Most you've ever spent on airline tickets

[SecondAttempt]

So I am hearing really good business class rates here. I opened another thread about travel agents. My job paid for business class for flights over 5 hours and the travel agent often booked them just a little over coach. Coach to Australia might be $1800 from US with business class abou $2200, less than coach plus economy plus.

But I don't see these fares any more. Maybe they are permanently gone but maybe a good travel agent can still find them!

 

[athena53]

One more post and I gotta get to the gym!

Years ago when it was easier to redeem miles for transatlantic Business, I kept DH's account active by buying a $15 iTunes gift card through the AA.com shopping portal. When the account hit 100,000 miles we redeemed them for 2 transatlantic Business Class seats to Madrid. Best $15 I ever spent.

I'm staying at a hotel 5 minutes form Heathrow and yesterday I hiked over there to get supplies and realized the security lines at T3, where I'm departing this afternoon for Tirana, were awful. Then I printed out my boarding pass and found that I'd booked Business Class using a small pile of BA miles I'd accumulated ages ago but kept active so I can use Fast Track. I feel better!

 

[bonvoyage]

I just booked two business class round trip tickets for my wife and myself on Emirates from the NY area to Asia for $5200 each. Definitely among the most expensive tickets I've bought. But for a 24 hour journey door to door, the extra comfort makes it more than worthwhile.
If you haven't travelled on ultra-long haul flights (over 14 hours), you may not realize just how hard it gets on you, as you get into your late 50s.

 

[sengsational]

For me it's either lay-flat or a chair; a wider seat and more leg room is ok, but to me, not worth it unless I can get flat. If I got a long flight for 3x or so, as so many of the posts suggest, it would be a slam dunk. But when I look, it's usually 8x. My home airport is Charlotte, and it's never had decent competition. The only way I've hit the 3x or 4x mark was buying two tickets, the first to Toronto, and the next across the pond.

 

[athena53]

If you haven't travelled on ultra-long haul flights (over 14 hours), you may not realize just how hard it gets on you, as you get into your late 50s.

I saw that with my late husband, who was 15 years older. In 2000, when he would have been 62, Continental offered a screaming deal for a RT on their new nonstop from Newark to Rio for 17,500 OnePass miles each. (Yeah, reward programs were a lot more "rewarding" back then. Never saw that offer again.) That was probably 3 hours. DH was very good-natured but said that he never wanted to fly in Coach that long again. After that our long-haul travel was to Europe, and flights were shorter but eventually we flew Business to Europe, too. It just took him a lot longer to un-kink his creaky back and get over jet lag after a Coach flight.

 

[skyking1]

I'm reporting back on our first flight:
It was a bit of a bust. I paid for premium economy and we really didn't receive much of a premium experience. It was an elderly dreamliner, and the interior infrastructure was showing its age and needed to be updated. Strike one the entertainment system never did work in our seats. The cabin crew is fine and they attempted rebooting the system from their controls a few times.
Strike two The recline button on my seat had been completely beaten into the console and was not functional at all. The recline feature on my wife's seat was broken in the sense that when it did finally recline it did so suddenly, spilling the guys Chardonnay behind us. It also dipped down slightly on one side when it was reclined and it took two cabin crew to get it back up.
Strike three one of the lavs in the middle of the airplane was inoperative. The next opportunity was all the way at the back of the cabin.
As I said before the cabin crew was fine and they offered us two empty seats not far away that were together. Sounded like a good idea. Guess what?
The entertainment system didn't work there either, and the recline feature was the same barely usable. Basically we paid for seat pitch and that's all we got.
After several attempts I did get that other entertainment system to work so only three out of four were broken. The bathroom on that side of the airplane was the one that was inoperative so my wife moved back to our old original seat and just tried to sleep. I stayed in the middle seat and watched a couple of movies.
Yes I did email British airways and lodge a complaint about their service, being sure to say that the cabin crew was great.
Our luggage also did not make it onto the transfer to Manchester and we're waiting delivery of that here at our friend's home.

 

[Sojourner]

I'm reporting back on our first flight:
It was a bit of a bust. I paid for premium economy and we really didn't receive much of a premium experience. It was an elderly dreamliner, and the interior infrastructure was showing its age and needed to be updated. Strike one the entertainment system never did work in our seats. The cabin crew is fine and they attempted rebooting the system from their controls a few times.
Strike two The recline button on my seat had been completely beaten into the console and was not functional at all. The recline feature on my wife's seat was broken in the sense that when it did finally recline it did so suddenly, spilling the guys Chardonnay behind us. It also dipped down slightly on one side when it was reclined and it took two cabin crew to get it back up.
Strike three one of the lavs in the middle of the airplane was inoperative. The next opportunity was all the way at the back of the cabin.
As I said before the cabin crew was fine and they offered us two empty seats not far away that were together. Sounded like a good idea. Guess what?
The entertainment system didn't work there either, and the recline feature was the same barely usable. Basically we paid for seat pitch and that's all we got.
After several attempts I did get that other entertainment system to work so only three out of four were broken. The bathroom on that side of the airplane was the one that was inoperative so my wife moved back to our old original seat and just tried to sleep. I stayed in the middle seat and watched a couple of movies.
Yes I did email British airways and lodge a complaint about their service, being sure to say that the cabin crew was great.
Our luggage also did not make it onto the transfer to Manchester and we're waiting delivery of that here at our friend's home.

Wow... I'd say "a bit of a bust" is quite the understatement! I certainly hope BA compensates you generously for that horrible experience. Personally, I wouldn't be satisfied unless I got nearly a 100% refund. I have heard so many bad things about BA in recent years that I think I'd go out of my way to avoid flying with them.

 

[skyking1]

Our next proposed trip this direction is going to be icelandair to Reykjavik for 3 days, then a short flight to either Dublin or Belfast to meet our friends from the UK. I'll pay for the saga fares from Seattle to Reykjavik and coach for the short hops between Ireland and Iceland. This too soured me from British airways.
Our friends would do a week in Ireland with us and we would probably do an additional week to try and see most of the important things.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm reporting back on our first flight:
It was a bit of a bust. I paid for premium economy and we really didn't receive much of a premium experience. It was an elderly dreamliner, and the interior infrastructure was showing its age and needed to be updated. Strike one the entertainment system never did work in our seats. The cabin crew is fine and they attempted rebooting the system from their controls a few times.
Strike two The recline button on my seat had been completely beaten into the console and was not functional at all. The recline feature on my wife's seat was broken in the sense that when it did finally recline it did so suddenly, spilling the guys Chardonnay behind us. It also dipped down slightly on one side when it was reclined and it took two cabin crew to get it back up.
Strike three one of the lavs in the middle of the airplane was inoperative. The next opportunity was all the way at the back of the cabin.
As I said before the cabin crew was fine and they offered us two empty seats not far away that were together. Sounded like a good idea. Guess what?
The entertainment system didn't work there either, and the recline feature was the same barely usable. Basically we paid for seat pitch and that's all we got.
After several attempts I did get that other entertainment system to work so only three out of four were broken. The bathroom on that side of the airplane was the one that was inoperative so my wife moved back to our old original seat and just tried to sleep. I stayed in the middle seat and watched a couple of movies.
Yes I did email British airways and lodge a complaint about their service, being sure to say that the cabin crew was great.
Our luggage also did not make it onto the transfer to Manchester and we're waiting delivery of that here at our friend's home.

Yuck!

 

[ls99]

It has been around 35 years last airplane or helicopter ride. Previosly many. Highest cost, Zero. All were at various companies or at the military's expense. Have no intention of getting on aircraft again.

 

[luckydude]

I'm reporting back on our first flight:
It was a bit of a bust. I paid for premium economy and we really didn't receive much of a premium experience. It was an elderly dreamliner, and the interior infrastructure was showing its age and needed to be updated. Strike one the entertainment system never did work in our seats. The cabin crew is fine and they attempted rebooting the system from their controls a few times.
Strike two The recline button on my seat had been completely beaten into the console and was not functional at all. The recline feature on my wife's seat was broken in the sense that when it did finally recline it did so suddenly, spilling the guys Chardonnay behind us. It also dipped down slightly on one side when it was reclined and it took two cabin crew to get it back up.
Strike three one of the lavs in the middle of the airplane was inoperative. The next opportunity was all the way at the back of the cabin.
As I said before the cabin crew was fine and they offered us two empty seats not far away that were together. Sounded like a good idea. Guess what?
The entertainment system didn't work there either, and the recline feature was the same barely usable. Basically we paid for seat pitch and that's all we got.
After several attempts I did get that other entertainment system to work so only three out of four were broken. The bathroom on that side of the airplane was the one that was inoperative so my wife moved back to our old original seat and just tried to sleep. I stayed in the middle seat and watched a couple of movies.
Yes I did email British airways and lodge a complaint about their service, being sure to say that the cabin crew was great.
Our luggage also did not make it onto the transfer to Manchester and we're waiting delivery of that here at our friend's home.

Wow, that's awful!

I have flown BA in both biz and premium economy multiple times over the years (West Coast to Manchester or LHR), and my experiences have always been positive. Guess I got lucky!

 

[skyking1]

I've not heard anything from them yet, but a receipt of our complaint.

 

[Scrapr]

I've not heard anything from them yet, but a receipt of our complaint.

I'll bet the seats all worked better in the front of the plane.....*

11 hours in a seat that doesn't recline = passenger abuse. Not to mention the fellow in the back of your wife that has to sit in wet clothing for the duration.

*I did have a Virgin Atlantic Business class seat that the crew said was broken. I don't remember specifically the problem. The purser moved me 1 seat over & put 10k miles on my account

 

[skyking1]

We've heard back from British airways.
Drum roll please....
Let the suspense build....
They've offered us $70 voucher on our next booking.
Each!
We have swooned in gratitude. :Facepalm:

 

[DrRoy]

To the original question, we paid 3.3% this year to Europe for a Viking Cruise - upgraded to business class one way - so we could sleep better on the overnight trans-Atlantic flight.

 

[skyking1]

Update on our first Premium Economy experience, round 2.
The return flight was everything we expected it to be.
The difference was the aircraft itself. The plane on the way home was either much newer, or had a recently updated interior. It was like night and day. All things worked.

 

[livingalmostlarge]

just bought tickets to cancun for thanksgiving for $2k per person direct. used miles and coupons for a few of us but still $2k is pricey for economy