Welcome to my next trip report series, covering a recent trip I took to Paris for one night. This will be one of my shorter trip reports, since it was just a three day trip.
Continue reading: Introduction: Le Premier In The New La Premiere
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
@ Lukas -- Whoops, good catch! That should've read "minutes." Just kidding... years.
I only intend on flying Global from now on, so La Premiere seems a bit dated to me
Admittedly it's been a couple of decades since my high school French, but I believe (unless you're revealing something about your gender identity... 😉 ) it should be "Le Premier in La Première", since La Première is the feminine form (La Classe Première).
@Ben, do you ever get weird looks or responses from airport or airline people when they see you on some apparently random routing? I can't imagine that Avianca gets many people flying from Miami to Bogotá just to connect to Paris on the same day.
@ Levi @ hbilbao -- Hah, wait, I'm embarrassed to get this wrong. So if I'm trying to say "the first in the new first," or something along those lines, am I right, or no? If I'm wrong, I'd rather correct it now rather than later.
@ jallan -- It's surprisingly rare for anyone to comment on it. I think Avianca actually has a not-insignificant amount of US to Europe via Bogota traffic, as the airline often has the lowest fares in cash.
Lol, I thought your title was, literally, "the first (time) in the new la première." I'll defer this to a native French speaker.
I think I would have respected your new LP review more if it was self-funded or even crowdfunded.
This site was one of the last bastions of not kowtowing to corporate interests.
@Ben - That is extremely surprising to me, and the question that @jallan asked is something I've wondered about your experience as well.
In my experience, everytime I take even a slightly indirect or unusual routing, I always get scrutinized for it. I just flew to Paris by flying Norse and then Air France through London. I am eligible for the e-gates, but I was directed to see an officer because there was an issue with scanning my passport. The immigration officer became suspicious of my routing. He then scrutinized every page of my passport.
I flew to Montreal for a day last October as a US Citizen. I almost got deported on entry because of how small my stay was. Ultimately I had to sit down with an immigration officer in a private room before they let me in. And these are just some of my stories...
It should be Le premier indeed since you are a man, so it's Le premier dans la première
@Ben - as a French I'd then suggest "Première fois avec La Première" (first time with La Première). And please don't forget the accent 🙂
Or, closer to what you came up with: "La Première fois in the New La Première"
I am sure this is a wonderful product, but visually, I think the older product looks more elegant. This version seems to be cramming a lot into one space. That said, I would love to try it 🙂
I think I said this on your live blog post, but I do appreciate you accepting the media flight for this one.
We'll see how this compares to SFO777's reporting. He seems to be a bit more of a wine and spirits expert than you (opinion based on many of your excellent reports).
Thanks Ben for this. Would you know if the new La Premiere is now on the Singapore route?
AF FC LP has always been an extra-special delight.
Fully understand the need to accept a corporate invite in order to share a review. Thank you. LP is v expensive and almost impossible with points.
I often fly LH or LX FC. Neither compare favourably to AF LP but they're half the price!!
Unfortunately, LH management is simply put: incompetent. Replacing their old-dated C and FC class with a disaster called Allegris. It is the death of the LHG FC. LH are trying to market themselves in the same price league as AF. Never in a thousand years will it work.
It's funny how Air France considers and prices La Première as the utmost in terms of airline luxury while it is outranked by so many others including Emirates, Qatar Airways...
I'm so glad I was able to check LP from my list a year ago. I flew CDG - IAD and it cost me around 160k miles. Since then, and in under 11 months, they have devalued 3 TIMES. It first went to ~220k, then ~240k, and last time i checked it was around 285k. This was one of the cheapest routings btw, I know pairs like CDG-JFK clock at around 330k or so now.
They are trying to price people out of using points for these bookings.