AStarr

Finding solid reviews of this is pretty difficult so I'm just asking outright

I'm 95% certain that I'll be flying TAP from CPH-LIS-MIA in a few months. The flights I'm booking, my fingers are crossed for the new lie-flat experience. If I've booked this correctly and there are no equipment changes, I should be in for the new business class seats.

Main questions:
1. I've heard stories regarding catering onboard, ranging from food being acceptable to absolutely horrifying. Is the food so bad that I should plan to not eat whatever is catered on the plane? (It's not big deal if the food is terrible because I love Cuban food in Miami and Caviar House in CPH soooooo definitely not a deal breaker)

2. Just how bad are angled seats really? I mean, I'm 5'1'' and fit in most overhead compartments quite comfortably. I feel like I'm sliding towards my head in SAS lie-flat seats so tend to sleep with them not fully flat anyways. How is the bedding with TAP? Should I bring a pillow? Blanket? Extra blanket? Slippers?

3. Do they strike often? I'm flying the first week of March (yay spring break! no, not really, I'm from Florida, I hate spring break). I have noticed some airlines seem to have a notorious "strike season". How is TAP with finding alternatives in case things go haywire? I'm Star Alliance gold through SAS so maybe that will help but I've been blessed with having very few hiccups when airline travel.

4. 11 hour layover possibility during the day - I've never seen Lisbon - what's cool to do during the day in Lisbon? Are there storage lockers at LIS? I'm probably going carry-on-only - alternatively, if there is nowhere to stash luggage, I don't recall whether or not I have to collect and recheck luggage if in transit from the US-Schengen and connecting onward (MIA-LIS-CPH leg).

Any advice would be most helpful. Thanks a million

Palal

This is FT. People exaggerate. The food is more than edible.

Depends on the year and the business and political climate. If there's a strike, they'll accommodate you on another *A carrier. Getting through to them may be a problem, but the facebook/twitter channels is usually pretty good.

The airport is right in the city (7-8€, 15 min uber ride downtown), so you can definitely get a feel for LIS during your layover. Do a search in the Portugal forum - plenty of threads on the subject.

There's bag storage at the airport and baggage lockers at most Lisbon train stations. You won't have to re-check your bags.

Clay Clayton

Can't offer any advice since it sounds like I took advantage of the same GREAT sale you did. I do have a question for you though....I couldn't find any of the new seats on the LIS-MIA flights. Maybe because we are traveling in June but maybe its because I missed something?

tff

I really don't understand where this idea comes from. TP has many issues, but catering in C/CL in long haul flights surely isn't one of them, especially in flights out ot LIS. Just check out Lucky's unbiased review: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...-miami-lisbon/

It's likelier that you'll have a retrofitted bird with full flat seats flying that route by next year.

Definitely head to the city centre and wander around there.

AStarr

I found the seats and corresponding flights via Google flights then booked through the TAP website with my fingers crossed that it's all good. My dates were exceptionally flexible. So, I just kept clicking through until I found "lie flat" on Google flights.

AStarr

True on the exaggeration although when we're in the SAS forum... I will say, we're not joking about those muffin bars. That's some next level pseudo-food-product. TAP has a limited data pool for measuring consensus on catering though so it's been tough to gauge whether people are just fussy or if the food really is just that bad.

Good about bag storage. I aim for carry-on only for these >7 day trips but as I'll have formalwear with me, could be exciting to see how that manages. If I'm wandering around the city, I'd really just rather check as much as possible and not worry about it until I get to my destination.

Clay Clayton

Thanks! We had some flexibility but not enough

Can anyone advise on which seats I should select on my current equipment to be best set if it should change to the full lie flats in a 1-2-1 config. Currently we have two seats on Row 2 along the window but wondering if I should change to the center seats since maybe they wouldn't end up having to move us...worried about finding out the day of the flight that we have been bumped or don't have seat assignments.

TIA,
Clay

TomMM

In September I flew MIA-LIS-MIA on a UA award ticket. Overall the flights were good but the aircraft I flew were a little on the worn out side. Food and service were great but I am not sure I would pay cash for the hard product.

San Gottardo

There seem to be two reconfigured versions around. The one in the 1-2-1 layout, and then another one which has alternating rows of 1-2-1 and 1-2-2. Same layout like the A333 of Swiss, including the „throne“ seats.

What I haven‘t figured out yet:

• Will existing aircraft be reconfigured?
• If so, with which cabin, the 1-2-1 or the alternating 1-2-1/1-2-2 one?
• How many planes already have one of the lie-flat configurations?
• Are the planes with the lie-flat seats used on specific routes? I heard that JFK and BOS always get one of them?
• Any news whether future planes - they have ordered the A330neo - will have either of these two configs or something else?

maurolscla

What's the business class experience on TAP's A333 like? I have a flight from REC to LIS booked in early February (Y) and I was wondering if it was worth bidding for the upgrade to C.
Are the seats lie-flat or angled-flat? I know that TAP's A333 were previously owned by Singapore Airlines but I'm not sure what's the business class configuration in these planes.

djjaguar64

In Lisbon we used UBER extensively and it came in handy especially since I have 2 knee replacements.

AStarr

I have no idea about when things are going where. I do know on my flights for seat selection, the seat map was for the 1-2-2 configuration. The most common routes to find the lie flat seats are to JFK and BOS from what I understand, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this 1-2-2 configuration remains on my routing (LIS-MIA). I'm pretty excited - booked into the "throne" style seats.

Somewhere someone had information about this but it's hard to find. I vaguely recall something about them trying to get more lie-flat configured planes for their flights to/from Brazil but I could be wrong.

tff

The newer A332s will all be retrofitted with the new seats; this includes CS-TOL until -TOR; only CS-TOQ hasn't been retrofitted yet. The older ones (CS-TOE until -TOK, except for -TOJ, which has left the fleet) won't. The A333s (which retain SQ's seats) and the A343s won't.The alternating one.
6 A332s out of a total of 13.
They're mostly used to serve JFK, EWR, BOS, YYZ, GRU, and GIG.
They're supposed to all have a similar configuration.

escherfan

Does anyone know if they have started using the lie-flat seats on YYZ-LIS route yet? Thanks!

tff

As mentioned in my previous reply, they do use it to YYZ – just not all the time.