What Is OpenSkies Premium Economy (Prem Plus) Like?

I flew on Open Skies earlier this year and enjoyed it.
Orly Airport is a bit better than Roissy CDG in my opinion, which doesn't mean much.
Also it is closer to the center of Paris than CDG.

wow! that's a really high valuation of avios! like really ridiculous... about double of what i value them!

Great post. Any tips for getting Prem Plus for that price?

@Lantean Most BA short haul redemption in Western Europe are 4500 one way. That makes for $112.50 one way ticket (excluding taxes) as a break-even price. Picking some random flights to Zurich for a couple of days next next week, with avios availability, the fare, excluding tax and fuel surcharges is $114.15. So if that is how you use abios, for relatively short notice european short haul that valuation would make sense. YMMV

Thanks for the review, John. I've not flown Openskies since they reinstalled economy seats a few years ago. Is that third-from-last photo a picture of the seat at full recline? That's quite a significant difference if so.

Seems like the food went down several notches from when I flew, and losing access to the Diplomat lane at Orly is just painful...

I don't recall the last time someone said the 767-200 J seats on the old AA transcons were nice. Notable.

@Lantean — what Ed said. I basically use Avios for stupidly expensive shorthaul European and Asia flights, so they save me a bucket.

@Mike — to get OpenSkies to price in Euros, you need to start in Paris. When I was based in the US, I flew to Europe frequently enough to always know when my next trip was, which helped. The US pricing is about $50-100 more expensive (oh, you guys, with your economic recovery and all that...).

@brianna — nope, that's not full recline. Alas, I don't have a pic of the full recline! However, there's one here, and a quick Google Image search shows that there are a few more around. I share your dismay at both the food decline and the lack of Orly fast-track escort. The "no-one" (or "No 1" as the Parisians call it) line isn't as good.

@Billy — heh, it all depends on what you're comparing them to, doesn't it?

Shout-out to John Walton! Miss reading your reviews on AusBT so this post is a real treat!

Loved this -- especially the Downton theme (my favorite is "What is Economy?"). I'm flying OpenSkies Prem Plus in November for the first time, and glad to get this perspective! For a while I was regretting booking OpenSkies when La Compagnie was offering such competitive pricing, but I'm not sure if I'd book them so far in advance anyway given that it's a startup with a questionable business model.

So... where are these $1300 round trip Prem Plus trips? I'm looking on ba.com (since openskies.com redirects you there) and seeing them for $2K each way from JFK or EWR to ORY, for random dates in September, November and December.

$4k for premium economy? kthxno.

Ah, OK, now I've found some.

In January.

So, 4+ month advance purchase? This is sort of an important detail. 😉

@Al — Cheers! Good to see you too 🙂

@eponymous coward — Are you searching from PAR to NYC or NYC to PAR? I'm seeing a whole bunch of fares at €502 one way from the middle of September, and €562 until then. Even originating in NYC, I'm seeing a bunch of fares at $561-666 (the FARE OF SATAN OMG) between now and mid Sep.

"I’m seeing a whole bunch of fares at €502 one way from the middle of September, and €562 until then. Even originating in NYC, I’m seeing a bunch of fares at $561-666 (the FARE OF SATAN OMG) between now and mid Sep."

@Yes, that John, care to share where you're finding these fares?

@flyinghome — BA.com. €562 the whole week outbound starting 9 Sep, and returning the week of 16 Sep. (I don't *think* BA geolocates pricing like Air NZ does, but if they do... I'm currently in the UK, so if you're not, then YMMV.)

@Yes, that John - thanks. Ba.com isn't geotargeting. I had misread your earlier comment and assumed that a one-way fare could be had for 502 euros. It's 502 euros each way only if a R/T is booked, otherwise the one-way fare is 1700 euros. Thanks again for the review!

Hmm, I see fares at $851 outbound, $928 inbound, NYC-ORY, mid-September.

Very interesting... O_o

If you get PE on a regular BA flight for that price, its only 10K avios each way to upgrade.

The author is comparing one product against another one that he has never tried how is that for a pertinent review!? I have flown on both companies and there is just no comparison how much better La Compagnie is vs. Prem Plus Openskies: lounge access and especially the seat that is 10 times better. I actually have lounge access on BA since I'm a silver member and yes their lounges are much better but the La Compagnie seat just wins it all and by a wide margin! I invite the author to try La Compagnie and he will be able to see it for himself and do edits to this review.

@ Max -- While I didn't write this post, I have flown both products and don't think the La Compagnie seat is 10x better.

I've flown Open Skies twice in the past two years. One trip was Biz Class and this year was Premium Economy. I have a love/hate relationship with this airline. On the ground, they're pretty terrible, and getting phone or online support pre-flight is dismal. Once on board, I like the Premium Economy product, which is a comfortable seat - although the food is Premium Economy was so-so and the breakfast dreadful. And only having two lavs for Prem Eco and Econ to share is awful. During my flight last week, one of the lav's broke so there was only one, and the Economy FA sent a few people to the First Class Lav. The First class FA yelled at them and sent them back despite their protests of a broken lav and that the other FA sent them there. Harsh words between three FA's from the front to the back of the plane and the lowly Econ pax were deemed good enough to use the First Class Lav.

BTW, my experience with their First Class was better - better food, cold champagne. However, I don't like the seats - the "toad stool" flat beds, and no place to store my "stuff". Better for sleeping, but not so comfy for sitting for a nine hour flight.

Orly is a horrible airport and the gate is a tiny area. After initial check-in, I was able to go to the No.1 lane because of my BA status. So two people look at my boarding pass and wave me to that line. Once I get there, I'm practically yelled at by the line attendants because they were only letting in people on the Haiti flight. So I was told to wait on the side. In the meantime, others flying to NY were let through. Go figger! When the flight was called, they were absolutely meticulous in only allowing people in their class or row to go through. However, once we walked through and walked down the hallway, we were now in another "lounge" to wait. So, all in all, it didn't make a bit of difference when you got there as it was a standing room only "lounge" with locked doors as we waited for the jet way door to open. Once it did, it made no difference whether you were in First Class or the back row - they weren't checking tickets as that was just done. So what was the point? I have no clue.

Other the broken lav, the almost warm champagne, and mediocre dinner and the awful breakfast, the flight was fine as I had a comfortable seat and some good movies to watch.

This was all very helpful in understanding what my upcoming trip might be like. The lounges and loading sound like lots of fun! Glad I've got my seats already!

A question- what is meant by "universal power"? US standard? French standard? or both? I'm bringing my laptop and would like to know which power cord will work.

Thanks for all the help!