My opinion about flying in business class from the east coast across the Atlantic Ocean has changed over the years. On our first trips, we flew in economy class which, at the time, I’m pretty sure, was still called Coach. What did we care about as we were young and were happy to be able to visit London and Paris?
Eventually, I learned about points and miles, and we flew to Japan in Business Class with a lie-flat seat. We’ve experienced flying to Australia and Japan in those seats, but we are unsure if it is worth the cost when traveling to Europe. On one occasion, we flew for a few extra hours to get a lie-flat seat from Paris, with a connection in Houston. We are uncertain if it would have been better to arrive home a few hours earlier by taking a flight to Florida.
Recently, we’ve flown to London in premium economy and to Iceland in economy on Icelandair, and for the length of the flights, we didn’t mind not having a flat seat for a few hours of sleep.
So now that we need flights to Spain for our Virgin Voyages trip, I’m having to decide if I want to splurge for business class fares or if economy seats will be sufficient.
My dilemma is that I transferred points from Bilt to Flying Blue/Air France with the recent promotion and now have a stockpile of miles. While business-class flights to Europe are expensive, economy flights are really cheap. In fact, flights from JFK to Paris in economy only would cost 20,000 miles each way per person. I could pay for our entire trip with the points I have from transferring points from Bilt with a 75% bonus.
It’s a 7+ hour red-eye flight from JFK to CDG, but I already know that neither Sharon nor I sleep well on a plane, even if it’s a lie-flat seat. The only flight we’ve slept for several hours on was on Singapore Airlines from SIN-SFO, and there’s nothing else to do on a 16+ hour flight.
So, should I book us an economy ticket for 20,000 miles or hold out hoping to find a business class ticket for more points and probably a worse routing? I already know the answer, but I’m hoping at least one other person out there who collects points and miles will agree with me that paying extra for a business-class seat to Europe isn’t worth it.
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