hardworking21

I'm looking into the 8:30 PM SFO to BOS redeye in J class, which gets in at 5 AM. I have a 7:30 AM meeting in the city, was thinking of taking a nap in between the two for ~2 hours or so. Any thoughts or feedback on if the United Club would be the best option? Is there a private spot to nap quietly in the BOS United Club?

Kacee

The back of the club is pretty quiet early. Theoretically you're not supposed to sleep in a UC.

Personally, I would consider it a mistake to nap immediately after a redeye if I needed to be on my game. I'd be looking for a shower and a strong cup of coffee. (Though "shower" is not an option anywhere at BOS following a UA arrival . . . you'd have to go to a hotel.)

tvhead

That 3 hour time change from Pacfic to Eastern is really wicked. Consider that a 7:30 ET meeting is starting at 4:30 PT. I can only speak for myself, but I'm certainly not at the top of my game in the middle of the night.
And further, I don't see how you can do a 2 hour nap if you arrive BOS at 5 and you have to be in the city for a meeting at 7:30.
I've done this sort of thing more times that I'd like to admit, but if you able to delay the meeting, you'd benefit yourself greatly.

WineCountryUA

I have done the west to east with 7:30/8AM meeting many times. The best approach is to shift to east coast time before leaving the west ( including a day earlier if possible) but plan on sleeping as soon as you get on the plane and get as close to 6 hours sleep as you can. The nap on arrival (for me) would be a total disaster.

Bottom line it is better to fly in the night before but ...

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Repooc17

How much participation is needed from your in this 730am meeting?

I am based out of the east coast. I have done my shares of red-eye flights from the west coast, and heading straight to work for the entire day, including various meetings throughout the day.

That said, I would echo WineCountry's recommendation, take a day flight and arrive the night before.

findark

This. If you can't afford to fly the day before, do whatever you can to get to sleep right after takeoff and that's what you're going to run with. If you need a short nap in the afternoon, sometimes I'll take that to adjust since getting 6 hours on an eastbound TCON is nearly impossible as wheels time is rarely that long.

Really wish there were a big enough market for slow flights that guaranteed 6h30 wheels to wheels. OGG-DEN was incomparably better than any TCON I've flown

BlackBear05

hoopics

Are you unable to get on the 4:10 SFO-BOS flight arriving ~12:45 AM? As between J on the redeye and Y on that one, with the fare difference put into an airport hotel for a proper sleep in a bed, the 4:10 wins 10 times out of 10.

jpezaris

The downside is that you'll be splitting your sleep (which the OP was willing to do anyway), with the first hours on the plane, and then last 4 to 5 in a hotel bed. For a 7:30 AM meeting, that (for me at least) means wake at 6:00 AM, maybe 6:30 if skipping breakfast. The 12:45 AM arrival, combined with the 7:30 AM need to be bright-and-bushy-tailed is brutal no matter how you cut it.

jpezaris

HELL yes! The SFO/LAX/SAN to EWR/IAD/BOS redeyes definitely need to be SLOWER. The PS service could promote that as part of the luxury offered: get a full night's sleep.

John Aldeborgh

This is really no different than flying to Europe from the East Coast. Not complicated, attempt to sleep on the flight, get cleaned up the best you can after landing and bury yourself in work. Generally speaking the more demanding the meeting the more the adrenaline will flow. Taking a nap is a mistake, push yourself to stay-up and work a normal day. Experience has taught me it's all about discipline and will power.

COSPILOT

A friend of mine does the redeye into EWR in (Y no less) from the west coast every year for our annual corporate meeting. I couldn't do it and be functional even in J, but that weekend is always a conflict for personal reasons, so the redeye it is for him. Somehow he is functional, with large amounts of coffee consumed that first day. He is number 1 in sales, has about 4 million lifetime miles under his belt, albeit spread out amongst different airlines, so he isn't young and isn't new to the travel game.

But again, I couldn't do it.

threeoh

This is the magic trick for me. I move my schedule on hour per day until I'm on arrival time or most of the way there. So get up at 6am two days before, 5am the day before, and wake up at 4am on the day of your flight so (a) you go to sleep when you get on the plane and (b) even if you only get 3-4 hours of sleep, your body wants to wake up at 7am Boston time. You can recover the following night if you were low on sleep, but you can't recover if your body is actively trying to go to sleep during the meeting.
​​​​​
If you want to see an expert example of this, check out the night trains in most of Europe -- they run them slowly on purpose so they leave at ~22:00 and arrive at ~8:00 from the main cities regardless of the organic travel time between the cities. Allows extra flexibility for track construction, etc. too obviously.

Collierkr

Huh? What theory is this? I mean we aren't talking about laying out with blankets etc ;-)