One of the major challenges of redeeming oneworld miles for transatlantic award travel is that there are massive fuel surcharges for award tickets on British Airways. Unfortunately British Airways also releases by far the most transatlantic award space of the oneworld carriers, so that’s kind of frustrating.
Airberlin is another great options for transatlantic business class award tickets, not just because they release a good amount of award space, but also because there are no fuel surcharges for award redemptions on airberlin, regardless of whether you’re booking through American AAdvantage or British Airways Executive Club.
Business class award cost between New York and Berlin using BA Avios
A couple of years ago airberlin began installing their new fully flat business class product, and it’s worth noting that the installation of this is now complete across their entire Airbus A330 longhaul fleet. So there’s no longer any guessing as to whether your airberlin flight will have the new business class or not.
Here’s a video of airberlin’s new product:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtrQZEanXYY
And a picture of the new airberlin business class:
Ironically, even though airberlin is technically a low cost carrier, airberlin is now the first German airline to have fully flat business class across their entire longhaul fleet — that’s gotta suck for Lufthansa!
The airberlin business class hard product is almost identical to the one offered by Alitalia in their Magnifica (business) class.
As far as business class hard products go, I’d say it’s one of the best out there.
Alitalia business class cabin
As a reminder, airberlin’s US destinations are as follows:
- Chicago
- Fort Myers
- Los Angeles (seasonally)
- Miami
- New York
American charges 50,000 AAdvantage miles for one-way business class between the US and Europe, while British Airways charges 40,000-50,000 Avios for a transatlantic segment in business class on airberlin. As I said above, neither levy fuel surcharges on airberlin flights.
At the end of the day business class — and in particular transatlantic business class — is all about the hard product, and that’s one area where airberlin is a huge winner.
Even when all of Lufthansa’s longhaul aircraft have the new business class, the hard product still won’t be as good as what airberlin now offers.
Lufthansa’s new business class
Have you flown airberlin’s new business class product? If so, what did you think?
I’ll be flying airberlin for the first time shortly, and will be sure to report back!
(Tip of the hat to Head for Points)
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