Over the weekend I asked y’all whether you’d like to read a British Airways A380 first class trip report. A while back I had locked in a British Airways A380 first class award seat, which I hadn’t fully decided whether to actually fly or not. British Airways A380 first class award seats can be tough to come by, so when I saw the space I figured I might as well lock it in using British Airways Avios, since I can always cancel it for free (I’m a BA Gold).
A vast majority of you told me to take the trip, stopping in Germany for a couple of nights for the Christmas Markets. I can’t not listen to you guys, so now I’m just trying to decide how to get to Germany.
My friend sjs commented the following on the post:
Why not? And do AF F on the way back. Did it for 125k points last week…a rip, but nothing else was available. Was pleasantly surprised – I liked it more than I like Lufthansa. That doesn’t say a whole lot, since I really dislike Lufthansa, but it was a surprisingly pleasant experience compared to what I remembered (obviously doesn’t compare to CX/SQ).
Is it a crazy idea? You guys tell me.
I am trying to knock out every airline’s A380 first class product, and with travel I have booked, Air France is the only one I’m scheduled not to fly. Air France does have a pretty nice looking first class lounge in Paris with spa treatments and a restaurant serving multiple course meals, and they even drive you to your connecting flight, much like Lufthansa. While their first class hard product on the A380 is probably the most underwhelming of any airline, it would certainly be interesting to try it, if nothing else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3PXet9JIjY
But the thing is that Air France is one of the most extreme airlines when it comes to releasing first class award space, as they only release it at the standard level. So a one-way award between the US and Europe costs 125,000 FlyingBlue miles plus fuel surcharges, which is kind of ridiculous.
That being said, the good thing about them only having standard awards is that you have near last seat availability on flights. As long as there’s “F” space available you can redeem your FlyingBlue miles for it.
While it sounds is expensive, under United’s new devalued award chart they’re charging 110,00 miles for one-way first class between the US and Europe on partner airlines, and that’s for saver award space. And the only partner airline they have which releases first class award space is Lufthansa, and that’s at most 15 days out.
So, do I “take one for the team” and check out Air France’s A380 first class and Paris lounge, or do I take one of the (much) more economical options for getting to Europe on miles? What would you do, wise friends?
Air France A380 first class
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