LX (SWISS) or EI (Aer Lingus) TATL in Biz? (UA MP award travel)
 

Looking at a UA miles booking in Biz for next year returning to the U.S. from Europe, I have the following two options:

Aer Lingus- DUB-SEA (A332)

or

SWISS - ZRH-ORD (B77W)

We'd be coming from continental Europe, so getting to either gateway isn't an issue. Our destination is the mountain west, so SEA gets us a little closer to home.

I'm very interested in hearing your experiences and recommendations for one over the other. There would be three of us, if that makes any difference in the analysis.

Thanks!

Danski

Swiss easily over Aer Lingus. While Swiss seats are not the best, they are far superior to AL (caveat - my last Aer Lingus biz flight was 2 yrs ago). And food much better. Service very different but if equal standard (stiff vs friendly, both efficient). JMO.

If SEA isn't your actual destination, then Swiss.

If SEA is your actual destination, then EIN.

We're connecting either way (BOI), so about a 90 min flight from SEA or 4ish hours from ORD.

LX all the way.

This is a no brainer. Swiss.

Really? I find the LX seat hard and not so comfortable for either relaxing or sleeping. Both have “throne seats” if you can snag them. LX seems to keep the cabin very warm for some reason and service on LX business tends to be quite slow (though more polished and attentive than EI for sure). Departing DUB you have CBP pre-clearance which is good for connections.

I see a slight advantage for swiss in flight and a big advantage on the ground - Zurich is my favorite airport for a connection.
If you can access the Sen (*A Gold) Lounge in E that would make it even better

I fly LX a fair bit due to flight timing out of SFO. They are possibly the most overrated airline on this forum. Fine if the fare and schedule work for you, but seat, food, and service are not nearly so good as some would suggest.

Haven't flown EI, but their new business class certainly appears the equal of LX in terms of hard product.
Nailed it. I just had an uncomfortably warm flight SFO-ZRH on LX39. Service was classic LX. One of the FAs assigned to my row was downright rude to pax who were not Swiss, the other was absolutely fantastic. That's the LX experience to a T.

ZRH is overall a very good airport, and the E Terminal lounges are among the best in Europe.

Thank you to everyone for your advice! As an update, after reading all of the response I opted for EI (for now) for several reasons, including a much shorter connection at SEA (~2 hrs.) vs. ORD (~4 hrs.), and a shorter last flight leg home (~1 hr. from SEA, ~4 hrs. from ORD). If LX availability shows up that can be better optimized for the onward connection (ZRH-LAX or SFO), I'll reevaluate.

I fly the 77W ORD-ZRH frequently, and it's a great plane -- very new, and it shows. The E terminal lounge at ZRH is also great. My preference would have been Swiss, in part *because* of the longer connection to clear immigration/customs stress-free.

That said, international arrivals at ORD have been awful as of this summer (long lines, broken passport scanners, customs line sneaking through most of the baggage claim area, shuttles replacing skytrain), so I can't fault anyone for going through SEA instead...