FT, PRedLSU! There are lots of different viewpoints here on that. But everyone here would agree that you first need to understand what sort of seat is on offer for a flight you're considering. The starting point is the plane type, or equipment in local parlance.

Once you know your airline and plane type, head over to seatguru.com to see what the premium class(es) are like. The might be barely better than coach. Or they might be flat bed fantastic.

From there you need to make a judgment call about how valuable the premium cabin is to you for a given flight. Obviously, the shorter the flight, the less important it is to get out of coach. Time of day can be important as well. If I know that I'll be dead tired and in need of sleep, the upgrade is much more valuable to me than if I know that I'll be awake throughout the flight.

If you're flying transcon, it's almost as though you're flying from New York to London. When I fly BOS/JFK/IAD-SFO, it's always worth it to fly domestic F -- especially on Virgin America.

The Los Angeles/San Francisco to New York JFK markets are premium markets for the legacy airlines, and so you'll get better seats and service on those than you would on other city pairs. I have purposefully routed mileage tickets in F/C to those flights since I felt it was worth it in some cases.

I know that I'll never pay for J or F. It's about availability, the spread in miles cost, between J & F on that program, & how may miles are left in my acct. I only use the miles on long-*ssed flights. I've been known to splurge on CX & SQ F, if the math is right. I can tolerate Y for 5 or 6 hrs, so I pay for shorter flights. wj

Thanks for the info dhuey. Do you find that seatguru will usually tell you if a F seat has completely reclining beds, etc...?

Also, I know you can often check the type of equipment when you purchase your ticket but can't airlines change that up in the days leading up to departure, thereby making the plan for F seats a fruitless endeavor?

There are some routes that have pretty much SET seat types. For example, Delta runs special 757s between LAX/SFO and JFK with their BusinessElite product. I've flown that route when it got subbed to a 767-300, but it was still the same seat, just without wifi.

But yes, unless that route is a specific route for a premium product, I wouldn't chase a special seat. I was supposed to fly EWR-ORD this weekend and connected to ORD-IAH-LAX on the United Dreamliner. They took 787 off that route that day. However, I switched to EWR-IAH-SFO on the 787 and SFO-LAX to get home, and still got the exact seat assignments I wanted. I was pretty lucky.

That's an Easy One
 

When KatyBug tells me to book first class, (or business class on international itins).

About 3+ hours is all she can take in coach.

pretty ridiculous just to come out and say it's never worth it. that's your opinion. my RT next June to Hawaii and back for 70k each in F, transiting thru DFW on their nicer F config will be worth it, to me. Especially for an 8+ hour flight

your example is as ridiculous.

Personal preference and miles availability.

To me, it seems wasteful on a shorthaul trip, but someone else might love it. There's no hard & fast rule or formula, just where you want to sit and how much you can afford to burn on the booking.

What's so ridiculous about flying to Hawaii in F for 70k? Maybe he just doesn't want to go to Asia or Europe. Maybe he can earn them faster than he can burn them. Should he just sit on his miles and let them depreciate in value?

Seatguru.com will give you that info., but as you observed, there is always the possibility that the airline will change the equipment on you.

Look at meals on board--dinner tends to be more worthwhile, including wine. (Alcohol might not be served at all times of day, depending on the carrier and route.) Does flying in FC save the cost of a restaurant dinner in an expensive city?

Also look at how many miles coach would cost versus FC. For example, most domestic RTs on DL cost 40,000 miles for medium coach but 45,000 for low FC. The extra 5,000 miles for guaranteed FC (no waiting/hoping for the upgrade) and a better choice of seats can seem very much worth it!

At the end of the day it's all about your own personal opinion and what you value your own miles at. I've done it both ways. Normally if the price is right I'll just pay for economy for domestic flights but sometimes it can be worth it to splurge and use miles for F. I personally prefer to use them on longer international flights but it's up to YOU.

You'll probably get 50 different responses all from people who have different mileage balances, upgrade options, and opinions.

That doesn't mean they're all of equal validity. Sometimes there is just cold hard math. So when people spend $4 for a latte or $4000 for a handbag, they can subjectively value the purchase however they want, that doesn't change the fact they overpaid.


Cheers

Could be wrong but I thought the OP was specifically asking if there's an easy way to keep track of which routes have newer FC seats, which airlines have better product in general, etc. To which I would say seatguru is a great resource, but it does require legwork to answer questions like "what's the best FC product to Milan?" I have trouble with this as well; any centralized lists out there?

Sorry I mean domestic F is Canada. But yes, pods/lie-flats are worth it MAYBE on 5 transcons.


It's not just hard product. You want to know service standards and soft product as well. Seatguru will only go so far...

Yep. For me miles are strictly about premium cabin awards and upgrades for trans/intercons. I have no status with an airline and I am unwilling to pay even the discounted fares they offer for the premium cabins. So, miles are my only way in.

First, remember that the terms "First" and "Business" class can mean very different things.

Coach is pretty much coach, a narrow cramped seat with bad food on international routes and no food on domestic.

Domestic first is a wider seat with slightly more legroom, free drinks, snacks on shorter flights and something resembling food on longer ones, a tolerable experience.

Some transcontinental first routes in the USA have upgraded first class, with much larger seats, better food, sometimes almost as good as international business class.

International business class is sleeper seats, sometimes lie-flat and sometimes almost lie-flat, tolerable to sleep but a bit narrow, pretty good food relative to what can be served on an airplane, blanket, pillows, noise-cancelling headphones, a very nice experience if you're awake and decent if you can sleep. Also incudes lounge access in airports.

International first class is always lie-flat seats, wider, very attentive service, more privacy, often a desk-like unit. The quality of the product varies widely, with some airlines trying very hard to do anything "over the top" that they can. All the Dom Perignon you can drink? No problem! Some airlines also have first-class lounges that are an experience in themselves, people have been known to try to fly Lufthansa through Frankfurt just to use the lounge. Ever been driven to your plane in a Porsche? One of the icons is the rubber ducks in the showers in the first-class lounge, if you're going to fly F on Lufthansa, you have to get one for a souvenir, even if you don't need a shower!

So that's the quality difference. Now you have to factor in the price difference in miles, and sometimes in fees. Most people on this board would agree that the relatively modest difference in miles between coach and business class on international flights is worth it. I've only traveled overseas once, it was in business, and I think if I had to fly coach I'd stay home. I wouldn't even think of paying double the miles for F on a short domestic flight. If I were going transcontinental, even if it wasn't one of the upgraded transcons, I might go F, but I'm getting very cranky about flying coach and right now I have a lot of miles. On the other hand, if I could fly on an airline I have high status on, I might just buy a coach ticket and hope for an upgrade and settle for coach if need be. I can say that when I travel with my wife (which isn't that often) I find the trips are a LOT more romantic in first/biz than in coach, but if we're just flying an hour or two I don't worry about it.

Another good point was made that in particular on Delta, you often have to pay 40K miles for coach, so clearly 45K for first is worth it.

There's another way of looking at what you "pay" for first. I just started a new job where I will be commuting between the east coast and Bermuda. I bought gold status on USAir so that I could check lots of bags and take my stuff to Bermuda for free, but to keep the status I have to fly lots of segments. On the way out I can leave at 7AM and fly to Philly, or leave at 5:30AM and fly to Charlotte and then Philly. On the way back, after getting to Philly I can fly home immediately and get there at 8, or take an extra hop or two and get home at 11. So in my case, to get the extra segments to keep my status and get upgrades I am paying not in dollars but in time. As said before, I'm cranky about flying in coach, and there aren't that many elites flying PHL-BDA (mostly insurance and finance guys like me who work in BDA and still have families in the USA) so it's worth it to me to take these extra flights to make sure I get more of a shot at sitting up front.

Yes - this is actually the main emphasis of what I was trying to ask. I suppose Seatguru is as good as it gets for now, but I would love to be able to just know which airline has the best F to a certain destination.

I find that googling "Air Canada Business class Trip report," "Air China business class trip report," "ANA Business class 777 trip report" and such usually lends me to finding out about the flights I'm interested in.

That said--you often don't have a ton of options. Yes one carrier might have a better product--but there might be a nonstop in coach vs. a 2 stop in F/J, or have a 12 hour layover. Or there may be no saver availability and you can't even book it if you wanted to. All of this plays into my decisions.

Also coach on a non-US based carrier is 100% better than coach on a US carrier. Seats are better, food is better, alcohol is usually free, and the whole ordeal is...not terrible. Don't judge international coach based on the flights you take here in the US.

Adding my $.02: It is a total package for me: Flight times, Can I take a more direct route with less stops and less layovers and fly coach? It all goes into figuring out what I try to book. Also my mileage balances, do I have enough for this trip in F/J and my next trip in at least coach? Also how many seats do you need. When you're booking for you+wife it is 2x as hard to have enough miles and 2x as hard to find seats.

I also like to fly one direction in coach and the other in F/J...allowing me to split the cost in miles.

I really, really beg to differ. The quality of service and amenities are hardly comparable to international J/F. Plus, the cost of an intrnational J/F ticket is much higher than the cost of a domestic one, making an international flight redemption a better bang for your bucks. By far.

Amen. +++