Month: June 2016

Trip Report: Singapore to Washington DC (Flight 2: Tokyo to Toronto)

Flight 2 – Business Class:

  • Tokyo Narita to Toronto Canada
  • Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner
  • Operated by Air Canada

After disembarking from our ANA flight, we went through a short security line at Narita airport and then headed directly to the ANA lounge. After showing our onward boarding passes, we entered the lounge for some rest and food.

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Entrance to the ANA lounge at Tokyo, Narita
The lounge was relatively empty when we entered, but it quickly filled up. There were light food options and a decent choice of alcohol, including Japanese beer on tap. My favorite part of the ANA lounge was the small noodle bar where you could order ready made dishes. I had the Ramen noodles which were pretty good.

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The noodle chef hard at work
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Ramen noodles
The lounge we visited also had a nice viewing area where we could watch planes landing and taking off.

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Bar area to sit and watch the planes
While we were there, we spotted this Star Wars themed plane taxing for take-off.

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About 20 minutes before our Air Canada flight was due to start boarding, we headed to our gate. The Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner we were on had three classes of service: business, premium economy and economy. We boarded and found our seats in the business class compartment.

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Business class
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Air Canada has a modern, reverse herringbone setup on the 787 that allows each passenger direct aisle access. Upon boarding, the seats were pre-stocked with a basic amenity kit, slippers, a warm blanket, a pillow and a bottle of water.After takeoff, the flight attendants passed out noise cancelling headphones which I used throughout the flight.


After I drank a glass of sparkling wine my cold began to get worse and I felt increasingly sick throughout the flight.  As a result, I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the primary benefit of business class: kicking back with your legs up and a cold glass of champagne, while contemplating ones own sense of superiority (a feeling enhanced with the knowledge that the untold masses are suffering in the back of the plane with overcrowded bathrooms, zero leg room, and crying babies). Instead I was just thankful that I had a warm place to spread out and rest during the long flight.

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A drink and warm cashews
My dinner on board the plane was good, but I didn’t eat very much. IMG_5811.jpg

Seafood entree


Similar to the ANA flight, the entertainment options onboard the flight were underwhelming. Although I enjoyed the large, modern touchscreen, I wish Air Canada would invest in a few more movie and TV options. I ended up watching Mrs. Doubtfire (a classic) and How to Be Single (not too bad). The entertainment system came with a cool little mini control / viewing iPad that you could also watch TV and movies on.  I did not really use this during the flight.

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Individual entertainment system
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The flight actually went by fairly quickly, as I was able to sleep for several hours. In almost no time, the flight attendants were coming around with breakfast and we were preparing to land in Toronto.

For the novice long-haul business class traveller, especially one using points, there is always that conflict and tension between getting a good night’s rest and staying awake as long as possible so one can partake, and “maximize”, all that business class has to offer (good alcohol, decent gourmet food, better entertainment systems, one’s own smug sense of superiority (as discussed above), etc.). As I was not feeling well, I was happy to be in business class so I could sleep in relative comfort. I think if I had been sitting in the back of the plane, the trip would have been near unbearable.

In the next blog post I will write about the Toronto airport, U.S. immigration (in Canada) and our return to lowly economy for the last leg of our trip to Washington D.C.

Trip Report: Singapore to Washington DC (Flight 1: SG to Tokyo)

Last week, Amy and I travelled back to the U.S. from Singapore. We used my entire balance of United MileagePlus frequent flyer miles, along with several thousand points transferred from my Chase Sapphire Preferred account, to book our business class flights. This is my trip report.

Flight 1 – Business Class: 

  • Singapore to Tokyo Narita
  • Boeing 777-300ER
  • Operated by ANA All Nippon Airways

The first leg of our trip departed from Singapore at 6:00am. ANA operates out of Terminal 2 at Singapore’s Changi airport. In my opinion, Terminal 2 is the most outdated terminal in Singapore’s otherwise modern and easily accessible airport.

While checking in at the ANA Business class counter, our taxi driver ran in to the airport to find us. We had overpaid by $10 and he was bringing us our change. I took this as a good sign: a favorable start to a long trip.

After checking in, we proceeded through Singapore immigration. Changi airport performs security scanning on an individual gate basis. In my opinion, this is far superior to the normal security process where all passengers are bottlenecked into the same long security line. However, I understand Changi’s New Terminal 4, which is currently under construction, will employ a traditional, airport-wide security process.

After passing through immigration, we proceeded to the KrisFlyer Business Class Lounge. As we were flying business class on a Star Alliance airline (which includes Singapore Airlines), we were entitled to use the Singapore lounge.

Entrance to the KrisFlyer lounges in Terminal 2

The business class lounge and the first class lounge are side by side in Terminal 2. We presented out boarding passes and entered the Business class side.


As it was still early, the lounge was fairly empty. A light buffet was available along with plenty of drink options, both coffees and alcoholic choices.

Business class lounge buffet
Self-serve bar at the lounge
Coffee machine
Plenty of available seating

Just in case, there were computer terminals and even booths to make private phone calls in.

Computer terminals
Phone booths

The food in the lounge was good but nothing amazing. We waited in the relative quiet of the lounge until about 30 minutes before our flight was due to depart. After quickly going through the gate’s security line (there was almost no one in line by the time we got there), we boarded the large 777 and found our seats.

I did not explore the back of the plane, but the business class section was almost completely empty.

lots of empty business class seats

The ANA 777 we were on offers a staggered 1-2-1 business class arrangement with direct aisle access for all seats.

For the aisle seats, every other seat is flush with the window, in my opinion these seats offer the most privacy as they are blocked from the aisle by the storage and tray table area.

business class seat flush with the window

The business class seats were adjustable into fully flat beds. When extended, I found the beds to offer more than enough space for sleeping comfortably.

After boarding I took my seat, 5F, and settled in. We were offered newspapers in Japanese and English and a welcome drink of orange juice, water or sparkling wine. The pre-flight drinks were served in plastic cups.

welcome drink in a plastic cup

We left the gate shortly after the doors closed and taxied for only a few minutes.

After a smooth takeoff, the seat belt sign was turned off and I explored the forward business class cabin.

Business class seat at boarding
View of the flight plan halfway through the trip

The individual screens for each passenger were large and easy to operate. However, I was a bit underwhelmed  by the entertainment options. Although there were approximately 32 “new releases” available, many of these were actually duplications of the same movie in different languages.

I like to watch breezy comedies on long flights, so I opted for the Robert De Niro and Zac Efron movie, Dirty Grandpa. Unfortunately, the movie was neither breezy nor funny. It was unquestionably the worst movie I’ve seen in a long time. In addition, there appeared to be issues of continuity regarding the feeble and predictable plot. I think this was due to ANA censoring certain aspects of the movie (i.e. sex and drugs), but it is also possible the movie was just poorly edited. Either way, I have no plans to re-watch it and find out.

 

Dinner onboard the flight

The flight attendants in business class were attentive and friendly. The food was okay but not exceptional – but I guess that is to be expected given that we were on a plane. The fruit was my favorite part of the meal above.

Japan from the air as we approached Narita

It was a beautiful day as we made our approach to Tokyo’s Narita.  Overall, the flight was relaxing and comfortable. It was especially enjoyable given how quiet business class was (I’m pretty sure I had a bathroom all to myself).  We were first off the plane (we passed a small first class compartment with a single passenger) and after clearing a short security line, we headed for the ANA lounge.

Trip Report: Singapore to Washington DC (Introduction)

A few months ago, Amy and I began to plan our trip home this summer. At the time, I was beginning to worry that future airline mile devaluations could further erode my Chase Ultimate Rewards point balance. Rather than continue to stockpile points (a depreciating and unpredictable asset), I thought it would be a good time to use some of our points to fly back home in (relative) comfort.

Through the Chase Sapphire web portal, it is possible to transfer miles to a large number of frequent flyer programs that operate from Singapore including United, Korean Air and Singapore Airlines.

In general, Singapore and Korean offer superior products. However, the United website is far easier to use and provides availability through several Star Alliance partner airlines. After searching all three websites I found a good flight on the United website with two business class seats available. Our one way itinerary was the following:

Flight 1 – Business Class:

  • Singapore to Tokyo Narita
  • Boeing 777-300ER
  • Operated by the Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA)

Flight 2 – Business Class:

  • Tokyo Narita to Toronto Canada
  • Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner
  • Operated by Air Canada

Flight 3 – Economy:

  • Toronto Canada to Washington DC (Dulles)
  • Bombardier CRJ-200
  • Operated by Air Canada Express – Air Georgian

We were able to book the above itinerary using a combination of existing United Miles and transferring Chase Ultimate Reward points to my United account. In all, the above itinerary cost 80,000 points for each ticket and approximately US$55.00.

If we had purchased the tickets instead of using miles, they would have cost anywhere from US$8,000 to US$10,000 for the pair.

Occasionally, there are some inconveniences with booking partner awards on the United website. In this case, we were able to pick our seats on the first leg of the itinerary (i.e., the flight operated by ANA) but not on the second and third legs (the Air Canada flights). Rather annoyingly, Air Canada does not allow travelers who purchase their tickets on partner airlines to pick their Air Canada seats until they check in for the flight.

I will write more about the flights in future posts, but I’ve included a few preliminary photos below. Unfortunately, I left Singapore just as I was coming down with a bit of a cold. So although the business class seats were fantastic, and far superior to the equivalent in Coach, I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the business class experience.

Our ANA 777 after landing in Tokyo

Our Air Canada 787-9 Dreamliner