After one fantastic trip around Europe, my return flight was a bit of a nail-biter. I had found saver premium economy award space on Air France for Christmas Eve. The trouble was making it back across the Atlantic and finding a connecting itinerary onwards to Las Vegas, all in time for Christmas with my family. Everything had to go right (knock on wood) in order for this to work.

Booking this trip

I found available saver award space in Economy and Premium Economy to Denver on Air France for 35k miles. Remember that Flying Blue considers the rest of Europe the same as just France. So crafting this itinerary didn’t take much work at all! In the end I paid 35k miles + $230 for a Premium seat with a coach leg from PRG to CDG.

While initially booked in Premium Economy, I started to just peruse the seat map for my connecting flight to Denver. An upgrade to Business was available for just about $320, and seat 1A in fact! That might have been the quickest I’ve ever hit that upgrade button.

Sidenote – an irresponsible start

The previous few nights, I scored a fantastic redemption at the Linder Prague Castle. Rooms were going at over 100 Euros, but it was a Hyatt category 1 hotel, which meant rooms were just 5k points a night (still by far my favorite transfer from Chase UR).

Well as I settled in for the final night, I accidentally set my alarm (Apple’s “wake up” function) for 4AM 2 days later (basically skipping a day).

Not sure how it happened, but I woke up suddenly around 5:15AM. Maybe the body just has an amazing and unique way of telling us something has gone wrong…But I had missed my Grab ride, 3 calls from the poor driver, and still had to pack everything to head out. By some stroke of luck, I manage to pack, get a Grab, get to the airport, through security, and to my gate, still with 10 minutes to spare before boarding.

My record of never having missed a flight remains intact. Oh, and yes this is a yet another example why I don’t check bags when travelling…

I guess now for both the start and end of my trip, I am both the luckiest and unluckiest person here. From rerouting through SFO, leaving my passport, and almost missing my flight back home, it somehow all worked out in the end.

The Air France Lounge – Terminal 2D

I didn’t stay long enough and take nearly enough pictures to warrant a separate post for this lounge. But overall I felt this was a significant step up from a lot of US airline lounges. It was spacious, the food and beverage selection was very good, and the croissants were phenomenal. Overall it’s very quiet since it’s not accessible with just a popular credit card like AmEx Platinum or C1 VentureX.

Maybe next time I’ll stay longer and try for a shower 🙂

Boarding + Seat

Part of the reason I pounced at this offer is because Seat 1A was still available. This is known as a “throne seat”, where the footwell is significantly larger due to there being no seat in front. Not as common on Collins Aerospace Super Diamond, but for the Reverse Herringbone seats, this is a HUGE addition. On some airplanes, this seat is blocked off for flight crew rest area. On Air France, these seats are blocked for elite members up until a day before departure.

The A350 cabin is just downright beautiful. Compared to the B777 cabin on my way eastbound, this cabin had a much newer feel. Waiting at each seat was an amenity kit, slippers, and bedding.

The seat also features a wireless charging pad on the side and individual US and USB sockets underneath the seat.

The light you see on the right is a cubby that holds the bolted-in noise-cancelling headphones. This cubby also had a bottle of Evian inside.

Each seat has a small Kindle-sized remote that controls the seat and also normally controls all the entertainment devices. The entertainment part was unfortunately inoperable on our entire flight. The crew tried resetting the system multiple times but it just wouldn’t wirelessly connect. Why make a remote connect over wifi? Beyond me…

My seat also has a small closet with a hanger for coats and shirts. Not sure if this is a unique feature of the throne seats with the extra space, but its certainly a nice to have!

The seat also has a sliding door that makes the whole space feel just that much more private.

The tray table comes out from the side and completely tucks away when not in use.

One minor design flaw of the seat is that there is no notch to route the headphone wires into. It felt like to close the cubby I had no choice but to damage the wire. Given that it’s not easy just to swap out the headphones for a new one (they were bolted in), this could be a problem as time goes on.

Lunch

Air France features quite an extensive inflight menu, especially for inflight dining

I opted to start with a glass of champagne (again, when in Rome…)

For a starter, there was a foie gras appetizer with a chilled mushroom salad, which were both delicious. I tried the Minervois 2020 Red, which was bold.

The flight steward for the Business Class section, Xavier, was very well-versed in wines, and he recommended me to try each course with a different wine. That explains the slight hesitation when I selected my first glass. For main course of mushroom quinoa he recommended switching to the Margaux 2019 Red, which did indeed pair well with mushrooms.

For dessert, we were served the chocolate “gourmet snack”.

After all our dishes were cleared, Xavier came around to each of us and handed us each three liquors to try…

Needless to say, I ended up being quite hungover that evening 🙂

Overall Thoughts

Air France has done a really good job with this new product. I really enjoyed the layout of the seat and hard product. I never felt cramped in this space and didn’t hit my knees on the tray table when trying to sleep. The “throne” seats might be some of the best in the sky – I’ll reserve my absolute opinions until after I’ve reviewed more seats, but OMAAT definitely thinks so.