My final destination for this trip was Penang, Malaysia, so I connected to Dragonair (now called Cathay Dragon) in Hong Kong. The business class cabin was completely full for this flight, and I think the economy class cabin was almost completely full as well. This was a flight with a regional business class configuration, so…
My flight from Boston landed just before 5am, so the first lounge I checked out was the Plaza Premium lounge in the East Hall, which is open 24 hours and was one of the few lounges in the Hong Kong airport that I hadn’t been to before. Now, I’m not sure if it’s normally this…
On most flights, I typically like to sit on the right-hand side of the aircraft, but in Cathay Pacific first class, the seats on the left (1A and 2A) are more private since the center seats open up to the right-hand aisle. So on this flight, I had selected seat 1A. I will say that…
I flew Cathay Pacific out of Boston Logan to Hong Kong, and the flight departed at 1:45am. One benefit of a 1:45am flight out of Boston Logan is that security is pretty empty. The Cathay Pacific flight is the last flight of the night out of Logan out of that terminal. To get to the…
For my short hop from Helsinki to Budapest, I flew Finnair in business class on an A320. It was European business class, which just meant a blocked off middle seat. Even though the seat wasn’t any different from economy, there was a proper meal service on this flight. And they even had printed menus! There…
I wasn’t expecting much from the Finnair Schengen region lounge at Helsinki, but I was very pleasantly surprised by this lounge. First, I loved the design of the lounge. It felt airy and open with lots of cool furniture and lighting fixtures. There were large windows, so there was natural light. The lounge was pretty…
To get to this lounge, you need to go up a floor from the gates. It’s accessible via Priority Pass, which is how I entered. It’s worth noting that this is the only lounge in the non-Schengen area of the airport. The lounge was a pleasant place to sit for a little bit. There were…
2016 has been a great year, but relatively quieter for me in the travel department. I only flew 106,505 butt-in-seat miles, and I’ve stopped chasing status on airlines. While Alaska maintains an interesting loyalty program, many of the ways I (ab)used the other frequent flyer programs are no longer that accessible, which drastically changes the value proposition…
I had previously transited the Helsinki airport, but the Finnair Premium Lounge in the non-Schengen region did not exist at the time (the lounges I did visit include the Finnair lounge, the Almost@Home lounge, and the Aspire lounge). Finnair doesn’t have a first class product, so this lounge was opened essentially for oneworld emerald members….
I’ve flown Finnair before, but this was my first time flying Finnair in business class. Finnair doesn’t fly as much to North America (they used to fly to a number of destinations, but I believe only New York, Miami, and Chicago still have service, with San Francisco coming next year), but they seem to connect…
