Ever passing those nice lie-flat business class seats, and hoping one day you would be able to afford that kind of luxury? Like most of people, I used to think that those seats were out of reach with the sky high fares. With a little bit of researching, grabbing one of those seats can be a reality. Read on and I will show you my recent experience of booking 3 business class seats from Asia for less.
Recently years, I had traveled with my family of 3, flying long haul business class, including flying from JFK to Rio in AA flagship™ first class for 2022 New Year eve celebration, for 63,000 mile/pp. I had never paid nor been able to pay the full fare for those seats.
There are already a lot of the blogs out there explaining how to earn and redeem miles. You just need to do some research. However, this article is more focused on my personal experiences when booking the post pandemic high season seats, for summer 2023, to share a few tips on how to lower the overall costs, yet, still have a taste of luxury.
How did I Book Business Class from Asia for Less
Depending on the departure and final destination cities, a flight from Asia to Europe can last over 10 to 15 hours long. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit in one of those lie-flat business seats during the long-haul 10+ hour leg? It certainly makes the trip much easier traveling with a toddler like us.
Flying business class from Asia to Europe has been always pricy. One way ticket can range from $2000 to $5000/pp. To pay for 3 seats with full price is definitely not something we could afford.
You might be able to get a better deal by buying round trip, instead of one way. In my case, I was planning a trip for summer of 2023 to fly from Taipei to Madrid during peak season for gay pride. We were planning on visiting a few more European cities, then flying to US to visit our friends and families. Hence, buying round trip flights was not an option.
Of course, if you can find the enough mileages and you can find the award availabilities, or, if you are luckily to find any airlines are running impossible sales or “mistake fares” on the routes of your desire, great! However, these usually are not the case.
These are couple of useful tips I used to help me reduced the cost, yet get to flight with Air France™ business for long-haul. The trick is to combine the resources you have, not just focus on one single option.
1. Searching for Award Seats First
Depending on what credit card point and/or airline mileages you have, search all of those airline award seats first. Look for the promotion and mileage transfer bonus. At the time of researching, I had about 160,000 Capital One™ miles, and Capital One was having 20% bounce transfer to Air France™/KLM™ Flying Blue™ miles. Also Flying Blue™ was running a promotion of 100% bonus miles with buying miles. I leveraged both promotions, and got enough miles I needed for 3 business class seats.
2. Options of Leaving from or Arriving to near by Cities (but not both)
Wait, wasn’t I looking for flights from Taipei to Madrid, not From Hong Kong to Madrid? Why did I book that? At the time of booking, there was no business class award availability from Taipei to Madrid, for any of the airline partners for my credit card points to transfer to. I started to look into flying from near by cities, such as Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo and Seoul to Madrid, and also, from Taipei to any Madrid near by cities in Europe.
My definition of “near by” city is about 2 to 3 hours flight, which I can purchase cheap economy seats for. We would definitely sit in economy for short haul-flights, if the price is really low.
With this in mind, I found Flying Blue had 3 available business seats for the date we wanted to fly, from Hong Kong to Madrid with Air France™ long-haul, and Air Europa™ short-haul between Paris and Madrid, for less than 292,000 miles.
This amount of the miles night seem a lot for the normal redemption for Asia-Europe route, if you are flying solo, or flexible on dates. Being requesting for 3 seats in the peaking summer, we were happy with what we found!
Once got the challenging route nailed down, I just needed to spend about $450 to get 3 direct flight economy Cathay Pacific™ tickets from Taipei to Hong Kong, which is only 2 hour flight.
3. Think About Your Stopover City
You can either make the “stopover” city in Asia or in Europe. Even though there are more budget airlines in Europe, keep in mind that most of the Asian airlines’ economy seats include free check in luggage. Don’t forget about using train as alternative option in Europe.
With an add on bonus, Cathay Pacific™ allows free advance seat assignments, if you are traveling with kids, even with their version of basic economy tickets.
To maximize our dollar, We are actually taking two extra days staying in Hong Kong to visit our friends.
Therefore, we opt to purchase the the short haul economy in Asia, Taipei to Hong Kong, and make the stopover in Hong Kong.
With the stopover option, you will need to be mindful about travel restrictions and visa requirements of your “stopover” city, as you will need to go through immigration, and then check in the second journey of the flights, because they are separated bookings.
At the time of writing this article, Hong Kong still have Covid restrictions and quarantine rules. However, we are betting on the fully opening by summer of 2023.
4. Keep Long-Haul Leg, Long and Overnight
Of course, if you can get the direct flight, it’s the best scenario. In most cases for the award premier seats, you will need to compromise with a connection.
I tend to avoid middle eastern airlines, such as Qatar™, Etihad™ or Emirates™, even thought in most cases, they have the best products with highest ratings. Because of the their hub cities, their two legged flights will be divided evenly into about 7 to 8 hour each.
In most of the cases, you will need to wake up in the middle of sleep, wait for a few hours for the second flight at the terminal, and then another 7 to 8 hour of long flight.
If I were to flight solo, I might prefer them for the experiences. However, flying with a toddler, I need to make sure he has enough and best sleep possible. Believe me, the enjoyment of your vacation depends on it! A long 10+ hour overnight flight in the lie-flat seats will give you plenty of rest, when you arrive Europe in the early morning.
Conclusion
As we needed three seats, award availability search was much more challenging. Still, I got three Air France™ business class seats from Hong Kong to Paris, with European business connection from Paris to Madrid, and three economy seats from Taipei to Hong Kong with free stopover in Hong Kong, all for roughly $2,500 and 150,000 Capital One™ miles, for peak summer season traveling. Comparing with over $19,000 full fare, just for the same Hong Kong to Madrid flights, it’s a pretty good use of my mileages.
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Vincent Robison
I have strong passion of traveling, and finding great travel deals. I was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. However, I had lived in New York for most of my life, and travelled all over the world.
