First time flying business class-help!
 

Hi there
We're flying in Oct/11 and the following is the itinerary:
YVR-PEK - Air Canada
PEK-BKK - Thai
BKK-NRT - ANA
NRT-YVR - Air Canada

Having never flown business class before, I have several questions:
1. With the business class tickets, are we automatically eligible to use the bus. class lounges at each airport? If so, which would be a good lounge to use in each airport?
2. Are we eligible to use any Star Alliance lounge at each airport?
3. How do we find out where each of these lounges located at each airport?
4. Do we leave the lounge and get to the departure gate on our own or is there a different gate for business class passengers?
Sorry for all these questions. Some of them might seem quite ignorant but we just wanted to have to all information avail. ahead of time.
Thank you for all help and inputs.

Welcome to business class!

1, 2, 3. Not always, but usually. Some reward tickets and some lounges may not be available. Check www.staralliance.com to see what your options will be.

4. Yes, you are almost always responsible to get to the gate on your own, and it will be the same gate as for others. You may have early boarding due to being in business class, so listen to the announcements carefully.

Hope this helps - enjoy your trip!

I can help on lounges as I have been all, but 1, of your airports:

PEK: Sorry, haven't done this one, yet!

BKK: There are at least 5 Thai lounges that I am aware of. The large lounge in the central part of the terminal is by far the nicest. Concourse D, between gates D1-D8.

NRT: ANA lounges: amazing. Highlights: Showers, sushi, udon noodle bar, sake bar, chocolates are amazing. 2 to choose from, one is nicer than the other (larger and has windows)(Satelite 5 by gate 55, the other (SAT 4, gate 46) is in the basement but still has all of the "stuff" the other one has. It really depends on how much time you have, where you plane arrives (what gate) and what gate your departing plane is leaving from.

YVR: MLL, pretty standard stuff. You'll be using the International one which is pretty poor: no shower, small and as we all know limited food choices; however, it is still acceptable.

Enjoy your trip!

1+2. If you're not Star Alliance Gold, then you're limited to the lounge that the particular carrier uses. If you don't know, make sure you ask when checking in.

3. I usually bring up the online maps of airports. More often than not, they have all the lounges (with exact locations) listed. In NRT, the UA lounge is also available and you'll probably pass by it first before hitting the NH lounges. But, I agree the NH lounges are the ones to go to.

4. The gate is the same but there is usually a different boarding line for Business. YVR is often horrendous at enforcing this but BKK and NRT are far better. It's been too long since I've been to PEK so I don't know how it currently is.

Please let us know if you bought this on Aeroplan points so that we may offer more accurate suggestions.

With a routing like that I'm assuming this is a reward ticket and not revenue. (I could be wrong of course!)

1) The safest thing to do when you check in is simply ask. "Where's the lounge?" will get you everything you need to know.

2) Typically the answer here is no, but #1 will get you the definitive answer.

3) See #1.

4) Direct-boarding gates are nice but I've only experienced that once in FRA. To the best of my knowledge, they don't exist for *A at the places you're going to. But times change so you never know ...


Another note - last time I was in PEK we used the Air China lounge. It was upstairs to the left as we cleared security. The lounge had seemingly slim pickings for food but I discovered that if you just keep walking to the end of the lounge you'll find the restaurant / bar area where all the good stuff is.

Enjoy your flights!

Enjoy J, this is how I do it after I get on a long flight:

1. Get a chaimpaign right away
2. Red wine before the meal
3. Another red wine with the meal
4. Port with desert
5. Whisky to finish it off. Flatten the seat and go to sleep
6. Wake up in 4 hours, and repeat 1-5.
7. Where the heck did I put my custom form? Ask the FA to get me another one.
8. Fill out the form with Vodka in hand
9. Arriving at PEK. Just in time for the bed at hotel. Taxi drivers don't even expect tips.

Enjoy :-)

10. Liver transplant.

LMFAO!!!!

add cookies and ice cream to the list and you're golden!

With Baileys as a sauce on top of the ice cream. :p

Thank you for all your prompt advice. I will print off a map of each airport for easy directions. "g46r"-you're hilarious. Thanks again.

Oh one more thing, please don't wear a track suit in the J cabin.:D :D :D

Yes indeed!

I understand it's acceptable to wear something comfortable during a longhaul trip (track suit, leisure suit or alternate '70s attire if you must) as long as you are dressed in what my granny would call appropriate clothing at the beginning and end of the flight.

However...if you choose to board wearing a retro loose-fitting Adidas track suit with too many gold chains and a flat-brimmed ball cap turned askew, you may be presumed some sort of celebrity and thus given all the deference (or disdain) to which they are accustomed. You'll probably be 'outed' for flying in J rather than F, but if you follow g46r's advice, most people will believe you are indeed a star of some unfortunate reality show after all.

Yes Bermuda shorts, shirt and flip flops are the accepted attire at the front of the bus.

The sushi I've had over there were by far the best sushi I've had among various lounges I've been in that have them. ^

you should also run through the airport screaming 'out of the way!! I m in business class!!!'

to be repeated while pushing through crowds at gate

:p

Actually while I was in the UK over Christmas I watched the delays at LHR on tv and a gate attendant was shown telling everyone that the flight was canceled ... the crowd groaned but one passenger pushed forward and asked "does that apply to business class too?" :-)

That's not right.

Your carrier will grant access to whatever lounges they want, usually it'll be their business class lounges except in unusual cases like upgrade certificates or last minute upgrades. Sometimes that carrier won't have a lounge and they'll have a contract lounge or another non-*A lounge they give you access to. Sometimes they won't have anything at all.

But in addition to that flying business class on any Star Alliance carrier grants you access to any other Star Alliance business class lounge in the airport you can get to.

And they might not tell you about this as they'll just tell you about their own lounge which might be cheaper for them. For example in SFO flying UA in business class they'll only tell you about their own business class lounge, not the SQ SK lounge. (though SQ might be closing access to this lounge now) Most airports won't have multiple *A lounges to choose from. Only large hubs like Heathrow or unusual cases like SFO would fall into this category.

Someone who enjoys public attention and/or feels extra important would certainly not mind doing that! :p

ok, ok, Just Strike A Pose and shashay into the plane, dark sun lgasses on and a cigar in ther hand...

Don't be shocked by the quality of cabin on the ANA BKK-NRT leg. ANA uses their oldest planes and a very old recliner business seat on that route. Thai would have been a much better choice on the way back again.

But who knows, maybe by October they would have upgraded those old planes.

Last time I flew business class I waited in the lounge and they drove the plane over and picked me up on the way out of the terminal.

Ron.

I've always thought entry into other *A lounges was a function of *A status and not the J ticket.

Mind you, I've always had *A Gold anytime I've flown in J so I don't have first-hand experience in this. :p

If in doubt about my ticket/membership status. for entry to the lounge, when I check in or drop by bag at the baggage drop-off desk I always ask "do I need an invitation for the lounge". In some airports you do... so it;s not an unusual thing to ask and they'll hand you an invitation if you qualify and if they are needed, or tell you if you don't qualify on your particular membership/flight combination.

The only other thing you have to be aware of is the advice already given by someone else on this thread that the airline will always direct you to their own lounge or contracted lounge - which may not be the best one that you have access to. So you should research available lounges online - find out where they are and either ask ahead or try.

http://www.staralliance.com/en/benef...access-policy/

It's easiest to think of business class lounges as being part of a business class ticket and 1st class lounges as part of a 1st class ticket. This is the main reason for them to exist. Lounges are part of the service level expected of business class and 1st class tickets.

Think of *Gold as a special benefit giving you access to some of these even on economy tickets.

Access to star alliance lounges is also based on class of travel. So J boarding pass gets access to all J star alliance lounges.

You learn something every day!

I come here for the articles..... :)

TG can be russian roulette on this one as they frequently change their metal at the last minute. Last January we were booked in F and they switched the plane and we ended up in C with 10,000 baht each (~$300) to make up for it. If the OP was flying in F then I would totally agree as then they'd get to use the BKK Royal Orchid Spa which was one of the highlight's of our last trip.

The descriptions I'm hearing in this thread of the ANA NRT business lounge sounds like what we saw in the ANA NRT FCL: " Showers, sushi, udon noodle bar, sake bar, chocolates are amazing". Good deal for a business lounge!

That's interesting. Which sector did that happen on? I've had eqpt changes on TG but never one which resulted in a downgrade.

BKK to NRT. Have a read of this thread. It's dedicated to this phenomenon on TG.

It's very true of TG swapping equipment, although nothing near anything like TK for example, but TG has been fairly consistent on the NRT route, at least the 5-6 r/t I did in 2010 with them. I always end up taking the red-eye ex-BKK which is a 2 cabin anyway so I don't really need to worry.

The way I figure it, even if I get on the old regional 747 (actual TG internal code for the old regional config 744s for those who might not know) it'd just be very similar to the old NH 763 recliners.

The angle-flat TG C seat is much better compared to the recliners on NH and I've always been allocated a seat with an empty seat next to me.

I miss the NH service but since I take the red-eye I much rather be able to at least catch some shut eye, even if I slide down the seat a few times.

Only on flights to Illinois.

CX is very notorious in this regard as well. Just look through the archives of the CX board and see those frequent complaints when they were in the process of converting their 744s and 343s from the old configuration to the new (present) cabins which as a result had a mixture of old and new (present) cabins and passengers would often be victimised by last minute aircraft swapping where they were looking foward to trying out the new seats only to get the old ones.

Call me a killjoy but I'd recommend to avoid points 1-5 and 8. As somebody wrote here the biggest advantage of J is a good sleep and the alcohol delivers only very superficious kind of sleep.
Moreover, I frequently meet these 1-5 FTs (no offence g46r!) and it is not really a pleasant experience to stay close to them...

Just remember to buckle up when u get on board....and listen to crew instructions..... far too often we see DYKWIA idiots in J

Was it something I said?:confused::confused: