Weekend Blitz

Delta launched service on their new A350s back in Q4 of 2017 and with it came their new “Flagship” cabins: the “Delta One suite” and “Premium Select”. The new cabin is a proper premium economy cabin, similar to what the European or Asian carriers have been offering for years. According to Delta, the seats feature 75% more recline and 8″ more legroom than traditional economy.

Here are a few shots of the Premium Select cabin:

Currently, Delta is operating their 11 A350s on the following routes:

This post is continued from Etihad A380 First Apartment – Flight EY 460 Abu Dhabi-AUH to Melbourne-MEL – Part 1. Check it out to see the first half of the review.

Proving size was really the theme of the experience, even the bathroom was huge:

I took a quick glimpse of the stairs, just to confirm that we were, in fact, on the 2nd floor:

Before turning in for the night, we walked around the cabin to explore the on-board bar.

The bar is situated on the top deck of the A380 aircraft, in-between First and Business class:

It was completely empty when we made our way [...]

This fare first popped up about 2 weeks ago, but it’s still alive so I thought others might find it useful!

After spending a very enjoyable and luxurious 3+ hours in the Etihad Airways Flagship First Class Lounge – Abu Dhabi-AUH, it was time for the main event: The Etihad First Apartment!

We booked this bucket list flight using American Airlines AAdvantage miles for a total of 60,000 miles; this was before a major AAdvantage devaluation and now the flight would cost you 100,000 miles for the one-way route from the “Middle East” region to the “South Pacific” region. Furthermore, since we both have the Barclay AA credit card, we got a 10% rebate, driving the total price down to 54,000 miles + ~$79 in taxes each for the ~$6,300+ flight. We got even more [...]

Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight # AR 1413 Mendoza-MDZ to Buenos Aires-AEP Dept 11:25 am Arrv 1:01 pm

Mendoza is quite a small, mostly domestic, airport. They have a few international flights, but mainly just to Santiago, Chile-SCL, just on the other side of the mountains. Our hotel advised us that arriving appx 1 hour before departure is more than enough time to check-in with bags when traveling to Buenos Aires.

We booked this segment as part of a larger Delta SkyMiles award ticket. Finding and adding Aerolíneas Argentinas award space to a Delta award reservation can be a bit tricky, so check out our guides here: Booking an Awesome Argentina Itinerary with [...]

After touching down a bit late from our inbound flight from Charlotte, we scurried from Terminal H to L by taking a short train. We were assigned gate L13 and, fortunately, the Lufthansa Lounge was directly across the hall. This allowed us about 45 mins to get showers and freshen up for the next 7-8 hour flight.

We booked this flight using United MileagePlus Miles. We spent a total of 90,000 miles each for the Business Class award, including:

We [...]

Note: Booking began on Saturday, April 1, 2017.

Don’t miss out on Flying Blue’s spring promo, which allows you to book Air France/KLM awards for 20-25% less than normal in June and July 2017:

Award bookings on Air France/KLM routes have been reduced by 20-25% for travel between June 1, 2017 – July 31, 2017.

For those of us sitting in ‘Merica, we’ll be most interested in:

A trip to the Etihad Airways First Class Lounge in Abu Dhabi was the warm-up to the main event: flying the Etihad First Apartment from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne. It was essentially the only reason we had chosen to route from the US to Australia via the Middle East. And a visit to the brand new lounge was nearly as exciting as flying the A380 since our trip was just about 3 weeks after the May 30th grand opening–talk about timing!

As a result, we were purposely very, VERY early arriving at the airport for as much lounge-time as possible before heading to our gate. We checked in quickly and were welcomed into the lounge which is located immediately after going through [...]