UPGRADED! With miles =): 商務客艙

JAN 22, 2017

CATHAY PACIFIC CX 893

SFO-HKG

DEPARTURE 12:55AM

ARRIVAL 07:30AM next day (estimated 08:05am)

Business Class

This was an award flight booked directly through Cathay Pacific. I had a balance of around 30,000 AsiaMiles and transferred 40,000 miles from Citi credit cards' ThankYou points. One can transfer miles to Cathay Pacific's AsiaMiles from Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), Citi ThankYou, and Amex membership points, NOT Chase though.

One way business class from San Francisco to Hong Kong direct flight costs 70,000 AsiaMiles. If you book round trip together, it goes down to 60,000 miles each way. If booked through Alaska Airlines, it's 50,000 Alaska miles one way. I booked it first day when award flight was available, was on waitlist, but was quickly notified that I made it after a month or two. ThePointsGuy and Mr Lucky @ OneMileAtATime both confirmed that Cathay opens up even more award seats closer to departure dates. Cathay would call long distance to remind you to get the ticket(s) issued.

This was my second time on business class flying from San Francisco to Hong Kong on CX. It confirmed a number of already established notions by many flyers:

1. Seat is awesome
2. Food is meh
3. Entertainment is awesome
4. Falling asleep and staying asleep is effortless

Check in was a breeze, there's usually no line at SFO's Cathay check in counters. I am guessing it's because they work so fast. I had a digital piano packed in a box, longer than 4 feet, weighed about 20 kg. Check in staff asked casually what it was and checked it to Hong Kong without blinking. They were giving another business class passenger a really hard time, though politely, that his one bag was more than 35kg and they would have to charge him extra. This was the same passenger who later took more than 10 minutes to slowly take off his shoes, remove his computers from his carry on, remove his belt . . . I wish internationally airlines would pay for TSA Pre, and let the seasoned travelers get through security quick. We deserve it, we are prepared always to just walk through the damn thing with no time wasted instead of slowing the whole world down. AND the same passenger's extremely loud snore graced the entire business class cabin later during the night, I had my noise canceling BOSE with me, I could not have cared less, but . . . TSA should seriously consider creating a separate line for these questionable travelers, let them take their damn time, somewhere else.

The new Cathay Pacific lounge expansion had been completed since I last flew with them. I took the chance to check it out. It is much more spacious than before and it was not crowded when I visited. I love Cantonese wonton so even though the wonton soup noodle here is slightly sub-standard, I had to have some! It a bit like whenever I have a chance to have Hainanese Chicken Rice, I cannot help it.

More lounging areas and seating added, a few more restrooms and showers were also added at the far end. My best friend Ken Irelan @ Gensler (Architect) worked on both the original side and the expansion side. Great job!

CX Lounge expanded side

A full espresso machine and a ground crew served sandwich, salad, and cold cut meat bar was added. Food offering was not extremely exciting:

Hot items

- Chicken noodle soup

- Boiled to order: wonton noodle soup, dan dan noodle, veggie noodle

- Stirfry chicken, egg fried rice, stirfry lai fun (not lai fun, just spaghetti), stirfry vegetables (with my fav babycorn though)

- mini cheese burgers (sliders)

- and some other things that looked like tortilla with some things inside of it

Cold items

- assorted cold cut mammals

- cold sandwiches (tuna and turkey)

- made to order toasted turkey sandwich

- some standard salad items, leafy greens

I get more excited about items like lobsters, raw/seared tuna, giant prawns, smoked salmon, raw Kumamoto . . . etc even the self serve laksa in the SFO Singapore Airlines Krisflyer Lounge was more exciting than any of these mediocre food items at the Cathay Lounge. Bottom line, this lounge is a quiet and contemporarily designed oasis to relax and have some food and drinks without having to pay, before you get on a long haul flight.

Wonton noodle soup with chili sauce

Boarding was promptly begun at 12:15am as notified by check in crew lady. I pre selected 11K this time. This is one of the fore-most seats of the aircraft since there's no first class offered on this flight. I don't usually get bothered by noise from the restrooms and galley. But if you are, stay a couple seats back from the first row or two. It can also be quite an abrupt "interruption" whenever the flight crew appear all of a sudden from behind your seat or through the curtain in front since there's no fore-shadowing as you would have other wise when you are seated in a row in the middle of the cabin than the very first. I jumped a couple time when concentrated on a movie and a giant flight attendant head appeared two inches from my left cheek.

Seat 11K is decent and quite standard, though top of the front pod is blocked off since it's the bulk head seat. It might feel slightly claustrophobic for some.

Seat 11K

The two middle seats 11D and 11G are very spacious, they would be perfect for the disabled, wheelchair bound, or elderly.

Seat 11G

The entry space into these two seats are also more generous than 11A or 11K.

Looking from 11K to 11G

When it comes to dinner (supper) time on these CX flights, nothing is extremely exciting. There's no nicely plated seafood appetizer, just bread sticks and a couple dips. I passed on all those. Everything was served on a table cloth on a tray on a table cloth on the folded out tray. It all felt very silly and not especially luxurious. But we all knew it'd be like this. We are here for the awesome seat! NOT. THE. FOOD. Meals are certainly adequate and a notch up from coach but there's nothing to brag about. China Airlines' business class appetizers, Chinese entrees, and desserts are light years ahead of Cathay's. Cathay wins in the category where all flight attendants are fluent in English.

Not a big big deal but when more than 6 flight attendants of different genders and origins were serving you, and two of them spoke Cantonese, it was hard to keep track of who to speak Cantonese to.

Chinese entrée, tomato sauce pork chops and egg fried rice

Breakfast was so pathetic looking I couldn't even take a picture of it. It was rice porridge with abalone lookalike clams and shiitake mushrooms and a sad little square of cheung fun (steamed rice wrapper) with shrimp. Poured from Odwalla bottle strawberry smoothie was available.

Breakfast cut fruits and croissant

Supper menu

Snacks and Breakfast menu

Drinks menu

Champagne and white

Red and Port

Liquor cocktail and mocktail

Chinese 1

Chinese 2

Chinese 3

Note: menu of 873 and 893 are exactly the same.

There were 3 dedicated restrooms for business class passengers. It did not feel enough. 3 out of 4 of the times when I needed to use the restroom, they were occupied. The one closest to the pilot was tiny economy style. The one aft of it (pictured below) was a bit done up with baby changing table. The one closest to premium economy folks was probably the most spacious and marked "accessible". All had Jurlique products in them.

Middle business class restroom

It was reported repeatedly that there's no more ear plugs in the new 78% amenity kit. There were ear plugs in mine. They put them back in. You can ALWAYS ask for a pair of ear plugs on CX and SQ. Don't know about the rest.

Entertainment was awesome as usual. A plethora of Japanese, French, Italian, Indian films sub-titled for your viewing pleasure. It was so weird I only had time for one full length movie and a half. The plane landed before I could finish Shin Godzilla - the very relevant re-make of the classic. My jaw dropped a few times when ..... SPOILER CENSORHIP .....

It was evident that the hard product - seat turned bed turned seat and over and over and over again with the 3 buttons - was extremely comfortable that I slept for 8 hours straight. Unbelievable! Ultimately, being able to rest and sleep well is the goal of mine when flying. Well, and not having an overly excited family passing snacks and exchanging souvenirs in front of my face for 5 hours. Well, and having enough privacy to not be drooling on a stranger's hair when I sleep, or playing footsie, or playing elbow-ie, point is: it's just too damn intimate, in coach.

I woke up with 4 hours left before touch down. I watched Tokyo Diner and then Shin Godzilla and was served breakfast while half way through Shin Godzilla. Plane landed before Godzilla done . . . SPOILER CENSORSHIP . . .

Compared to the landing at 6am flight, this one landed at 7am but was supposed to land at around 8am. We got a lot more morning sun rise than the 6am flight so I took some purty pix of clouds.

Clouds right before we landed in Hong Kong

Flying into the clouds right before landing in HKG

And saw the reclaimed (landfill) island that's going to be the Macau's side of tunnel entry on way to Hong Kong. The tunnel will emerge on Hong Kong side and become a bridge again. Eventually connecting to a newly reclaimed island for customs and immigration right next to the airport.

Shot 1 of Zhuhai - Macau - Hong Kong bridge and tunnel

Shot 2 of Zhuhai - Macau - Hong Kong bridge and tunnel

Claiming baggage took no time and I was outta immigration in no time because of the HKID electronic turnstile system. Before long, I was exchanging some US $ to HK $. I asked the currencies exchange dude if $40 USD was enough for a taxi cab to Kowloon, he whipped out a spreadsheet with more than 100 destinations plus estimate taxi fares and pointed at 5 Kowloon locations and said, "Should be just fine." Such Hong Kong typical efficiency, always prepared, always accumulating past experiences to make service better.

Hong Kong International Airport! Always makes me go AHHHHHHH, I'm home! and Proud of it

Turned out our favorite private transport driver had some personal matter to deal with and could not make it that morning. My mom volunteered to come get me but I didn't want her to drive all the way out there so early on a Monday, hence me exchanging USD to HKD and the taxi question.

However, Asian mothers always win arguments. I waited for her here:

And she got there in less than 40 minutes. Thanks mom!

All in all, Cathay Pacific's business class product is awesome even if you have to bring your own frozen dinner onto the plane. With award redemption options like 50,000 Alaska airline miles one way from SFO/LAX to Hong Kong, it's a no brainer! I will keep doing it until the sweet spot is gone. Then I'd probably just continuously go on SQ first for a bit more than 70,000 Krisflyer miles.

FIRST LEG:

APRIL 14, 2016

SFO - SEA

ALASKA AIRLINES

AS 313

APRIL 14, 2016

BRITISH AIRWAYS BA 052
SEA- LHR
DEPART 13:25 pm
ARRIVE 06:45 am (next day)
Seat 17G Business Class (Club World)
BOEING 747-400 (744)
(This is essentially the 10G seat on 777-300ER, the 747-400 has been discontinued)

LAST LEG:
APRIL 15, 2016
LHR-AMS
BRITISH AIRWAYS
BA 430

These flights were booked with AAmerican AAirlines AAdvantage miles on American's website with a combination of Alaska Airlines, British Airways, and American Airlines flights. First class on Alaska and business class on British Airways costed 45,000 AA miles. First class on BA and AA costed 57,500. Both factoring in the 5,000 miles each way promotion by Barclays AVIATOR AWARD REDEMPTION BONUS in early January 2016. It was quite reasonable in terms of miles, but with BA redemption, there's always a hefty tax/fuel charge so I ended up paying $1,000 USD. It's still a bit cheaper than paying for coach tickets for the same itinerary.

AA miles were accumulated by getting the Barclay's Aviator credit card promotional bonus and just using the credit card exclusively for about a year.

The San Francisco to Amsterdam itinerary started with Alaska Airlines first class flight from San Francisco to Seattle. Check in was easy and not crowded. Going through security was relatively painless with TSA Pre.

Alaska's first class wasn't much to brag about. Seats looked like Cathay's premium economy seats. Flight was short, didn't care that much.

Alaska SFO-SEA AS 313 07:00am

Flight attendant kept telling us how much the customers love the granola they serve during breakfast and that they'd pay money for them and bring a pound or two home if possible. I took one bite of it and I decided not to ever try eating granola again. It wasn't tasty for one, and there's this burnt taste, plus some grain/nut in it was extremely hard I almost broke a tooth. Not impressed by Alaska first class at all but it got me to where I had to be.

Breakfast granola - meh

It was quite a hike and required a short ride on the underground train to the international terminal. The lounges were one floor up from the gates. I located the BA one after purchasing some sushi for lunch. Lounge was nice clean and spacious, though it got a bit crowded an hour before departure since there were many who were on first and business classes, a rough estimate of 80 persons. The cold salad bar had very fresh vegetables and a few very well prepared sandwiches - not shrink-wrapped.

BA lounge in Seattle

Before long, it was time to board. It was complete chaos with no lines forming, everyone just crowded in around a couple of ground crew. I stared blankly into space and waited for my turn, out of the way, probably completely zoned out because I woke up at 4am that morning to catch the 7am Alaska flight. Out of the blue, one of the ground crew member tapped me and said me I could board immediately without waiting. He must had seen my boarding pass or recognized me from the lounge? I gladly complied and got on the plane.

The cabin was very clean and understated. I usually like the slightly minimalist design of BA cabins. It's also rare to see a semi-designed light fixture hanging from the ceiling of an airplane, but there it was! Similar effect of the little reading lamp in BA first, it adds a tiny little bit of comfort to the eyes.

As you can see on this BA business class cabin, the passengers were mostly from a specific demographic group.

Club World cabin overview

I quickly settled into my seat 17G. I could not get any window seat online before and during check-in. Apparently, BA makes you pay money to reserve a business class seat in advance. On first class it's free though. Due to the very unique configuration of the business class cabin, I studied very hard to select seats that no-one had to walk over me to get to his/her seat. There were a few of them, you'll get what I mean from the SeatGuru seat map. The seats were alternating facing forward and backwards. You'd be very awkwardly facing a stranger in very close proximity in many of the seats. Luckily, the flight was hardly full and all seats around me were empty, except all the window seats.

Club World cabin overview

BA was able to cramp 8 lie-flat seats in each row. Privacy was compromised but there was a privacy divider during non meal times. I would really need to experience it to see how awkward it can be but I didn't have to find out this time! Yay!

The ottoman doubled up as a magazine rack when in its upright position. When it's time to sleep, one would turn the lever and fold it down to complete the fully lie-flat bed.

Seat 17G

Pre-departure drinks were quickly served and the flight attendants were extremely friendly but professional.

Seat 17G

Meal service commenced shortly after take off. Although the proximity of the seats and the high density of the cabin didn't make it feel especially luxurious, the food made up for it.