Experience with TAP
 

Hello everyone,

my girlfriend and I would like to qualify for A3 Gold next year, if our holiday plans gave us the opotrunity.
In March 2014 we would like to visit New York, Washington and perhaps Toronto (using the Maple Leaf) and we found a nice routing from DUS to EWR and back in J in TAP Portugal for about 2000 Euro which will allow us to collect around 18.000 Miles&Bonus miles.
For business reasons we are going to fly in January which will get us 1000 miles and, together with the signing Bonus of 1000 miles, will get us *A Gold.

Now, my questions are: Does anyone have any experience with TP in general and LIS as an transfer-airport? In some reports, the overall quality in J seems to be quite bad and the puncuality is not so good as well.
We have a connection time of 60 minutes in LIS, which is the minimum connection time. Will this be a problem?
Does anyone have anything, that we have to think about?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Our routing in detail:
TP7751: Düsseldorf 06:15 - Frankfurt 07:10 in Business (Z) on LH
TP6700: Frankfurt 09:35 - Lissabon 11:35 in Business (J) on LH
TP 103: Lissabon 12:35 - Newark 15:50 in Business (J)

22.3. - 23.3.
TP 104: Newark 18:55 - Lissabon 06:00 + 1 in Business (J)
TP 542: Lissabon 07:55 - Düsseldorf 11:50 in Business (J)

I think there have been a couple of threads on TP longhaul J.
Expect good food, very good wines, slanted seat (ok for day flight, nighttime it's another story), and variable service (other great engaged crew or hidden in the galley). I haven't flown TP longhaul C in a few years, but if you 're ok with LH old (current) Biz seat, TP is not worse IMO.

Your 60 minutes connection should be fine, as your TP6700 is in fact LH1166 which has a decent on time performance (Can be worse during winter due to FRA snow) https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DLH1166
LH IME gets an airbridge, so you'll be directly at the terminal.
TP lounge is great and should give you some time for a (quick) visit if you arrive on time. You need to go through passport control for TP 103.

I just flew TP103 LIS-EWR in business. It was a good flight. Seats were fine, and much better than the old LH business class seats. Service was very good. Wines were good. Amenity kit also good.

I did nap most of the way quite comfortably. I made the mistake of pre-ordering a vegetarian meal. It was steamed rice and steamed mushy vegetables (no joke). The normal menu, however, did have a vegetarian option which was much better. The pre-landing snack wasn't great but also wasn't terrible (better than UA). A copy of the menu is here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/membe...ness-class.jpg

Do you have any pictures of the seat so we can boost and refresh the topic of TP C seats?
Thx
GBM

Deleted double post

Sorry, the seat picture didn't come out at all so I didn't post it. It was pretty comfortable, felt more flat than slanted (if that makes sense?), much better than the legacy LH business. I wasn't angled into a "sliding down the ironing board" position at all. My wife reported easy sleep as well and we were both pleasantly surprised. It was the Recaro branded seat (I recall the big label on the seat) if that helps those of you who know more. This TP website photo is pretty accurate http://www.tapcorporate.com/media/w3...onforto_ab.jpg

Hi there,

Have flown TP a lot in the last year and must say it is quite regular. Basic would say.

Here are my marks:

* Terrible uncomfortable seats
* Old planes
* Lazy crew
* Basic, very regular catering
* Expensive tickets
* No customer service
* Delays

C class Europe:

* Very expensive tickets
* C class the same as economy
* Pitch very narrow
* No welcome drink, no entertainment on board, no headphones, no help from the crew, no newspapers...
* Food quite good, but depend on time of departure.
* Crew unhelpful and staying in the galley almost all flight
* No real customer care
* Delays on arrival (15 mins to desembark and a lot of times in an outside position, then bus, then walking.....)

Not sure if you gonna like it, but I heard C class interconti is slightly better in catering, but far away from LH, LX, OS, IB, KL in service.

I do not think the bonus miles for enrollment will count towards Gold status

Photos of the seat that I took last year on EWR - OPO.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/membe...845-seat1.jpeg

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/membe...844-seat2.jpeg

Does anyone know if TAP offers amenity kits on longer intraEuropean flights in C? Flying LIS-HEL redeye next week, and I'm embarrassed to admit that the possibility of a cheesy amenity kit might be enough to convince me to bid on a plusgrade. Otherwise there seems little benefit to C class.

No, they don't...

Just flew TAP EWR-LIS last week, coach -- hands down the most uncomfortable seats I've been in for a while. No back support and I tended to slip down. Service was fine, plane was clean, flight was nice, legroom ok, but I am not doing that to my back again.

Pretty much

If you're *A status-free, you might value the check-in, fast-track, lounge privileges and getting on first. But you pay a hefty price for such frills.

Otherwise it's just that empty seat and slightly better on-board catering: plus you get to see where the flight attendants hang out :)

My experience, confined recently to Manchester Lisbon, is that most business-class travellers are connecting to TP long-haul services.

TP J is terrible
 

Just did TP EWR-LIS-LHR-RT on paid J. I think the worst J service I've ever taken.

1) Flight had the angled lie flat. Nearly impossible to sleep
2) The food was embarrassing. Everything was served in plastic wrap or covered in plastic containers. I've never seen this before. The food quality is pretty marginal.
3) If you're transiting LIS, to a non Schengen country, there's no access to a lounge. The only way is to enter the EU and exit back again which takes way too much time to bother. But nobody tells you this. There's no transit desk in LIS so I spent 20 minutes asking non TP employees to find the lounge only to find out there is no lounge. So you just sit and twiddle your thumbs like you've paid for a coach seat.
4) The crew on every sector fawned over the employees on non rev travel and almost ignored paying passengers.

I will never fly TP again.

1. JFK service has lie-flat. EWR still gets angled-flat
2. I don't mind the plastic wrap on african routes actually. Their SOP is to serve everything wrapped, but IMHO they should change the SOP.
3. Yea it sucks, especially if you don't have an EU passport. Even then the lounge is nothing to write home about.... not like it was before the airport refurb closed the TP lounge.
4. I've had that experience too and I don't like it either. TP has a real service culture problem. Sometimes get great crews, but they're mostly an exception.