Intro To The Next Series- 5 Nights On A Plane

Intro

Well, now that I have finished up with Africa, I wanted to introduce the next trip report series I’ll be covering. Back in August, I had the opportunity to fly around the world on some of the top airlines in the world in Business Class. With an amazing award redemption opportunity on Aeroplan, some useless Delta SkyPesos, an expiring Alaska credit, and a fantastic return fare, I pieced together an epic itinerary. 

Unlike most of my previous trip series, this one is primarily on plane reviews, lounge reviews, and the occasional hotel review. 

it’s actually a little sad to be done with Africa; that trip changed my life 🥺. I truly hope you enjoyed that series as much as I did and that it helped perhaps plan a trip 🙂.

Getting To Asia 

I recently got an Amex Gold Card, which happened to feature a 100,000-mile bonus after spending a certain amount of funds within a certain period of time. With points racked up, I knew I wanted to maximize them. 

Aeroplan has a fantastic sweet spot where you can fly from the US to Asia for 87,500 miles if it is under 11,000 nautical miles. So, it got me thinking: let’s see how I can milk this to the best of my ability in business class while visiting a couple of new countries along the way. 

I ended up finding a fare from: 

New York- Warsaw on Lot Polish Airlines in Business Class (787-9)

Warsaw- Istanbul on LOT Polish Airlines in Business Class (E190) 

Istanbul- Dhaka on Turkish Airlines in Business Class (A330-300) 

Dhaka- Bangkok on Thai Airways in Business Class (777-200ER) 

I got the chance to try out Turkish Airlines

Considering this whole ticket came out to 87,500 Aeroplan Miles+ 90$ in fees, it's not bad at all! 

However, there still remained another issue: I had to get from Los Angeles to New York. With an expiring credit on Alaska Airlines, I managed to snatch up a fare from San Diego over to New York for 564$ (paying an additional 52$ after the credit). Spoiler alert: Alaska impressed me! 

Around Asia

Once that had been booked, the next hurdle entailed trying to figure out what I was going to do in Asia. I hadn’t flown Eva Air for a while (and haven’t even posted a review on here), so I figured I would take the redeye from Bangkok to Taipei and then head up to Seoul later that day to see a friend. With a decent cash fare in Business, this ended up helping me qualify for 1K. 

Now came the next hurdle; I wanted to head home for a bit to Bali, but Korean Airlines is notoriously stingy about releasing award space to partners. When I found Garuda Indonesia in Business Class for 40K Miles from Seoul down to Denpasar on their A330-300, I thought I was in heaven. Even more so when, the day before departure, the aircraft got swapped out to an A330-900neo! WOW!

As well as the A330-900neo in Business!

The Way Back 

As I wrote about in a previous post, my latest strategy is to book roundtrip fares out of Asia/Europe to the US for return at a later date. Coming across a sweet fare on Flyertalk, I was able to book the following flights for 2414$: 

KUL-NRT Malaysian Airlines A350-900 Business Class 

NRT-SFO United Airlines 777-300ER Polaris 

SFO-LAX United Airlines 737 Max 8 Domestic First 

LAX-HKG United Airlines 787-9 Polaris (December return)

HKG-KUL Cathay Pacific A330-300 Business Class (December return)

On the way back, I got some great rest onboard Polaris

if that isn’t a good deal, I’m not sure what would qualify! 

That just left one flight: Denpasar to Kuala Lumpur. While I have touched on Batik Air in the past, I thought it would be time to give them a proper in-depth review on an international flight. For 263$, I found a fare on their 737 Max 8, which isn’t horrible. 

Final Thoughts 

This trip was purely based on a review trip. This is the trip where I began to deeply review airlines, making sure to snap pictures of empty cabins and truly bring these reviews to light. No excuses, just deep, in-depth reviews. I cannot wait to share this series, and I hope you enjoy it! 

For calculations: 

This trip consisted of well over 25,000 miles in Business Class, and I thought I would break down the total cost: 

Miles used= 

87,500+40,000= 127,500 Miles 

Money used= 

52$ (AS)+ 640$ (EVA Air)+ 263$ (BATIK)+ 1200$ (one-way Polaris)= 2155$ 

Considering I ended up taking 11 flights in Business Class (5 being long-haul), 127,500 miles+2155$ isn’t horrific. 

Let’s get into it, starting tomorrow (hopefully) with Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 Domestic First. This flight put Alaska on the map for me, combined with fantastic service and being addressed by last name throughout the flight. Talk about great service in Domestic First...