The 5 Airlines & Seats I’m Determined To Review This Year

Last year I was able to tick off most of the airlines and products I’ve wanted to trial, and that made me quite pleased. This year is going to be a lot bigger than last and with that brings products that I haven’t really touched on or talked minimally about.

If you haven’t already seen my post on the products I have booked already and are coming up, I’d suggest you take a look here before reading on.

Delta One Suites

I’ve personally only flown on Delta a few times and overall I thought they were pretty standard, nothing too special really, although that was domestically. In 2016, the Atlanta based carrier announced that they would be introducing a new business class product on their A350’s as well as 777’s that the airline already has in its fleet. As you can see from the image below, the suites are fitted with closeable doors giving passengers a significant amount of privacy. The only other suites styles of business class I’ve flown is actually Delta’s best friend,  the Qatar Airways Qsuite 😉

I’m hoping to fly the product on a long-haul and service, and luckily, the airline actually operates the One suites to Sydney which is hugely convenient and would also mean having to skip going up into Asia and beyond.

The other good thing about Delta is their partnership with Virgin Australia. If I want to redeem points for D1, I’ll be using 95,500 Velocity points one-way.

Delta One Suites

Swiss Business Class

After having an ”utterly flawless” experience on Lufthansa, I thought it’d be a cool idea to see how their partner Swiss operates. For one, the business class product alone looks miles better and at least comes with direct aisle access.  Switzerland is a country I’ve wanted to visit for years, and I would actually like to stay for a few days and look around. While I would love to fly their first class, redeeming for it is basically impossible unless you’re a HON Circle member or you’re able to find a cheap fare through some exciting routing.

Swiss operates a number of long-hauls to Asia, so that’s probably the best way for me to try them. When redeeming for Swiss, I’ll most likely make use of some Lifemiles I have left after making my Thai first booking.

The XL Vantage is very similar to what you’ll find on Qantas as well as Malaysia Airlines, and you can see the very close similarities in the image below:

Swiss 777 Business Class

ANA Business Class

I’m ashamed to admit this when asked, but I have only flown on one of the leading Japanese carriers, and it’s JAL. ANA has only started to expand in Australia over the past few years, and it’s great to see. What excites me the most about the carrier is their virtually brand new business and first class products on the 777-300ER. You may be thinking that seat below looks crazy wide and is for first, but no, pictured below is their new business seat – how beautiful and spacious does that look!

I’d really love to do first on the 777, but for now, I think I’m going to try focus on the business class product as to me, that’s the most significant upgrade the aircraft has seen.

To fly ANA business class, I’ll be redeeming Virgin Atlantic miles which can be transferred from select American Express and Diners Club credit cards.

ANA Business Class

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class

Here’s another carrier that I haven’t yet flown, Britain’s second-biggest airline – Virgin Atlantic. The London based airline serves a variety of different destinations, and they’ve also been recently taking delivery of their newer A350 aircraft which are fitted with their new ‘Upper Class.’

For this flight, I’ll most likely be trying to fly it on a flight from either London to New York or vice versa. Velocity points will once again be of great use, and interestingly, this is one of the better-valued redemptions that are possible with the Velocity program.

If I want to redeem Velocity points for Virgin Atlantic upper class, I’ll be using a total of 59,500 points one-way for the New York service.

Virgin Atlantic A350 Upper Class

Gulf Air

If you’ve been reading the blog for a long time, you’ll know I love my middle eastern airlines. I’ve flown Etihad, Emirates and Qatar countless times now and as fantastic as they are, it’s always nice to try something else, and that’s what I did with Oman. Gulf Air would be a new airline for me, and it would also mean visiting Bahrain, which would be interesting.

Their new business class on their 787’s are Apex suites which are the same as Oman but obviously with different touches and finishes.

Redeeming for Gulf Air will also be relatively easy as you can now redeem Etihad Guest miles and luckily for me, they’re pretty easy to attain in Australia, and I have some expiring soon which I may look at using for this.

Gulf Air New Business Class

Overall

I’ve got travel coming up to the USA in April for the Freddie Awards, so I’m thinking I’ll try review Delta suites over to the US and hopefully backtrack somehow getting on Virgin and Swiss – it’ll make for a fun few reviews.

As for the ANA and Gulf Air flights, those I’m trying to fit into a trip mid-year, but I’ll update as time goes on. As well as these flights, I have a few international economy flights as well which will be reviewed.