October has been a month of milestones for me. I celebrated my second anniversary with my wife, it’s 10 years since I started my “new” life, and now I’ve finally embarked on my first-ever trip outside of the United States — to France. I was there for a short press event, so I didn’t even get the full France experience. Yet, I’m still just shocked at everything I’ve seen, smelled, eaten, and slept in. One of the more surprising experiences was just getting here, as I flew in the top class of a Boeing 787, a far departure from my usual discount seat in the back of the plane. However, is it worth $10,000?
Sadly, my time in Nice, France wound down. I was basically in France for all of 48 hours, and due to the constraints of the press event, I didn’t even get to see Monaco or step foot on a beach. But I’m not actually complaining here, because those 48 hours have been some of the coolest I’ve spent on this planet. I’m thankful to be here, and it makes me even happier that I made the choice to leave the IT world and get into writing about cars.
Officially, I went to France to drive the new Audi [REDACTED] which will be coming to America soon. And the trip was a bit special, as Audi paid for the best possible experiences on the way to and from France.
As many of you already know, I’m legendarily miserly. Most of my cars are the cheapest, most depreciated versions of them I found for sale. I live in a discount apartment, buy used car parts when possible, and heck, even most of my tech is old. I’m still running an 11-year-old Day One Edition Xbox One because I’m too cheap to buy one of the better ones.
I’m just as cheap when it comes to flying. I prefer flying as cheaply as possible, and generally consider any airfare above $180 to be “too expensive.” That almost always means I’m flying in a crappy seat in the back of a generic Boeing 737 or Airbus A320. I mean, it was exciting when I recently flew Economy in a Boeing 717.
According to our research, Audi spent between $5,500 and $7,000 to get me to France and about the same amount to get me home. That’s $11,000 of flying if we’re being generous or $14,000 on the high end. So, what is that like?
(Full Disclosure: Audi invited us to Nice, France to test the new [Redacted]. Audi has paid for all of my travel, lodging and food, with the interesting twist of paying for the best seats on every aircraft I’ll be flying on. I’m grateful for the experience.)
Audi gave me a choice of flights to get to and from France, and I chose mine based entirely on aircraft type. Coincidentally, the airline flying the coolest plane to Europe was United Airlines and the aircraft was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, an aircraft I hadn’t ever been on before. My other choices included Lufthansa and British Airways, but both were flying Boeing 777s and I’ve been on those before.
Audi booked the flights, and as I looked through the email I noticed something interesting. Audi didn’t just buy plane tickets, but put me in the best part of the plane. For my United flight, this was Polaris Business Class. This alone was shocking, as literally every single press trip I had taken before placed me in Economy, maybe Economy Plus if the automaker was feeling generous enough. [Ed Note: Plenty of international press trips involve first-class travel, but not all. -DT].Â
Getting a Polaris ticket unlocks an entire world of luxury that mere plebians like myself didn’t know existed.
Everything Is Easier
Nobody likes going to the airport. The lines are long, you have to strip for the TSA, and anything better than misery costs extra. The microtransactions everyone hates from the video game world have permeated many industries. Don’t like removing your shoes and jacket? You can pay for that! Don’t want to wait in line with everyone else? You can pay for that! I mean, TSA PreCheck practically taunts you with its advertisements about only getting dressed once in a day.
Flying United Polaris takes away many of the pain points of going to the airport. United Airlines says that a Polaris ticket grants you two checked bags, access to a faster check-in line at the airport, priority bag handling where your bags are among the first off of the plane, and the one I liked the most, you get to go through United’s Premier Access security lane.
Just a handful of people are allowed access to this security lane, so it’s like getting to speedrun through security. Here’s what I wrote about that line in the previous entry:
This line was a fraction of the size of the regular TSA line at the airport and the TSA agents were a lot more chill. I read warnings that you should get to the airport at least three hours before an international flight. I didn’t want to miss this flight, so I got there five hours early.
I’m not entirely sure what I expected. It’s said you should arrive two hours early for a domestic flight, so I wondered what the extra hour was supposed to be for. At least in this case, it didn’t seem to mean anything. Security screening went exactly the way it does for a domestic flight, only I showed the TSA agent my passport in addition to my driver’s license. I even got through security in a third of the usual time.
Apparently, it was supposed to be even faster than that. There were a number of folks in line who were pissed off because the TSA wasn’t using every scanner and thus wasn’t going as fast as they normally go. One guy got so mad he even yelled at a random TSA agent about it.
While I was deeply disappointed by the behavior of the people in line, I thoroughly enjoyed the far faster way through security. The cool thing is that United Premier Access isn’t limited to Polaris tickets. If you’re flying economy and just want to skip the huge lines, United says you can buy a one-time pass to Premier Access starting at $24. Maybe I’ll try that the next time I get to the airport super late.
Once I got through security, which otherwise wasn’t meaningfully different than a standard security line, I strutted straight to the United Polaris Lounge. You can read about my experience in that wonderful place by clicking here.
When it finally became time to board my flight to Frankfurt, the other benefits of the Polaris ticket started to kick in. My ticket had me in Boarding Group 1, which meant I got on the plane basically immediately after people with wheelchairs, after active duty military members, and so on. That part meant no waiting on a hot jet bridge, no waiting for the people in front of me to stow their luggage and find their seats, and I even had enough time to have a short chat with the flight crew, which I can never do in Group 7 or whatever.
I chose seat 1A for my flight out to Germany. Yes, 1A.
Why? Well, I’m almost always at the very back of the plane when I fly Economy, so I thought taking the very first seat would be a trip. It’s the exact opposite of what I’m used to! When I arrived, I stopped in my tracks and was visibly shocked at where I was going to spend the next 8.5 hours. I got a nice wide seat with so much legroom that my legs couldn’t even reach the end of the Polaris pod seat thing. [Ed Note: As I read this, I am so delighted for Mercedes. -DT]
There were nice tall walls giving me privacy, lots of places to store stuff, and even a real counter to put my drinks, my phone, my purse, or whatever.
I’m far too young to have experienced the era before airline deregulation, but I imagine this is probably as good or better. The seat in the Polaris pod has more adjustments than the seats in most of my cars! The flight crew noticed I was taking pictures of everything. I revealed that not only was this my first time flying internationally, but it was also my first time ever flying something better than Economy and my first time ever on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The flight crew was super excited about this and even celebrated the moment by taking my picture:
Then, I got to spend the rest of the boarding time sipping on champagne while I set up my mini-suite. This is where my “cheapassery” really began to show up again. United provides each Polaris sleeping pod with two different types of pillows and two different types of blankets, each from Saks Fifth Avenue.
First of all, I have no idea what a Saks Fifth Avenue even is, but I was deeply confused by this two-of-everything approach. United says: Our custom Saks Fifth Avenue sleep set has a Saks Day Blanket made from recycled plastic, a duvet and a cooling gel pillow. On flights longer than 14 hours, we also offer pajamas.
Which didn’t help me. What’s a duvet? What’s a day blanket? I was quick to admit to the flight attendants that I had no idea what was going on. Look, I have a memory foam bed with a sheet and a blanket on it at home. One flight attendant explained to me that one of the pillows was like your standard hotel pillow while the smaller one was a gel pillow. One blanket was heavy while the other was light. Ah, okay, now that’s something I can understand.
I found myself confused again when I was given a hot wet towel. What am I supposed to do with this? I just washed my hands with it.
I stuffed away my bedding and set myself up for the flight. The Dreamliner is pretty slick with large electronically dimmable windows that you can control with buttons on the windows themselves or on your seat’s display screen. It takes a while for these windows to dim, but they are fantastically effective at darkening the space in the Polaris pod. I imagine they’re also quite great for the Economy, too. I also love how there are dimming settings, so you can choose to have some light come in.
Flying in a Polaris class seat also gets you eye serum, facial spray, hand cream, ear plugs, socks, noise-cancelling headphones, and an eye mask. Then there’s the food. Now, everyone on the plane gets food, but United goes the extra mile for Polaris, stating:
Choose an entrée from our redesigned United Polaris menu featuring dishes from around the globe. Your main meal is served after takeoff and comes with mixed nuts, an appetizer, a salad, bread, and a made-to-order ice cream sundae for dessert. We also offer midflight snacks and a second dining service.
If you prefer a shorter meal service, ask your flight attendant about express dining. You can get all your courses at one time or select a few items and your meal will be delivered at your request.
All drinks, including beer, wine and liquor are free.
On overnight hops, you get to choose from a list of dinner options that get served to you not long after takeoff. Then, you get to choose breakfast about an hour and a half or so before landing. As the quote above says, you also get ice cream, appetizers, salad, bread, and all of the drinks you can consume. You can even get mixed drinks! I found myself downing Jack and Cokes plus Bloody Mary drinks like they were going out of style.
Speaking of which, I cannot even begin to describe how much booze United serves its Polaris customers. The Polaris Lounge refills your drinks before you’re even finished with them and it’s a similar story on the aircraft. I didn’t even know planes had this much alcohol in them. I’m now convinced that United Polaris passengers probably spend the majority of their flying experiences sloshed.
All of this stuff is served on real glassware and on porcelain plates with real cutlery. The food is even placed on top of a table cover like you’re eating at a nice restaurant.
As for the food itself? Well, it’s not as I expected. The ingredient lists make these dinners sound extravagant. I had a pork cutlet with a tomato-based sauce, some mixed veggies, and shell pasta. On the way home I had ravioli (above). One of the other choices was a piece of cod and there was also a vegetarian option as well. The food tastes fine. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t as good as the ingredients list would have you believe. I’d say this food was about on par with one of those “premium” microwave dinners. You know, like that one that sponsors all of your favorite YouTubers.
What I can say is that the food was very filling. Once I was done with every course I felt nice and full. I actually thought twice about getting the breakfast quiche before landing because it felt like I didn’t have room for more food. It was wild that I felt full on an airplane. I’m usually the person buying an overpriced burger at an airport bar and then waiting until landing before eating anything more than airplane pretzels. I’m allergic to spending money on planes. I won’t even buy the Wi-Fi, which, bizarrely, is still something you have to buy on your $10,000 flight.
The Polaris seat also provided the best flying experience I’ve ever had in my entire life. I reclined the seat and put up the footrest to watch Mad Max 2, then when it was time to sleep, I fully extended the seat into a bed, put the heavy blanket down as a sheet, and slept under the lighter blanket.
The sleeping part was a game-changer alone for me. I’m not sure why, but I can never sleep in regular plane seats. I’m always jostled awake and just never get much further progress than closing my eyes. This has proven to be terrible for red-eye flights as I take off tired and land destroyed. Then, I still have to be an adult for some time after. That wasn’t the case here. I fell asleep so hard that I had a dream. I’ve never had that happen on a plane before.
The plane itself was another great experience. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner pressurizes to a cabin altitude of about 6,000 feet, roughly 2,000 feet lower than most other aircraft types. In other words, your body feels like it’s at 6,000 feet, which is more comfortable than a higher altitude. I also loved the aircraft’s smooth ride and strong air-conditioning system. Even when we hit turbulence, it felt like a gentle rock that really only sent me to sleep.
As a result of all of this, I landed in Frankfurt feeling refreshed and ready to tackle my day ahead. It didn’t matter that I skipped forward 7 time zones because my time on the aircraft seemingly left me without the fatigue I get even on short hauls. But I guess that makes sense when you have a large, comfortable seat, filling meals, and a real bed to sleep in.
European Business Class Is Weird
Now I feel like I have to mention the hilarious contrast between United Polaris Business Class and Lufthansa Business Class.
Once I got to Frankfurt, I had to climb a set of stairs out of the jet bridge, pay a visit to the German Bundespolizei (federal police), and make my way to a connecting flight to get me to Nice.
First of all, Frankfurt’s airport is a freaky place. It started when the jet bridge ended with a long staircase. Nobody looked graceful as they dragged their luggage up the stairs. I feel like there should have been a better way to implement getting into the airport from an aircraft. While I thought about that, I was surprised to see giant Winston smoking rooms filled with people. It was 6 a.m. in Germany, yet one smoking room had a constant cloud in it. I would later learn that Europeans seem to smoke way more than Americans do. I saw Renault Twingos four people deep and all of them puffing like steam locomotives.
Anyway, the smoke room was a curiosity, but Frankfurt otherwise felt like many other airports I’ve been to. Things started getting different again when it came time to board my Lufthansa flight to Nice. The screens at the gate didn’t indicate when the flight would board and when it came time for boarding, there weren’t really any real boarding groups. Priority customers went first, then everyone else.
But this didn’t really matter, because you scanned your boarding pass, walked down a flight of stairs, and boarded a bus. Eventually, the bus driver got done leaning on a wall, got in the driver seat, and then drove us out to a waiting Airbus A319.
Disembarking from the bus isn’t an orderly process. Everyone sort of hops out and makes their way to the plane. It doesn’t matter where you sit in the plane because it’s just a free-for-all of people.
The plane itself was also pretty weird to my American eyes. Lufthansa’s A319 was configured as all Economy from front to rear. I had seat 2A, but I sat in an Economy row. What gives? As a frequent international traveler explained to me: European airlines will configure their aircraft as all-economy. Their Business Class will then just be Economy seats, but they won’t sell the middle seat.
That was jarring, but it made sense. The flight to Nice was just 1.5 hours long and honestly, Europe would prefer it if you took a train on such short trips, anyway. It didn’t need to be super luxurious. Besides, we still got breakfast on the plane.
My trip back home was no different than the trip out. I flew on a Lufthansa Bombardier CRJ-900 to Munich, where I boarded another United Boeing 787 Dreamliner to head back to Chicago. That time, I got Polaris seat 2A, which was a goofy configuration compared to many of the other seats. I couldn’t really see out of my windows and the sleeping pod’s desk required some contorting to use.
What was worse was the condition of our aircraft. The 787 I took back to Chicago was built in 2018, yet the Polaris area suffered from enough faults that the flight was almost delayed by three hours. At least three screens didn’t work, at least three audio systems didn’t work, and multiple reclining seats were broken. The lady situated in 1A sat in a seat that was broken — stuck in a partially reclined position. My seat failed twice, sending me reeling backward without warning. My seat then got stuck in a too-reclined state that you can’t even achieve with the buttons.
The flight crew gave us an ultimatum. We could wait around 3 hours for the maintenance crew to fix this stuff, or we could fly home and just deal with the broken stuff. The entire cabin spent no time at all unanimously agreeing to not get delayed.
This flight was also a bit weird for me as it departed Munich at 11 in the morning and landed in Chicago at 2 in the afternoon. It was still a 10-hour flight, but it was daytime the whole time. If you’ve never experienced jet lag before, take an international flight. It’ll break your sleep cycle for days.
I had the time of my life on these flights. I didn’t know flying commercial could be so fun, so filling, or so refreshing. I’m not sure I’ve ever used the word “refreshing” to describe flying commercial, but that’s perhaps the best word to match with United Polaris.
So, we arrive at the question I posed early on. Is United Polaris worth $10,000 in each direction? Apparently, Polaris flights can get down to $2,000 or $4,000 depending on your destination, your booking time, and so on. But this particular flight had to have been $5,500 to $7,000 in each direction.
While I had the best flying experience of my life in United Polaris, I’m not sure I could justify the cost. Most of the cars in my fleet were purchased for a fraction of a Polaris ticket, and the cars usually last longer than 8 hours. Yes, this experience was otherworldly. Yes, I never want to fly Economy ever again. However, that price is a shocker. When I worked at the old site, just one $10,000 Polaris ticket would have been 18 percent of my yearly salary. Heck, that cost buys me one whole year of rent at my apartment.
So, United Polaris is simply amazing and an experience that’s hard to put into words. However, unless you’ve got a ton of cash or an absurd amount of airline miles racked up, it’s a bit dear. That’s a shame because this is what flying should be like.
(Correction: We’ve taken a second look at fares and it looks like the total for the flight should have been around $11,000 to $14,000, not $20,000.)
(Images: Author)
Intra-European flights are equivalent to American domestic flights, because the distance and travelling time is pretty short mostly.
But once you’ve flown proper international business class (like you did from America to Germany), it properly spoils flying for you.
I have been “lucky” enough to fly business class to Germany a few times as well as China a year ago and First Class on redeye flights domestically (all for work). The more I have flown it, the less I use all of the perks. The access to the lounge is probably the best part due to eating before or on a layover is much better when not stuck on the plane. After the lounge, getting on the plane first (sometimes directly from the lounge which is awesome) and exiting the plane first is the best thing ever, followed by the extra space as a tall person. I will take the free cocktail at the start and some blankets and pillows. No need for more alcohol. If the meal will interrupt when I want to try and rest, I have no issue skipping it now versus when I wanted to get every perk coming my way when I first started flying up front. I don’t even bother opening the little toiletry bag or whatever else they give you, I feel like that is a big waste to open that case up just to use some floss or something similar and throw the rest out.
I’ve flown business infrequently (tho 3X this year, weirdly) enough that it still feels like I should take every perk but I’ve definitely noticed the same behavior among people who look like they travel a lot. It’s still an experience for me but it’s just another day to them.
After the comfort (as another tall person), agree that the lounges are the best part of it, followed by group 1 boarding. The attendants on board usually seem happier too.
Congratulations on both your October Anniversaries, Mercedes, and yes, a girl does deserve nice things once in a while.
You probably took loads of photos while you were in Europe, so I’m going to suggest two articles for you:
As I’ve gotten older and further in my career, I’ve gotten to experience more of the “finer things” in life, and there’s two things that have stuck out to me:
1. The purpose of all of these things is to reduce irritation. First class has better seats, better booze, faster lanes, better service. Combine it with Clear and Amex lounges, and you’re sipping a nice glass of wine while everyone else waits in the TSA line or tries to cram their bags into the one remaining overhead slot. Get a concierge doctor, and all the sudden you have appointments tomorrow, not in July, and someone’s actually following up. The finer hotel will take care of everything, including arranging cars to get you to and from. Spend enough money, and you get to just walk through life while everyone else waits in line.
2. Your senator lives this way. Your governor lives this way. The CEO of your health care provider lives this way. The CEO of Delta lives this way. The CEO of your company lives this way. If you want to know why nobody with any power seems to notice how annoying everything is for most people, it’s because it’s not annoying for them. The whole country has a priority lane, and they’re in it.
Having flown business class to four different continents, I can say I am glad I flew economy to the fifth continent first, because I don’t think I’ll be able to handle flying internationally in economy ever again.
With that said, not all business class is equal, as Mercedes noted. United Polaris is the best I’ve experienced, but Lufthansa wasn’t too bad either. Brussels Airways was in between United and Lufthansa – better food than both, but not as comfy of seats as United. The real good ones are Singapore Air and Emerates, but that is also when tickets start jumping up in price to twice what United Polaris costs. I recall flying Delta economy to Asia for $1300 a ticket. Economy Plus was $3500, and business class was $13,000. Then I checked Singapore Air and their business class was $27,000!
I cannot think of anyone more deserving, appreciative, and captivated by the international First Class experience as Mercedes!
As a frequent flier, I get bumped (upgraded) to first ~ 75% of the time due to status and the odd hours I travel, and while I always appreciate ‘the bump’ , it is fun to view the first time through someone else’s eyes!
I remember on my first, First Class flight they offered the pre flight cocktail and I thought they were just taking my order ahead of time for the in flight service; had to down a double Scotch before we took off! Slept well on that flight and learned my lesson.
I hope this is the first of many First Class travels for you, and you get to sample a variety of airframes! I may [or may not] have a safety card from each different aircraft I’ve been on; 55 and counting!
Like Mercedes, I’m terrible at sleeping on planes. I’ve flown Polaris once, to Paris and back, and it was fantastic. And I slept. A year ago I flew to Malawi through Addis and didn’t sleep a wink, remaining awake and somehow completely functional for 32+ hours before crashing. No idea how I managed that.
I’m not saying it affected Mercedes. But treating writers to these types of excesses have one motivation. And it is not for an honest review.
Funny enough, not long after we published the first article about this trip Audi sent out an email blast to everyone registered for the drive. The email contained — among other things — a reminder that the flights and such are not meant to influence your driving impressions.
That’s why we like to give you disclosures before any article involving a trip paid for by an automaker.
Audi is not alone in splurging on these trips. Remember the Toyota Tacoma reveal? Toyota had me in Hawai’i for an entire work week for a trip that could have been handled in a day. I remember a Toyota rep telling me they chartered two widebody cargo jets to haul in all of the Tacomas and Grand Highlanders at $15,000 per vehicle. The rooms in the resort were about $1,000 a night and there had to be something like 100 journalists in total for all of the waves. The money automakers spend on launch events just boggles my mind.
Amusingly, I feel as if I’ve accidentally given United Airlines a lot of good press recently. It’s not even intentional. As I’ve said before, I fly whichever airline is flying the coolest plane for my chosen trip, and I suppose I try to weed out the ones that have left me stranded somewhere. That means no more flying Frontier!
I didn’t mean to imply that you did not disclose anything. It’s been a thing in the auto press for decades. I could be wrong, but I think the old Auto Spies? web site that was first to disclose the level of “comfort” on these trips. Maybe it was the truth about cars? anyway, some have been ridiculous in the past in terms of excess. Glad you had a great trip.
On the flip side, having the press corps fly steerage and arrive tired, sore, hungry, and generally miserable could lead to an unfairly harsh perspective on your product.
Not that the journalist is “taking it out on” Audi, but if you are in a bad mood, you are in a bad mood. Human nature.
there is nothing in between? of course they are gonna make it at least pleasant. you example is ridiculous.
I’ve become convinced that very few people actually pay the published fares for First Class flights. These types of travelers have millions of frequent flyers, or the fares are paid (as in your case) by major multinational corporations who have “deals” with the airlines to pay reduced fares.
Too sly and they don’t know who tipped
I have a hard time justifying $20,000 in airfares and driving a new Audi just to get someplace nice. I would think they could choose a place that was better than nice maybe Luxembourgish? The flight back seems your RV curse caught up with you.
Aw, man: you went to the Mediterranean and didn’t even get to dip a toe in?
I hope jet-setting—and all the free booze— ameliorated that a bit
I think you flew the wrong airline. Of the domestics, I’ve had the best experience with Delta (last June being the exception). Food is typically a couple steps above microwave meal level.
$10,000 in each direction for overseas first class is absurd. I never spend more than $7,000 round trip, even when when my client foots the cost of travel. This is just a matter of principle on my part.
Earlier this year, I did a leisure trip to New Zealand at 54,000 SkyMiles/person. I was only able to use one upgrade certificate for the round trip, so I let my wife fly up front one way and I used the upgrade in the opposite direction. First class was definitely a nicer experience, but I can’t say that I was that much more rested or happier when we landed 13 hours later. Short story: Take it at a few thousand or if you have upgrades to spare. Otherwise, let those guys that fly overseas every other week have them.
I’m glad you got the experience though.
I think the issue regarding the $10k is in their (Mercedes and Torch iirc) looking at the cost of the flights as discrete one-way tickets (at least that’s the impression that I got from Mercedes’ initial post on the trip), which the airlines price at far more than 1/2 of the round trip, and often far more than the full cost of an actual round trip ticket. I’ve found that the case when trying to price cash flights back to the US when booking a one-way award to Europe in the past.
I would be surprised if the actual cost of the round-trip was much more than $5k, maybe $6k, particularly if VAG has some kind of contract with United and/or Star Alliance (via Lufthansa).
Whatever the cost (and if it’s on someone else’s dime, go crazy), it sounds like an awesome trip.
I always enjoy premium more when someone else is paying
You make a good point! I decided to take a second look directly through United’s site. Assuming you’re paying cash, this flight should have been $10,900 round-trip, before any fees and depending on booking date. I’m not sure where one of our editors got $10,000 each way.
It’s also true that VAG probably got these tickets at a discount. Either way, I have updated the prices to reflect my latest findings. Still, even $10k for a round trip is more than I’d pay!
Drunk at 6000 feet doesn’t allow a restful sleep.
Delta was not offered as an option for this trip. I had my choice of United, British Airways, and Lufthansa. The latter two had planes I’ve flown on before, but a flight on a 787 was just too alluring to pass up.
Honestly, I was hoping that one of the planes was going to be a 747, but of course, Lufthansa was flying a 777 on that particular route that day. 🙂
That hot towel is to get some the airplane funk off of you. A lot of people just wash their hands like you did, but I used it on my face, neck, hand and arms. There’s something about airplane air that makes my oily skin worse.
FWIW, I used to be in first class a lot due to flying weekly for work (no my employers didn’t pay for it, got top status pretty quickly with the amount I flew) and no one ever batted an eye. Those towels are the only thing that kept me feeling like I desperately needed a shower after every flight.
One fun jetlag experience is flying from Tokyo to Chicago. After a 13.5 hour flight, you arrive 2+ hours before you departed on the same day.
If you plan it right can you get the lottery numbers before they pull them?
I was once so desperately spoiled that it seems impossible. I used to almost commute between South Carolina and Northumberland, once twice in a week(top tip, do not do this). My scheduled flight from Atlanta to Gatwick was canceled and the airline (Delta) offered all the passengers hotel rooms and refunds and stuff. Or we could take the money and hang around Atlanta Airport and see if anything turned up.
Something did. After a ride to a bit of the place that did not do passengers, Me and two others were ushered onto a 747 that was due to enter service from Heathrow to somewhere very far eastern the next day. Yes A brand new, fully crewed and equipped 747-400. We got a tour of the airplane, took turns in the pilots seat and tested the different seats. I still exchange birthday and Christmas cards with my fellow passengers although this happened in 1989. A sort of reverse PTSD I suppose.
Yep, business/polaris is quite nice, the lay flat seats are the difference between landing feeling decent and half dead, although I’m too tall to fully stretch out. That said, I’m also not sure I would ever pay for them on my own without finding a really cheap deal, or playing games with upgrades.
One international work trip years ago, my friend cleared the upgrade to business, and I didn’t. He brought his fancy ice cream sundae back for me during the flight, and got way more attention from other passengers than he wanted- “hey, where did he get that? I want one” A couple guys looked about ready to throw a fit seeing that silly glass of ice cream.
From personal experience: do not ever get drunk on a flight. A little tipsy, maybe, but not all-out drunk. It sometimes pays big time to have your wits about you even part-time.
I don’t fly all that much these days (I try to avoid it if I can), but I have flown an awful lot in the past, shit happens that you would not expect, and if you are down at the time, that’s bad.
The heartbreaking part now will be returning to economy. Going from business class back to steerage causes the same emotional anguish as losing the love of your life and returning to a life of loneliness and eating over the sink.
You have tasted the fresh mountain air of Polaris, and returning to the stale fart behind the curtain will leave you with a sense of longing and loss.
Dear God, that is depressing! Also, very well-written and with than a mere whiff of someone who’s been there.
The hedonic treadmill is real!
That said, I’ve found Ativan to be a good cheap stand-in for first class – 6 hours of “don’t give a shit”, and the patent’s expired so it’s available as a generic.
Glad it was awesome.
For reference, this exists to tempt engineers to fly to places engineers don’t want to fly to for reasons that almost always benefit the company, not the engineer.
I, personally, won’t fly for work unless they booked this for me. It’s just not worth it.
For the executive, this exist so they can exit the plane ready to do business. Their time is worth the extra cost of these seats. You don’t want a tired, cranky executive making shitty deals because he “sat with the pleebs”.
I used to fly for business just because it was fun. But now it’s on equivalent to a train ride for cattle to the slaughter house.
“how far are you flying today?”
“all the way to the crash site!”
I could fly fairly regularly for work if I want to. Some people take advantage of it to pad their frequent flyer accounts for pleasure travel.
I just see any interaction with airlines (economy class) and airports to be an opportunity for misery when I could conduct business just fine from home.
So glad you had a good time, Mercedes. I occasionally spring for first class when it isn’t too much of a difference, but that’s another level altogether.
Also, now that you’re back in the USA, I can continue checking every Smart car to see if it’s you driving. I figure it’ll eventually happen.
Gotta admit that when I walked past one on the way to the train this morning, I wondered! 🙂
My wife and I flew to DC this weekend. She is a government employee and flies several times a year, so she has TSA Clear.
I rarely fly and went through regular security. Like a peasant.
Here in Tulsa, me clearing security took quite a bit longer than her, but on the return trip, it took us nearly the same amount of time to get through.
Given the proclivity of government employees, not your wife, to sell out it should take longer for our public servants.
I’m glad you had a good experience! I used to do long-haul business-class travel to Asia for work. It was a good adventure at the time but I’d rather not do it anymore. 🙂
I unfurl the towel and hold it on my face with both hands. It’s quite pleasant and invigorating, esp when one feels a bit grungy after being sealed in a tube for 10+ hours.
On one occasion I was fortunate enough to have a seat on the second floor of (IIRC) a 747-400. I got to go up a staircase to a very quiet section where we had our own attendants covering about sixteen seats. It was quite posh in my eyes, though the next section up was Super Ultra Posh, and presumably the one ahead of that was Ultimate Mega Posh.
On the food front: the Asian airlines I used offered local menus and western menus. One of the tastiest Korean meals I’ve ever had was on a KAL flight, and that occasion sparked my ongoing enthusiasm for gochujang. I had actually fallen asleep before dinner was served, and when I woke up I was presented with the meal I had requested. Little things like that go a very long way toward improving the experience.
I remember when this was standard for the whole cabin on long haul flights. Us plebs in the back like feeling refreshed too!
Don’t get me started with the lack of playing cards, candies… ugghh service sucks (relatively) these days.
When my partner and I flew Ethipoian to Lilongwe a year ago, we were both surprised and deeply disappointed to get generic airline food rather than Ethiopian food!
Boy if I had paid 10k for a flight and experienced the broken crap you did on your flight back I think I’d be more than a little peeved. But, like you, I’m far too cheap to ever entertain paying anywhere close to that.
Right? With my luck, the day I splurge for tickets like this for a vacation, I’ll find my pod with a broken seat or something.
My last job sent me to Brazil a couple of times and on one of the return flights the plane was half empty and I had an entire row of 3 seats all to myself and I felt like a KING! I couldn’t imagine anything as nice as this first class treatment, I assumed that was only in movies.
My job has sent me internationally before as well and on one leg I also had the whole row to myself, it was glorious.