Spec me an Airline

Vanquish-Storm · 2 Aug 2016 at 09:39

What would you say a sensible price was for flights?

£800 for 2 people return? £2000?

Most likely from Manchester - it may be cheaper from Heathrow but we would need to add in the cost of getting to Heathrow.

MacRS4 · 2 Aug 2016 at 10:10

I fly a lot, and my preference in airline is Emirates, Virgin, Singapore....anything but BA.

The question on upgrade or not - for me - often comes down to the planes. A380 long haul in Cattle doesn't compare to say 14 hour long haul on a 777 or 747. I'd not bother upgrading on a '380, but absolutely would/do on a 777/747.

On Virgin for example Premium Economy is excellent, and not punitive cost wise.

The routes I'm usually on are NYC<->London (Virgin usually), and then UK -> Aus, who I usually use Emirates for.

ScarySquirrel · 2 Aug 2016 at 10:14

If you go to Thailand I'd highly recommend Thai Airways, we flew to Bangkok with them, and a few internal flights too, and they were amazing.

Vanquish-Storm · 6 Aug 2016 at 10:58

Ended up booking to Thailand going with Etihad Airways.

I heard they do a bidding system for upgrading flights I might have a look at that.

Conanius · 6 Aug 2016 at 11:40

We went to Bali for our Honeymoon, flying with Malaysian Airlines through KL, and went to Thailand (Koh Samui) a year later flying with Singapore Airlines through Singapore.

Both airlines were good, and I regret not spending a few days in the stop over location. If I did it again, I'd have done something like:

LHR -> KL (Few days there) ->Bali -> HK/Singapore/etc -> LHR

It is a long old jaunt out there, so it would be worth the relatively minor uplift in cost to achieve this.

With regards where to go, we loved Bali - we stayed here - http://www.spavillageresort.com/tembokbali/pages/accommodation.html and it was amazing. Very small (30 rooms) and the staff were amazing.

Lots to do there, Kopi Luwak Plantation was brilliant, and the markets in Ubud are worth exploring too.

tres · 25 Aug 2016 at 07:08

Vanquish-Storm said:
Ended up booking to Thailand going with Etihad Airways.

I heard they do a bidding system for upgrading flights I might have a look at that.

Just got back from flying with them from Thailand.

I heard about the bidding system. Apparently it's a minimum of 300 quid.
On our return leg, we both got a very random upgrade for free to business class. So strange, but the best flying experience of my life. Etihad are wonderful.

N17 · 25 Aug 2016 at 10:09

Yorkshire Airlines, Rhyl Airways

Vanquish-Storm · 25 Aug 2016 at 11:13

tres said:
Just got back from flying with them from Thailand.

I heard about the bidding system. Apparently it's a minimum of 300 quid.
On our return leg, we both got a very random upgrade for free to business class. So strange, but the best flying experience of my life. Etihad are wonderful.

Did you receive any emails about the bidding system?

Where about in Thailand did you go?

Hopefully with it being our honeymoon they will take pity on us and give us a free upgrade!

Roar87 · 25 Aug 2016 at 11:25

MacRS4 said:
I fly a lot, and my preference in airline is Emirates, Virgin, Singapore....anything but BA.

The question on upgrade or not - for me - often comes down to the planes. A380 long haul in Cattle doesn't compare to say 14 hour long haul on a 777 or 747. I'd not bother upgrading on a '380, but absolutely would/do on a 777/747.

On Virgin for example Premium Economy is excellent, and not punitive cost wise.

The routes I'm usually on are NYC<->London (Virgin usually), and then UK -> Aus, who I usually use Emirates for.

It's £577 for an upgrade for my flight to Orlando from Economy to Premium Economy, and would be the same for the return leg... that's a fair whack for most people surely, for what's essentially just 9 hours of your life. Obviously it's all relative though and depends on how much you earn

a1ex2001 · 25 Aug 2016 at 12:47

Roar87 said:
It's £577 for an upgrade for my flight to Orlando from Economy to Premium Economy, and would be the same for the return leg... that's a fair whack for most people surely, for what's essentially just 9 hours of your life. Obviously it's all relative though and depends on how much you earn

The only upgrade I've ever paid for was a random premium economy on BA to Argentina that cost about £70 if your talking hundreds I'd never bother as I'd far rather spend the money on something extra when I get there. It's not like you suddenly get perfect peace and quiet and a lay flat bed in premium economy!

lunar · 25 Aug 2016 at 14:08

Etihad are very good when I went to Abu Dhabi; great food and hostesses. They start with a prayer prior to take-off. If I can recollect there might have been a prayer before commencing to eat, 'Good food, good meat, good God lets eat.'

tres · 25 Aug 2016 at 16:47

Vanquish-Storm said:
Did you receive any emails about the bidding system?

Where about in Thailand did you go?

Hopefully with it being our honeymoon they will take pity on us and give us a free upgrade!

We flew from Bangkok (worked/studied there for 8 weeks then had 3 weeks on the islands)

I hope you get one. It was truly amazing.

tres · 25 Aug 2016 at 16:52

lunar said:
Etihad are very good when I went to Abu Dhabi; great food and hostesses. They start with a prayer prior to take-off. If I can recollect there might have been a prayer before commencing to eat, 'Good food, good meat, good God lets eat.'

We didn't see/hear/do any prayers from Abu Dhabi

Cryfreeman · 25 Aug 2016 at 19:46

Thailand?

Thai,Etihad,Eva and Malay are all good but direct is a far better option so Thai

Dont ever use air china,like ever,ever ever. Flight,food and transfer at Beijing are all hideous

ThundyCat · 25 Aug 2016 at 20:04

[TW]Fox;29853755 said:
Deposit? Surely the full payment is required at the time of booking unless it's some sort of package holiday. A scheduled airline offering flights only and not requiring payment then and there would be odd.

Singapore Airlines are excellent.

We flew with Singapore airlines and used a company called Charter travel who took a deposit with us paying balance paid in full by a set date. This was flights only.

wez130 · 25 Aug 2016 at 22:05

[TW]Fox;29853755 said:
Deposit? Surely the full payment is required at the time of booking unless it's some sort of package holiday. A scheduled airline offering flights only and not requiring payment then and there would be odd.

Singapore Airlines are excellent.

We managed this last year with netflights via Thomas cook, we paid a £400 pp deposit for our flights to NZ with Emirates with the remainder having to be paid 12 weeks before we flew.

lunar · 25 Aug 2016 at 22:06

tres said:
We didn't see/hear/do any prayers from Abu Dhabi

You sure it was Etihad Airways. Certainly they announce the prayer on the tannoy.

tres · 26 Aug 2016 at 05:34

lunar said:
You sure it was Etihad Airways. Certainly they announce the prayer on the tannoy.

Yep, had four flights with them recently, both economy and business class.
Are you sure you didn't just hear the Arabic version of the safety briefing?!

lunar · 26 Aug 2016 at 22:58

Yes I recall it was a prayer.
Sounded rather 'final'

inferno · 26 Aug 2016 at 23:30

They used to do a prayer that was very obvious and did sound quite final, now it has been toned down quite a bit.