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Which leg of flight should we travel in business class for honeymoon to Europe?


FSU Girl
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I'm looking at flights for my British Isles cruise and since it's a honeymoon we thought we'd splurge on one leg of the trip and fly business class. None of the flights we were looking at had a first class so I'm guessing that's what it's called now? I've only flown coach so not really familiar with the perks and such.

 

They are pretty pricey though so we'd only do it either flying to London or flying home from London. I'm not sure which one we should splurge on. Anyone who has traveled that way have a recommendation? Flying to London would be an overnight flight, I have trouble sleeping on planes, but it might be easier with the lying flat down bed type seat. Or should we do it on the return trip where we will be awake the whole flight during the day so might get more out of the luxury?

 

Also if I look to book my airfare through Princess can I still choose flying one way in economy and the other in business? I've never book through a cruise for the air, but my parents recommended doing it that it would be cheaper.

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To me, it's not worth the extra. I think of all the ways I could spend the money on the cruise--specialty dining, expensive excursions, etc.

 

Airfare for us to Europe was a lot less through Princess. This year we were able to take a daytime flight that left Newark at 8:30 a.m. and arrived in London at 8:40 p.m. It was nice that we did not feel like we were missing a night's sleep. It's still a long day of travel, especially since we had a 6 a.m. flight from our hometown to get to Newark. But we woke up the next day in London without jetlag.

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The pricing of Princess EZair can be amazing on international flights. Use your Cruise Personalizer to get a quote. Look at Flexible fares. Be sure to put in the complete to and from. If one flight is short and does not offer Business, you will be put in first. Here is a sample of my upcoming Delta/Air France-Joon flights. LAX-Paris CDG-Barcelona. EZair $1612.11, Delta price $8519.00. Business LAX-Paris, First Paris-Barcelona.. Congrats on the upcoming wedding.

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Agree that you need to look at the flexible ticket option and can do what you want on the EZ Air part of the Princess site.

Be aware that different airlines offer different amenities/types of seats in their business class product so when you see what is available then go and Google business class reviews for each of the airlines you are considering.

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To me, it's not worth the extra. I think of all the ways I could spend the money on the cruise--specialty dining, expensive excursions, etc.

 

Airfare for us to Europe was a lot less through Princess. This year we were able to take a daytime flight that left Newark at 8:30 a.m. and arrived in London at 8:40 p.m. It was nice that we did not feel like we were missing a night's sleep. It's still a long day of travel, especially since we had a 6 a.m. flight from our hometown to get to Newark. But we woke up the next day in London without jetlag.

We were looking at costs and it wasn't too crazy expensive, was actually why we picked London over Rome because it was triple the cost. The only direct flights offered from south Florida are overnight to get to London I didn't see any that go over the day, but that would have helped with jetlag!

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The pricing of Princess EZair can be amazing on international flights. Use your Cruise Personalizer to get a quote. Look at Flexible fares. Be sure to put in the complete to and from. If one flight is short and does not offer Business, you will be put in first. Here is a sample of my upcoming Delta/Air France-Joon flights. LAX-Paris CDG-Barcelona. EZair $1612.11, Delta price $8519.00. Business LAX-Paris, First Paris-Barcelona.. Congrats on the upcoming wedding.

So I've found the flight I like through the airlines site, can I find that through EZair? We can't really be flexible with dates or times, there is only one flight that will work with what we need. I only want to fly direct since I'm afraid of flying and we have to fly home the day of the cruise so the latest flight out is all that would work. It seems like EZair will get the much better rate though. And thank you!

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I'm looking at flights for my British Isles cruise and since it's a honeymoon we thought we'd splurge on one leg of the trip and fly business class. None of the flights we were looking at had a first class so I'm guessing that's what it's called now? I've only flown coach so not really familiar with the perks and such.

 

They are pretty pricey though so we'd only do it either flying to London or flying home from London. I'm not sure which one we should splurge on. Anyone who has traveled that way have a recommendation? Flying to London would be an overnight flight, I have trouble sleeping on planes, but it might be easier with the lying flat down bed type seat. Or should we do it on the return trip where we will be awake the whole flight during the day so might get more out of the luxury?

 

Also if I look to book my airfare through Princess can I still choose flying one way in economy and the other in business? I've never book through a cruise for the air, but my parents recommended doing it that it would be cheaper.

 

We were in the same situation on our honeymoon last year. I'd recommend flying business to Europe to take advantage of the flat seats to sleep. Flight back home will likely leave morning/afternoon and you won't be tired to take advantage of the beds. You'll still be awake before turning in for the night to enjoy the dinner service and then up again for breakfast service in the morning. Our business class flight with Lufthansa was actually our top 3 favorite parts of our honeymoon. I can't recommend the splurge enough!

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Congratulations on the upcoming wedding and honeymoon!!!

 

It's a little confusing now with different classes of air travel since domestic and int'l use overlapping terms for different products.

 

Domestic is primarily coach or first (although some of the lines have rolled out "business" or other super premium options that include the often include lie-flat seats on the long trans-continental (or trans-con) flights, like SEA - JFK). Many domestic carriers also offer "premium economy" which generally buys you an economy seat with a little more distance between the seat rows (so more leg room, but NOT more shoulder/seat width).

 

Int'l has First, Biz, Prem Econ, Coach/Econ. First is the super fancy and expensive option, followed by business class, which is generally also very expensive and luxurious (but a step down from first). Premium Economy on an int'l flight is very similar to domestic first class, where the seats are wider and have generous recline (but usu. not lie-flat). You get an amenities kit, and meals are served with real metal utensils and actual flatware. I think the most common general layout for int'l flights is 3-cabin, where Biz, Prem Econ, Coach. I think it's not unusual for PE to have their own bathroom for the ~25-30 seats. PA171696.jpg

 

Here's a picture of Delta's int'l premium economy seats, which is a good example for what I saw on AirFrance and Alitalia.

 

If you can swing it, First/Biz is a great product; we did Premium Economy for our int'l flights though and felt pretty pampered (and it cost 1/4 of what Biz would have been and only about 33% more than economy). There's plenty of material out there comparing the exact experience once you have an idea which airline(s) you're looking at.

 

Going out the premium flights are great because you start your vacation feeling pampered. Coming home though, you're often tired and it's the final pampered "vacation" opportunity before the trip comes to a close. If you think you'll bring a lot of souvenirs home, Premium cabins usu. get free baggage allowances so that might be a useful perk on the return flight. I know we checked an extra (free) bag coming home from EU for our random souvenirs we bought (like fresh olive oil from the greek vineyard). Ditto coming home from Alaska. You also may have different weight allowances on luggage in premium seats, I think we had 70 lbs instead of 50 for our trips, which is great because the big suitcases often pack to about 55-60 lbs... so we did one bigger (heavier) bag instead of 2.

 

I personally would opt for Premium Economy both ways, versus a mix of coach-biz... but that's just my personal preference. Price out the options and then you'll have an idea what your cost/benefit ratio looks like. Another perk if you have other travel coming up, a r/t flight to Europe in premium economy with the frequent flier bonus for being in a premium cabin may be enough to earn the first tier frequent flier status on the carrier - so keep that in mind. I like delta domestic, so we flew delta partners and credited all the miles back to the delta program, I think I got ~20k status miles off the EU trip and 25k is "Silver" status with them.

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Take the flight over in business class and take the latest flight out. Three years ago we took a 10:30pm flight out of Chicago told the flight attendant not to wake us till breakfast and promptly went to sleep. We arrived in London at 12:30 pm their time and felt great. Good enough to go to Harrods after quick showers, our hotel room was available for check-in. We are flying to Rome in three weeks and our flight leaves Chicago at 5:30pm we won't be tired enough to fall asleep right away, we arrive in Rome at 9:00am and we won't be able to check in till 2pm. It's going to be a long day.

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I would definitely choose the night flight for business class and the lie flat beds. I've had many experiences flying from Australia and being able to get a good night sleep on a lie flat bed after a nice dinner with wine/champagne and gentle wake up with a business class breakfast is worth much more than a daytime business class flight with breakfast/lunch. Also, if you are flying soon after the wedding, you will really appreciate the quiet luxury of long haul business class ahead of economy to prepare for a great honeymoon cruise. Best wishes

 

(PS if you were flying to Oz I would recommend the Qantas business class pajamas - it is so funny to see all of the business class passengers getting changed into their PJs before bed lol)

Edited by lucymorgan
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The "flexible fare" option is only about the price not the dates and times. It allows you to pay for the flight when you do your final payment and before that IF the price goes down you can get the newer lower price.

Oh that sounds great! I thought it meant like with airlines the date and times were flexible. Thank you that's great to know

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We were in the same situation on our honeymoon last year. I'd recommend flying business to Europe to take advantage of the flat seats to sleep. Flight back home will likely leave morning/afternoon and you won't be tired to take advantage of the beds. You'll still be awake before turning in for the night to enjoy the dinner service and then up again for breakfast service in the morning. Our business class flight with Lufthansa was actually our top 3 favorite parts of our honeymoon. I can't recommend the splurge enough!

That does sound really great. My fiance is really tall so we can never fly without the extra leg room so that's been the only splurge I've done lol. He will definitely sleep so I do think the lying flat would be really beneficial, maybe I'll be able to. Did flying that way help with jetlag at all?

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Congratulations on the upcoming wedding and honeymoon!!!

 

It's a little confusing now with different classes of air travel since domestic and int'l use overlapping terms for different products.

 

Domestic is primarily coach or first (although some of the lines have rolled out "business" or other super premium options that include the often include lie-flat seats on the long trans-continental (or trans-con) flights, like SEA - JFK). Many domestic carriers also offer "premium economy" which generally buys you an economy seat with a little more distance between the seat rows (so more leg room, but NOT more shoulder/seat width).

 

Int'l has First, Biz, Prem Econ, Coach/Econ. First is the super fancy and expensive option, followed by business class, which is generally also very expensive and luxurious (but a step down from first). Premium Economy on an int'l flight is very similar to domestic first class, where the seats are wider and have generous recline (but usu. not lie-flat). You get an amenities kit, and meals are served with real metal utensils and actual flatware. I think the most common general layout for int'l flights is 3-cabin, where Biz, Prem Econ, Coach. I think it's not unusual for PE to have their own bathroom for the ~25-30 seats. PA171696.jpg

 

Here's a picture of Delta's int'l premium economy seats, which is a good example for what I saw on AirFrance and Alitalia.

 

If you can swing it, First/Biz is a great product; we did Premium Economy for our int'l flights though and felt pretty pampered (and it cost 1/4 of what Biz would have been and only about 33% more than economy). There's plenty of material out there comparing the exact experience once you have an idea which airline(s) you're looking at.

 

Going out the premium flights are great because you start your vacation feeling pampered. Coming home though, you're often tired and it's the final pampered "vacation" opportunity before the trip comes to a close. If you think you'll bring a lot of souvenirs home, Premium cabins usu. get free baggage allowances so that might be a useful perk on the return flight. I know we checked an extra (free) bag coming home from EU for our random souvenirs we bought (like fresh olive oil from the greek vineyard). Ditto coming home from Alaska. You also may have different weight allowances on luggage in premium seats, I think we had 70 lbs instead of 50 for our trips, which is great because the big suitcases often pack to about 55-60 lbs... so we did one bigger (heavier) bag instead of 2.

 

I personally would opt for Premium Economy both ways, versus a mix of coach-biz... but that's just my personal preference. Price out the options and then you'll have an idea what your cost/benefit ratio looks like. Another perk if you have other travel coming up, a r/t flight to Europe in premium economy with the frequent flier bonus for being in a premium cabin may be enough to earn the first tier frequent flier status on the carrier - so keep that in mind. I like delta domestic, so we flew delta partners and credited all the miles back to the delta program, I think I got ~20k status miles off the EU trip and 25k is "Silver" status with them.

Thank you!! I think we are definitely going to fly first/business for one of flights. It won't break the bank to do and I've never done it before so being pampered would be nice. We usually fly with the extra leg room seats on normal flights since my fiance is really tall and has long legs. I was looking at I think it was either American Airlines or British Airlines and I think the highest seat was Business no first class, but it did mention lie flat seats. My Fiance flies a lot for work so he has a lot of those points. If we did a different airline he had something where he could buy one first class ticket and get the second free, but it wasn't offered for any of the airlines to London so we can't take advantage of that.

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Take the flight over in business class and take the latest flight out. Three years ago we took a 10:30pm flight out of Chicago told the flight attendant not to wake us till breakfast and promptly went to sleep. We arrived in London at 12:30 pm their time and felt great. Good enough to go to Harrods after quick showers, our hotel room was available for check-in. We are flying to Rome in three weeks and our flight leaves Chicago at 5:30pm we won't be tired enough to fall asleep right away, we arrive in Rome at 9:00am and we won't be able to check in till 2pm. It's going to be a long day.

That's great advice, I would definitely be tired enough to go to sleep then. I'll have to look over the times I think there were a couple we could choose from. The last couple times I flew to Europe I got bad jetlag and ended up sleeping through the day. I'm determined to do a lot when we land since we'll only have two days for sightseeing and want to get it all done :)

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I would definitely choose the night flight for business class and the lie flat beds. I've had many experiences flying from Australia and being able to get a good night sleep on a lie flat bed after a nice dinner with wine/champagne and gentle wake up with a business class breakfast is worth much more than a daytime business class flight with breakfast/lunch. Also, if you are flying soon after the wedding, you will really appreciate the quiet luxury of long haul business class ahead of economy to prepare for a great honeymoon cruise. Best wishes

 

(PS if you were flying to Oz I would recommend the Qantas business class pajamas - it is so funny to see all of the business class passengers getting changed into their PJs before bed lol)

I'm definitely getting sold on flying overnight in the business class :)

 

That is so funny about the pajamas! If we ever fly over there I'll try and convince future hubby to do that. I've always wanted to go to Australia, but it's a very far trip so might have to wait until we are retired and can travel the world.

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There are several business class sales. going on. got sfo-lhr rt for $2500.00 on Lufthansa for next summer. You have to travel wed or thur. my favorite part of travel. do it. Premium economy is nice but you cant sleep.

 

 

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I'll check it out, but we can't fly during the week. We will be flying out Friday night after work since we can only take off two weeks for the honeymoon. I think that was the rate I was seeing when I was looking at flights.

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We have flown to London and back 3 times. We get the lie-flat seats on the way to London and fly overnight so we can get the most benefit from the high cost of the seat by getting a good dinner, hours of sleep, and a good breakfast. We arrive in London in early enough to meet the Princess agent at the airport and get on the coach going directly to the ship to begin our cruise. That saves us the cost of a hotel room and restaurant meals which helps cover the extra cost of the lie-flat seat.

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That does sound really great. My fiance is really tall so we can never fly without the extra leg room so that's been the only splurge I've done lol. He will definitely sleep so I do think the lying flat would be really beneficial, maybe I'll be able to. Did flying that way help with jetlag at all?

 

Yes! We didn't get a full 8 hours sleep, maybe 3-4 hours with the meals and settling in etc. We love eating so didn't want to skip dinner. It was such a wonderful experience to be brought real silverware, having a "table" made up for us. But that amount of sleep was enough to get us to Italy not totally drained. We took a quick one hour power nap at the hotel and that combo got us through a full day/night in Italy.

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We have flown to London and back 3 times. We get the lie-flat seats on the way to London and fly overnight so we can get the most benefit from the high cost of the seat by getting a good dinner, hours of sleep, and a good breakfast. We arrive in London in early enough to meet the Princess agent at the airport and get on the coach going directly to the ship to begin our cruise. That saves us the cost of a hotel room and restaurant meals which helps cover the extra cost of the lie-flat seat.

I'm going to be so spoiled flying first class I think I might actually like flying. :) We are flying in two days before the ship leaves to explore the city, can we still book through Princess if we are doing that? I'd also like to book transportation to the ship, could I pick from the airport and just take a taxi back there to meet up with the ship transportation?

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Yes! We didn't get a full 8 hours sleep, maybe 3-4 hours with the meals and settling in etc. We love eating so didn't want to skip dinner. It was such a wonderful experience to be brought real silverware, having a "table" made up for us. But that amount of sleep was enough to get us to Italy not totally drained. We took a quick one hour power nap at the hotel and that combo got us through a full day/night in Italy.

It does sound really nice! Flying in first class is definitely going to spoil me. I don't normally like flying, but I think I would actually enjoy this flight. I think if I could get a couple hours of sleep it would help with the jetlag

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