Transaero (BD partner)
 

Being in Moscow just before Christmas on business and needing to rebook travel plans to NY at the last minute at personal expense, I managed to find a very inexpensive fare (~$360 1W for same-day purchase) on the new UN DME-JFK service, departing Friday @1800 and arriving JFK T4 @1930. I have flown UN in business many times LHR-DME and elsewhere in the CIS (DME-ALA / KBP / SVX) and been satisfied, but my few experiences in economy LHR-DME had been met with awful food and cramped seat pitch (but friendly service) and I thus had some trepidation about spending 9.5 hours as a guest of UN.

The aircraft was an old 747-400, likely ex-SAA (as best I could tell UN's 744s are ex-JL and SA, and this one had no sign of Japanese lettering). Nearly every seat in Y was full, which surprised me. There was no IFE in Y, though there were seatback screens leftover from the prior owner of the aircraft. The legroom in most of Y was minimal, but I was thankfully given a bulkhead, which was fine save for the non-functioning reading light. The food was, as expected, nearly inedible (not unlike DL on the same route in Y, in my experience), but crew was liberal with providing water. Small glasses of [poor] wine were offered with dinner, with no other alcohol available (which did not stop the passenger two rows behiond me from downing an entire bottle of duty free Irish whiskey). That said, the flight timing was excellent and convenient, and in the same circumstances I would do it again.

The flight earned 4,701 miles on BD + status bonus, or 5,876, destinations miles. No status miles, however (unlike LHR-DME, on which UN flights do earn status miles).

The plane was in three class configuration: first class, cradle/recliner business, and economy. At least for now, UN is selling only business, premium economy and economy on the route, and seating premium economy in the old business section (at least on short-haul, "premium economy" on UN is United E+ style: extra legroom and less crowded, but no service or seat differentiation). The seats looked a bit aged, but on a 9.5 hour price for what was (at the time) ~$750 1w it definitely would have been tempting. There is also currently an offer for 'buy 1, second ticket $1/eur1' in premium economy, which could be outstanding value even in an aged cradle seat. See http://transaero.ru/en/company/press...ear=2010&id=35 [English]
http://transaero.ru/ru/company/press...ear=2010&id=91 [Russian]

Is the buy one get one for one dollar/euro deal good on flights to Moscow originating in New York? I've got a delegation coming to OVB in March that would likely jump at this. Can't find the answer to that question on any of the pages listed above.

Thanks for the heads up!

By my reading it should be good in either direction, as they quote prices in both USD and EUR. Note that the flight only runs a few days/week, and at different times.

DME-OVB is also eligible for the promotion, though I suspect that a through JFK-DME-OVB ticket would not qualify.