Airfare upgrade?...Going to Europe

[vivian02]

Has anyone else had this happen. I have really put in alot of reseach before doing the last three vacations and was rather suprised on my booking two weeks ago. I just happened to spot one of those very cheap fares to Europe next June (2005) that only pop up every few months. I was very picky who I wanted to fly with and what type of aircraft we would be flying on. Anyway when all was said and done we had airfare to Munich Germany with the main flight between Atlanta and Paris on a 777. It turn out it wasn't econony it was confirmed business class on Air France. Did I just plain luck out or has anyone else had this happen? The only thing I can think of that might have influenced the purchase was the fact that my son flys on business alot and under his name we put in his miles account numbers for Delta and America West. The airfare was just plain cheap! It was so cheap I even took out the travel insurance which I have never done before. Anyone else out there get lucky? Tim

 

Norwegian Sky Alaska 5/03

Norwegian Star Hawaii 11/03

Royal Caribbean Splendor of the Seas Meditterean 05/04

[mcboo]

Vivian02,

How cheap are we talking here. Just curious how much you paid.

mcboo

[Globaliser]

How do you know it's business class? Does that info come from the airline's own website? If it doesn't, there is a possibility that "business class" is a website's misinterpretation of the booking class/fare bucket in which this special fare was booked. A particular booking class may be used by different airlines for different cabins, thus giving rise to this possibility. For example, W class is used by some airlines as a discount economy class. But on others, it's the separate premium economy cabin. If you're looking on a website that's not sufficiently sophisticated to distinguish between the different ways that different airlines use their booking classes, you can get fed misinformation.

 

One other way to check is to find a site that shows a seating plan for the aircraft - the airline's own website is often a good place to look, usually under "fleet" or something like that. Alternatively, have a look at a site like http://www.seatexpert.com or http://www.seatguru.com to see if the aircraft is listed. Then, if you have a pre-allocated seat, find where it is - that may well confirm which cabin you're actually in.

 

Of course, airlines do sometimes make mistakes when loading fares. A couple of years ago, United manage to sell some $25 fares to Europe, and BA some $20 fares in premium economy. Just today, bmi apparently sold quite a few business class seats from Manchester to Las Vegas for £249. So you may have got very lucky and found one of these.

 

It is almost certain that putting in a frequent flyer number had nothing to do with it.

[vivian02]

The price was only found flying from Phoenix Arizona to Munich Germany. Any other routing was showing a price in the $900 range and higher. Side step kicked out a price of $499. The online booking agency was Orbiz. After taxes and fees I went ahead and accepted the cancelation insurance (something I never do) the total price came out to $602/per person. There were three of us who booked the flight. The tickets are paper tickets with Atlanta to Paris being Class-Z tickets. The confirmed and assigned seats were seat 04-a,b,and e. The first thing I did was go to seatguru and that was the conformation we were holding business class seats. On the return flight we fly out of Paris to LAX under the same Class (Z) but have to sit in seats 5-a,b,and e. The flight will be over 12 hours. I found out that any flight on Air France over 11 and a half hours there will be a Buffet with a wine list. The business seats come with a bigger entertainment screens than economy. Hopefully all goes well. Tim

 

Norwegin Sky Alaska 5/03

Norwegin Star Hawaii 11/03

Royal Caribbean Splendor of the Seas Meditterean 5/04

[greatam]

There are no Air France seat maps on seatguru. Nor on AF website. There are some on SeatExpert, but there is some debate whether they are valid configurations. And I don't believe Air France flies any 777 equipment. Airbus 340 and 747 on their long haul flights.

 

A buffet? What a mess that would be on a plane. I guess you could have a buffet-only been on Air France twice and that was about 4 years ago. Most business class has course by course service.

[Globaliser]

And I don't believe Air France flies any 777 equipment. Airbus 340 and 747 on their long haul flights.

They certainly do have 777s, and have been operating them since about 1998. But it's true that seatexpert has not got around to putting seat maps up.

 

A quick dip into the AF website suggests that AF itself flies ATL-CDG once a day with a 777-200. 4 times a week it has an A340-300 as well. Also, AF codes are carried by two DL flights a day, one on a 767-300 and one on a 777-200. Notably, the AF-operated flights (flight numbers in the 300s) have first class, but the DL-operated flights (numbers in the 8900s) of course do not. If the OP has been allocated rows 4 and 5 for business class (which is what various websites suggest that AF uses Z class for) I would suspect that these are actually DL-operated flights. Nevertheless, DL business class is still a pretty good buy at those prices.

 

So I would say: Congratulations, and enjoy your good luck! Mistakes do happen sometimes, and it's great when you get to take advantage of them.

 

I'm also puzzled by the buffet, though.

[vivian02]

Your right SeatGuru does not show 777's under AirFrance so I don't know what the seating arrangment will be, I'll just have to find out when the time comes.

 

I did find this memo dated May 13th 2004 from a Air France new release:

 

"In Seattle today, Air France takes delivery of the second of sixteen new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft (10 owned and 6 leased) ordered from the American aircraft manufacturer.

 

The first aircraft of this type, delivered to the Airline last month, carried out its inaugural flight a few days ago to New York, presenting passengers with the all new l'Espace Première-First, l'Espace Affaires-Business and Tempo cabin interiors sporting the "New Air France Travel Concept".

 

The Boeing 777-300ER, which took to the sky for the first time in early 2003, is the latest addition to the 777 family of long-haul widebody twinjets. Following the example of the B777-200ER, with its 250-seat capacity Starting in 2005, the –200ER will gradually be retrofitted with the New Air France Travel Concept. and carrying close to 14 tonnes of cargo, 25 of which are operated by Air France, the new aircraft boasts the longest operating range. It is also larger and equipped with two General Electric GE 90-115B powerplants that offer more power than those of its predecessor, for increased passenger capacity and greater cargo lift: 310 passengers and close on 24 tonnes of cargo."

 

I just pray my flight isn't replaced by a 767. Maybe someone out there has done flight AF307. Tim

[Globaliser]

Maybe someone out there has done flight AF307.

No, but if you're on AF307 you're on an AF aircraft. It looks like first class is only two rows by June 2005, so 4 and 5 are biz. If that's all you paid, you have definitely struck lucky. Wave to all the people who got £249 fares on bmi from Manchester to Las Vegas as they go past!

[vivian02]

There is one problem. Now that my wife gets a flight to Europe in Business class she won't want to fly anything but business. Looks like this might be my last trip to Europe. By the way on a flight last May out of Chicago to Frankfurt on a Air Bus 340 we got CRT screens like you see on the 767's. It looks like Luthansa configure this plane without the LED screens. It was a nice flight but it would have been better with the LED screens. Sometime you don't always get what you think your getting. I'm sure there will be some great fares out there. Tim

 

Norwegian Sky Alaska 5/03

Norwegian Star Hawaii 11/03

Royal Caribbean Splendor of the Seas Meditterean 5/04

[Cruiser_Guy]

I know its kind of late, but what ever happened with the flights?

[vivian02]

First of all I want to thank Globlizer for all the information that he has given this board, he is very informative with European flights.

Here it goes: Yes the flight was a 777 and our seats were in Business class on Air France. You can strech your feet foward, there was champane served before take off and they even offed to hang up your coat in the bulk-head. (I didn't have a sports jacket since this was a vacation trip}. Now let me back up so you know just what was going on. At check in Phoenix Delta let us know righ away that there was a flight delay of 30 minutes. We had the time so we went to the Business Lounge since were we holding Air France Business seats. The lounge was nice I liked the Specialty beer out of Portland Oregon that was offered. I knew in 24 hours I would be drinking the "Dunkel beier in Munich"! We asked the attendent in charge if we were going to encounter any problems catching our flight in Atlanta and he assured us all was OK. This may have not been a smart thing to do since they were wondering just how we got the Business Class tickets. Before we left the lounge the attendant said he had called ahead and there was a specialist working the situation. We boarded our flight out of Phoenix and by the time we got off the ground our flight was 40 minutes late. I felt we could make our flight out of Atlanta on time. Yep...you guested it we landed at 8:35 and our flight was to leave at 9:35 PM. This was my first flight into Atlanta and there was not panic. We found the Tram to our correct Terminal and once we got there Air France was doing the last call. We gave our tickets to the gate personnel and guess what happened? They wouldn't take in the scanner. We were sent to the ticket counter where this big French women took our tickets. Her response was "I know you have tickets but by the time I reissue new tickets you'll miss the plane" She validated the tickets with a red stamp and proceeded to place us on the Aircraft. Yes we had pretty nice flight to CDG.

At CDG we made a bee line over to our departing terminal (2F). We probably did this in 25 to 30 minutes. The gate was cramped, fairly small but I knew we would be out of there in less than 30 minutes...so I thought. Once again when our tickets were scanned our tickets didn't take. Here is what happened: The Delta specialist didn't think we had made the flight on time into Atlanta so they had cancelled our tickets on Air France. One problem...we were in France! I have to give credit to Air France foks who really helped out in this situation. They immediately rebooked us on the next flight out two and a half hours later. My wife did not think too much of CDG. There was no air conditioning and she was slightly jet lagged. I look at it this way, I got a chance to look around CDG and found the area down by the Sheraton to be cooler and acturally very clean. (Near the train terminal) In stead of flying out on a small commuter jet which we were originally scheduled we were on a A320 AirBus with a full lunch Beer and wine included. We landed at Munich International with the temperature of 88 degrees about 10 degrees above normal for late May. Of our 5 pieces of luggage we got 2. The others were still at CDG. Once again I give the French credit and by 12:00 midnight we had all of our luggage so we could head to Garmish the next day. It appears that Delta knew there was a glitch with our tickets. On our return date I knew I had to make a conformation with our tickets or we would be sitting in Munich or Paris waiting for a flight back. My son and I drove out to the Munich Airport the day before our flight and sure enough the French Ticket agent was scratching his head. A supervisor came over to check out the situationa and his comment to the younger ticket agent was priceless: He shook his head and said in broken English "Delta". My son who was traveling with us made a check on his tickets all the way back to the states. He was credited with 19,000 air miles on his Delta Card. We kept our ticket stubs and check our miles account. We were credited with 9600 miles. So far we have written Deta with copies of our receipts but nothing has happened to our account. We'll probably try again to get our miles but with the bankrupty I'm not counting on it. Yes...the AirFrance part of our trip was really nice. My wife says she's just a simple economy class type person and Business Class wasn't what she had thought it would be. As for me I found out what "Duck" is. You can have either raw salmon or "Duck". I had the Duck and washed it down with lots of French wine (5 glasses). I got three hours sleep over the Atlantic. As for the buffey it wasn't anything. If you wanted to get something to eat you would go back into the bulkhead area and get a drink or a peice of fruit. Long flight CDG to LAX. Thank goodness they had the private movies showing. Good trip. I'll be looking for another cheapy down the road. Tim and Cathy

[Globaliser]

Glad it all worked out and that you enjoyed the flights!

[CruisinMatt]

I'm glad to hear it all worked out too, but it sure sounds like it could have been a nightmare!!

[vivian02]

I'm glad to hear it all worked out too, but it sure sounds like it could have been a nightmare!!

Your right, it could have been a real nightmare if we were going on a cruise. We took it all one step at a time. It was a great trip and I have noticed flight delays this summer were happening at most large hubs in the US. I made a trip out to Anchorage in July and was delayed in Albuquerque for 50 minutes. The connection in Denver was delayed an hour because of mechanical issues. If you are a cruiser I strongly recommend flying out one day early on any US cruises. Fly out two days early on any European Cruises. As for those cheap flight...I'm looking but nothing in sight for next year. Tim