Eating the Big Apple: United Airlines BusinessFirst Class JFK-SFO

***This is part 5 of my "Eating the Big Apple" trip report detailing my recent visit to New York City last month***

1. Looking for Food Heaven? Its At Smorgasburg
2. Dinner at Per Se
3. JW Marriott Essex House
4. Eating Our Way Through NYC
5. United Airlines: BusinessFirst Class JFK-SFO
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As I wrote about last week in my mid-year report as a new Alaska Airlines MVP Gold, the elite benefit that I'm the biggest fan of is fee waivers, even on revenue tickets. This has completely changed the way that I've been making flight reservations, which has now become more akin to hotel bookings where I can make non-committal reservations to put a ceiling on the price I'll have to pay, while continuing to monitor for better deals.

That's how things played out for my return from from New York to San Francisco. I had a reservation for a flight on American Airlines booked through Alaska Airlines, but was keeping an eye out both for better priced deals, as well as premium cabin award tickets. Flying westbound from JFK-SFO comes in around 6 hours which is one of the longest domestic flights out there, and many carriers offer a form of premium service for that route. So while I'm not normally looking to spend miles on premium cabin domestic tickets, this is one route where it can make sense to do so. American and United both have a premium service offering, and there are even options available like JFK-YVR on Cathay Pacific.

I'd been monitoring award availability starting a month out, and with limited flexibility I was crossing my fingers that something would open up on the date I was looking for. As luck would have it, a couple days before I was scheduled to return I was able to grab a BusinessFirst ticket on United. It was a perfect use for my remaining 23,000 United miles, and while the total cost was 25,000 miles, it was easy enough to instantly transfer the extra 2,000 miles needed from Chase Ultimate Rewards. The only downside was the fact that I had to pay a close-in ticketing fee as a general member.

My flight was scheduled for a 10:25am departure, so I jumped in an UberX from the JW Marriott Essex House around 8am. Traffic wasn't too bad until closer to the airport, and in total the ride took just under an hour. I zipped through security and headed over to the JFK United Club and for once, I was able to find a United Club that wasn't crowded at all. That allowed me to commandeer an entire section to relax and have some breakfast.

Entrance at the United Club at JFK

View of the tarmac from United Club at JFK

United Club food selection

Breakfast of champions

Around T-40 I headed toward the gate - it's always a good start to your journey when the plane is already sitting at the gate, and boarding even commenced a couple minutes early. While I never had the chance to fly the 3-cabin Premium Service flight on United, I was pretty impressed walking into the BusinessFirst cabin on this 2-cabin flight. The cabin feels pretty new and the hard product is pretty much the same as United's international Business Class seats.

 

BusinessFirst on United's Premium Cabin service from JFK to SFO

Seatback IFE screen

Plenty of legroom

IFE control

After getting settled in, the flight attendants came by with the lunch menu, as well as a basket of additional amenities from which I grabbed a paid of eyeshades and ear plugs.

Menu, earplugs, eye shades

Menu

We took off on-time, and it was announced that we'd have an early arrival. At this point, I was in a bit of shock since I couldn't remember the last time I had a United flight that was going so smoothly. Meal service started a few minutes later, and I was excited to see the pork chop on the menu which I'd had last year while flying First Class San Francisco to Sydney. Meal service started with drink service and nuts, along with a cold appetizer and salad which were fine, but nothing special.

I sat there in anticipation of getting my entree, but unfortunately it was severely overcooked this time around and tasted more like shoe leather than a pork chop. The savory bread pudding was delicious though, and I gladly would have traded in the pork chop for a couple more servings of that. After the main course, meal service wrapped up with the ice cream sundae cart, which was great as usual. You can't really screw that one up, can you?

Drink service and nuts

Lunch service - salad and appetizer

Chilled appetizer of beef, tomato, and mozzarella

Grilled pork chop, asparagus, and savory bread pudding

Ice cream sundae

After the meal service I kicked back and relaxed, dozed in and out and sleep, and watched a couple movies including The Grand Budapest Hotel which I can't recommend highly enough. The flight attendants were very attentive, and came by every few minutes to offer refills of water.

Overall, a great flight with United and a really pleasant experience with their transcon Premium Service offering. Despite all of my prior bad experiences, had no complaints this time with the on-time departure, early arrival, great service, and comfortable seat. Like many of you, I like to hoard miles to spend on international premium cabin redemptions, but given the length of this flight and the quality of the product, I woudln't hesitate to book it again using miles.

Honeymooning RTW in 21 Days: San Francisco to Sydney - United Airlines First Class

• San Francisco to Sydney: United Airlines First Class
• Eating Our Way Through Sydney + Hilton Sydney 
• Road Trip to the Blue Mountains + Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort + Spa
• Diving at the Great Barrier Reef, Day Trip to Port Douglas + Hilton Cairns
• Stopover in Brisbane to Cuddle Koalas + Hilton Brisbane
• Brisbane to Male via Singapore: Singapore Airlines Business Class
• Conrad Maldives Rangali Island
• Extended Layover in Sri Lanka before ex-CMBing + Amangalla
• Colombo to London via Dubai: Emirates First Class
• Spending the Day at the Dubai Mall + Emirates First Class Terminal
• London to San Francisco: British Airways First Class

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The much anticipated day had finally arrived, and we were ready to kick off our honeymoon. Since Australia was the #1 destination we wanted to include in our trip, I had booked it early on (close to T-330) using 80,000 United miles each. I knew that award bookings to Australia are among the toughest to get and didn't want to miss out on having at least something. In the mean time, I began to explore more exotic routings via Asia with the hopes of flying some combination of SQ/CX/TG/KE/NH F, but as soon as my wife realized that I was thinking about purposefully adding connections, she put her foot down and that was the end of that. Note to self: next time leave out the fact that there's a direct flight option, even though I'm not sure I could keep a straight face when telling her that SFO-HKG-BKK-SYD is the fastest way to get to Australia

So in the end, the choices were pretty limited since I was only looking at direct flights, and with the lack of Qantas F space, we stuck to the original plan of flying United. Our flight out of SFO was scheduled for a 10:30pm departure, which was actually perfect since it allowed us to squeeze in an extra day of work before leaving, and the redeye would let us get a full night of sleep before arriving in Sydney at 7am.

We arrived at the airport around 8:30pm and check-in was a breeze. Even though we would be gone for 3 weeks we had managed to squeeze everything into a carry-on each and opted to not check our bags. This actually turned out to be the only flight where we were allowed to carry-on, so looking back we probably should just have brought the big suitcases. Security was still light at this time of day since the flights to Asia weren't departing until later, and within a few minutes we were all settled in at the United Global First Lounge. I had visited the lounge earlier in the year and knew what to expect, but did find the lounge much less crowded this time around. The food offerings looked like they had been sitting around since mid-day so I grazed sparingly, also knowing that we'd have a full meal in just a couple hours.

Around 10pm we headed to our departure gate and boarded the plane and took our seats 1A and 1K. Even though these two seats aren't adjacent, I think that these are the best seats for those traveling with a companion, as the middle seats don't offer much privacy. 1A and 1K feel very private since they're in the front and were definitely close enough together to still be able to carry a conversation.

This was my 2nd flight in United Global First and similar to my NRT-SFO flight earlier this year, the service, food, and overall experience were all very good and exceeded my expectations. Even though the First Class cabin was full, we still received extremely attentive service throughout. The dinner was actually quite good with the entrees being a highlight (my wife's pork chop was honestly the biggest I've ever seen), and of course you can't go wrong with an ice cream sundae. Turn down service was proactively offered (wasn't on my NRT-SFO flight) and aside from a relatively heavy snorer seated behind me, I slept pretty comfortably and with the help of a Benadryl was able to doze off for a good 7-8 hours, leaving me feeling nice and refreshed by the time we landed in Sydney.

Overall, a very pleasant flight with United. Ironically, I had been much more excited about our British Airways F flight that we'd be taking on the way home, which I would later discover would be a complete letdown. The United flight was hands down better in all aspects, but more to come on that later

Dinner Menu


Dessert/Breakfast Menu


Table Setting


IFE Screen (highly recommend Monsters U!)


Appetizer


Mushroom Brie Bisque (way more delicious than it looks)


Salad


Osso Bucco Chicken Entree


Pork Chop Entree


Cheese and Dessert

Bali-Tree: Thai Airways First Class BKK-NRT, UA First Class NRT-SFO

• Introduction
• ANA First Class SFO-NRT
• Thai Airways First Class NRT-BKK
• Exploring Bangkok, Royal Orchid Sheraton
• Thai Airways Business Class BKK-DPS
• Bali Part I: Kuta, Padangbai
• Bali Part II: Gili Trawangan, Seminyak
• Thai Airways BKK First Class Lounge and Spa
• Thai Airways First Class BKK-NRT, UA First Class NRT-SFO

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We left the lounge and headed to the gate and the boarding process was a breeze.  From check-in through to boarding, Thai really does the best job of acknowledging premium cabin passengers, and could be somewhat of a case study for some of our airlines at home.  I'm looking at you, United.

TG 642
BKK-NRT
Seat 2A

The flight from BKK-NRT was scheduled for a brief 6 hours and while I went in thinking I was going to stay up and really enjoy the experience, tiredness and food coma quickly took a hold of me and I spent the majority of the flight asleep.  The sum total of the time spent awake during this flight couldn't have been more than 45 minutes to an hour.  It's actually a good learning experience, since in the future if I really want to experience a specific airline, I'll need to make sure it's a daytime flight. 

The reason that I wish I had spent more time awake was due to the fact that this particular flight would be on one of the 777-300ER's leased from Jet Airways.  That meant that the first class cabin would feature suites with closing doors.  While there's certainly a "cool" factor with having your own private door on a plane, we both felt like the cabin seemed quite dated and lacked some of the updates found on the newer TG first class cabins.  However, the bed on the plane was very comfortable, and in the end I really did appreciate the closed suite as it gives everything a different feeling that allows you to relax without anyone looking in or being distracted by foot traffic going by.

Shortly after takeoff we were served a small snack of an appetizer and soup, but I wasn't hungry at all having eaten half of the things on the lounge menu already.  Shortly before landing, another light meal was served, although it must not have been very memorable since I can't recall how a single thing tasted.

One final thought on Thai - I'm curious if anyone knows just how many different amenity kits they have in circulation. On four different flights (2 in first, 2 in business), I received four completely different brands of amenity kit bag, filled with four completely different brands of toiletries.  I guess TG isn't big on any exclusive partnerships from the amenity kit standpoint.

777-300ER first class suite

small meal served after takeoff

do not disturb!

mood lighting

After landing, we had a long 8+ hour layover scheduled in NRT and while my friend decided to check out the city, I was more than content to park my butt at the lounges.  The first stop was the United Global First lounge, which is located on the upper floor of the United Club.  Given the early morning arrival, I was one of the first people there and was nice having the place to myself for a couple hours. However, I didn't find the food spread here very appetizing, and eventually made my way over to the ANA Suites lounge.

Once there, I grabbed a private cubicle and was actually quite impressed as it's probably the nicest cubicle I've been in at an airport lounge.  There is a very large TV and workspace area and comfortable seat with footstool, which provided a great place to relax and nap on/off.  The food options at the lounge are also pretty decent, with a full noodle bar and some hot options such as curry and stir fry available, along with finger foods such as sandwiches and sushi.  I also took a shower and was given a small shower amenity kit with Shisheido shampoo/soap to use.  I ended up using the small packets of generic soap they provided and added the nice stuff to the stockpile I had already accumulated along the way.

United Global First lounge

minimal food spread at United lounge

ANA Suites cubicle

entertaining view from the ANA lounge

UA 838
NRT-SFO
Seat 2K

My flight from NRT-SFO was the last flight of my trip, and also the one that I had been checking non-stop during my trip to see if I could swap out for something better.  In true first-world problems fashion I was dreading the flight because it'd be on United, albeit in first class.  I was even looking for alternative routings up to the minute I left the lounge for boarding, and as you can probably tell had really low expectations for the flight.

Well, to my surprise, United blew away my expectations for this flight.  Does that mean it was as good as my ANA or TG flights?  Not even close.  But the food, seat, and amenity kit, were much better than I was expecting.  And to top it off, the part I was worried about was the service, ended up being the best part of the flight as I found it to be especially good and left me pleasantly surprised.  Perhaps I've become a bit jaded or influenced by the number of negative things I've heard recently about United, but I personally have yet to encounter anything in-flight that left me scathing (only thing in recent memory was on the ground which was a 12+ hour delay for a SFO-LAX flight when United's computers decided to take the day off).  Hopefully this doesn't jinx me for any upcoming flights, but I thought that I'd thrown in a good word for United when it was certainly deserved.

making a mess in my seat

fully stocked amenity kit

United's attempt at a Kaiseki meal

can't go wrong with an ice cream sundae