KLM 747 Business Class Amsterdam To Chicago

Question:
Isn't the salad bowl a plastic one? I look like it.

Oh man I love those uniforms. There's no accounting for taste I suppose 😉

Lucky keep the trip reports coming. We all need to escape sometimes in light of what's happened.

Lucky,

Flown them several times. How was the dinner service regarding time for you? I have found it to be painfully slow in the past. Literally 2+ hours which is not a big deal on the way back but is awful when you are on the red eye from west to east.

Toilets?

How to check if a KLM flight has new or old business class?

@M

All B747's have the full flat bed. They will shortly start with the B777, A330 thereafter.

Hi Ben,

Greetings from Chicago also!! I love KLM and everything about them. They know how to nail everything perfectly! Glad to see that you had an awesome flight. Hopefully you will fly them again soon!

Leo/ORD

Which tool should I use to search for KLM award flight availability? Expertflyer shows the following classes but it's not clear how many miles required for each class.

Business - Flex Award for Elites C 9
Economy - Classic Europe Award T 9
Economy - Flex Award B 9

Lucky, did you notice that the cutlery is the same as at the Andaz AMS as both cutlery and flatware are designed by Marcel Wanders 😉

I recently flew IAH to AMS and found the seats a bit too narrow, though not quite as bad as the cramped 2-4-2 configuration on United.

> How to check if a KLM flight has new or old business class?

All B747's have been converted to the new business class. The 777's are up next but will only start in september. For updates check flyertalk: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-flying-dutchman/1595155-b772-refit-new-wbc.html

> Which tool should I use to search for KLM award flight availability?
It depends which miles youre planning to use. Anything other than flying blue members will not be able to use any of the "elite" or flex space, so youre stuck to classic and perhaps promo. There should be a classic for each type: Classic Europe Y, C, and long-haul Y, C.

@ Jamie -- I would just use the FlyingBlue or Alaska websites in this case.

Hello Ben,
Can you help me with one info..
I will fly in First Class with Qatar Airways Paris-Doha.
I observed in Flightradar24 that on some days the Airbus A346 was replaced by B777 or A330 where only have Business Class available. In this case, if it occurs to me, what do I do? I redeemed miles through Qatar partner.
Have something similar happened to you? A cabin downgrade?
Tks man!
Fly safe!

Nice house. Sure beats many biz class Asian airlines I've been on. And I'm sure glad that cheap, stingy, lying* Singapore Air fell to 3rd place in the latest survey.

* http://therealsingapore.com/content/singapore-airlines-caught-lying-facebook-about-not-using-ukraine-airspace

To get two award seats from LHR to ATL in February we went LHR-AMS-ATL. The long leg was the ubiquitous B777 with the old business seating but even with the late afternoon departure I wasn't going to sleep so the seats were fine, two window/aisle seats, not the dreaded three across in the center.

The food was better than any transatlantic meal I can recall, the booze include Highland Park Scotch (terrific), the little ceramic houses were neat. But, the cabin temp was WAY too hot. The guy in front of me took off his flannel shirt and spent the trip in his t-shirt.

Lucky, you might want to rethink your preference for the upper deck on KLM's 747 fleet. There are two solo seats in the nose (1A and 4A) that offer travelers a 0% chance of having a seat mate and, in effect, offering nearly the same level of privacy and aisle access that you get on the reverse herringbone style J class seat. I sat in 4A on a recent AMS-JFK flight and it was a great seat.

@ Ryan -- Those seats were unfortunately both occupied when I booked.

62,5000?

@ Ben -- Yes.

When are you going to post a link to the Flying Blue credit card offer? 50k? 100k?

@ JustSaying -- Not something I've heard of - do you have a link?

I figured if you called they would set one up after you throw BA's stats around......the only ones I have seen are for either EU or Canadian citizens.........

Lucky, did you already notice that FB-miles can now be used on both Transavia.com France & Netherlands? I saw prices of up to 6250 miles one way, starting at 5000 one way. Seems interesting!

Lucky, can you comment on the retractable armrests. I believe they drop down into the seat, right? It seems on the aisle seat that wouldn't be very useful as you might kinda flop off the seat. But for the window seat, does it actually result in more usable sleep surface? I'm flying this seat on CA in December.

@ turgutbey -- Yep, in theory it does. So I do generally prefer the window seats on the upper deck, I think.

I flew this last week from JFK to AMS and it was amazing. I was in seat 4h, which was an isolated seat in the middle with aisles on both sides - almost like being in F. I snagged this seat with a paid ticket plus 20k delta miles. We were boarding at JFK when someone came on saying, "we have one business class seat left if someone wants to upgrade with miles." I have been trying to dump my delta miles, so for 20k and $0, I thought it was a great deal. Do you guys agree it was a good deal? Is this common?

Lucky when are you posting the trip report on this flight? It has been a long time since you uploaded this post saying you would upload a trip report soon...
Thank you

Lucky, I think you put too many zeros at the top. Did you mean 62,500 instead of 62,5000?

Also, could you please follow my aviation account on Instagram, @theaviationguru? Thanks!!

@ Lincoln -- Fixed, thanks!