Sydney – planning, costs, flights
Those who are in the miles/points game, probably know that finding an award ticket to Australia from the USA (and vise versa) in business or first class (especially first) is near to impossible – currently there are only a few airlines with non-stop flights between both continents and they tend to release only a few premium cabin seats that are bookable with miles. And those who are comfortable spending nearly 20 hours in economy seats (or don’t mind spending $18,000+ for first class flights) probably don’t care about this #firstworld problem. Anyways, there was a few hour window last October when Santa Claus was in a cheerful mood (or very hungover) and Christmas came a couple months early – Qantas first class awards were widely open from the US to Australia and vice versa. I couldn’t resist and jumped on it; later on I had to make a couple changes and replace the outbound flight with American Airlines instead of Qantas, but the final result was a 4 day getaway to Sydney in September of 2016 for a total cost of 145,000 American miles + $111.40. Hyvää Joulua – as they say in Santa’s village in Lapland.
Since I had visited Sydney back in 2008 and done most of the touristy stuff, the main reasons for this short trip were visiting friends, trying a real flat white, taking a selfie with a kangaroo, and sampling Qantas & American first class seats.
Not sure if this is the normal procedure, but a couple of days before my departure flight a representative from LAX Premium Customer Services emailed me confirming my outbound flight info, seat assignment, lounge info, list of meal options for the flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, and also inquired if I had any other requests. I responded with my preferred meal selection and asked for someone to meet me upon arrival to Los Angeles and escort me to the lounge (time permitting). I only had a two hour connection in LAX and was a bit concerned if that would be enough – especially after checking American’s on time departure for that particular flight – only 2 flights out of 14 had left on time within the past two weeks.
Chicago – Los Angeles
Well, on the day of departure I found out that delayed flights are pretty common for American Airlines – my outbound flight from O’Hare was delayed by a total of two hours with a “new departure time” updated every 15-20 minutes. Hmmm, at least I had a pretty empty “waiting/beer sipping area” in the Flagship Lounge.
As it turns out, one of the jump seats was broken and it needed to be fixed before the take off. I was a bit puzzled by that – the plane had been sitting on the ground since 3 pm, so they had over 5 hours to fix that issue. Should be enough time to build a custom made throne for Cersei…..but what do I know about fixing jump seats. The good news – the plane with the broken (and finally fixed) seat was a Boeing 787 that previously flew in from Tokyo. In simple English – fully flat seats in business class. I’d say it was worth the wait – a much, much, much nicer way to fly locally in the States. Cheers to 787!
I suspect the captain was a big fan of Superman and had a solid number of speeding tickets – even though the flight departed two hours late (which in theory meant I was going to miss my flight to Sydney), somehow we made it up in the air and I had around 50 minutes for my connection – more than enough time since my departure gate was literally next to my arrival gate.
I figured there wasn’t enough time to visit the lounge (as I originally planned), so I decided to board my flight to Sydney right away. Just as I got to my seat I received a phone call – a lady introduced herself, confirmed my name and said she was waiting for me at the gate to escort me to my departure flight. Ooops, I completely forgot about that! I told her I already boarded and everything was fine but she insisted stopping by to say hello – she literally came on board, walked to my seat, introduced herself again, apologized for somehow missing me and wished me a good flight. Wow! I did not expect that from American Airlines. I wish I could keep that “VIP” t-shirt forever…
Los Angeles – Sydney
Well, since I was flying first class, at least I could “wear” the t-shirt for another 15 hours – how about a glass of champagne with some salted nuts before departure? Sure, why not! Make it two, please! All the usual goodies (headphones, pillow, blanket, pajamas, amenity kit etc.) were already at my seat (which I found a bit weird, since most airlines distribute them later), so I went to change into pajamas.
The first class seat on American doesn’t have any privacy but is quite spacious; one cool feature that I liked – you can swivel your seat 90 degrees, expand the side table and turn it into a mini office. Since American offers WiFi (around $20 for the duration of the flight), you can have your “office” up in the air and work on your laptop.
Unlike my previous flight from Chicago, this time we left on time and about 20 minutes after takeoff one of the flight attendants came by to take my drink order, confirm my meal choice and asked if I wanted to be woken up for breakfast. I went with a glass of Chardonnay and decided to have just olives, canapes, soup and pork belly for the main meal.
Food service was done in about an hour; the food was surprisingly good – I honestly did not expect that from American Airlines. Overall the soup was probably my favorite dish – simply delicious! The most shocking part – caviar. Well, to be fair there was a very tiny amount of caviar, but still – American was serving caviar. Wow! That’s a huge step forward! Another glass of wine to celebrate that! Sheldon & CO kept me a company for another hour or so, but I finally started getting sleepy – nap time.
The bed was pretty comfy – good five hours of nap time, few more episodes of Sheldon and it was time for breakfast before landing.
There was another pleasant surprise once we landed in Sydney – an airport (or an airline?) employee was waiting by the gate with a list of names (first class passengers I assume) to help/escort them through immigration. Or in other words to help you skip the lines. I guess most of the people were in a hurry to get their morning coffee and missed the person with the sign – only me and another lady noticed him. Since I only had a backpack with me and did not have any checked luggage, I was escorted to the front of the line of people waiting to clear immigration – I was done within 12 minutes of landing. Wow! Welcome to Australia!
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