The taxpayers and the National Enquirer would love to hear that.
Do you despoil her in Coach or in First Class? I mean, do you go back and make a choice and have her delivered or what? We need details, I think.
So, I’m quite the newbie, and young at that—what’s a hot towel used for?
Hey, when you’re in First Class or Business Class, you can use it for any dang thing you want! Usually, though, you use it to refresh the tender bits.
On Northwest, between Seattle and Amsterdam: Five first-run movies! On personal movie screens! Unlimited booze! Big seats! Gourmet meals! Lots’o’snacks®! [Hi Opal]! I make that (and the return) trip every four weeks, and I have no complaints. Since my travel is 26 hours each way, flying in Business Class makes the trip more bearable.
A hot towel is to wipe your hands, and most people also take the time to steam their faces a little. If you are offered a hot towel note two things: a.) it’s hot; and b.) it’s to refresh you before your meal, not to have a sponge bath with in your seat.
whistlepig, I’m curious about this senator. Was this on a flight to Montana? Is this someone who is currently serving? Give us some hints, you can’t drop a story like that blind, sir, it’s unsporting!
for wiping down your hands before a meal - just make sure its a towel not a crepe appertif
Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic, heaven itself!
Just out of curiousity, I looked on travelocity.com to see the price differences. A round trip ticket from NYC to London, in the middle of march (figured that’s not a very busy time), ran around 350 to 400 bucks in economy class. First class was between $8000 and $10000! Is this the normal price difference?
Y’know, I flew first class once. I barely even remember it. I usually just snooze on flights, no matter how long they are, so I don’t really remember much about it afterwards. Heck, I don’t even remember how comfortable the seats were. I do remember being briefly awakened by some bozo with a hot towel. That’s about it.
I got upgraded coming back from the Caribbean. It was wonderful! Great food, lovely lovely huge seats you can flatten and really sleep on, nobody’s knee in your back, you get on first, you get off first, no squalling brats, good movies, and attentive service (More wine sir? Another bread roll sir? Would you like to rub my tits, sir? OK, not quite.).
I got bumped up to first class on a flight from Detroit to Las Vegas and have to say that it was nice, but there wasn’t all that much of a difference. This was an American Airlines flight. I got refreshments before we departed, the seats were nice and big, and the food was slightly better, but that was pretty much it. There was nothing extraordinary about being in first class on that particular flight.
When I was living in CT, BA had an offer - a free first-class ticket anywhere in the world if you buy a first-class round trip from JFK to LHR (London). I got really excited. Then I got the price: $8 grand. This was a few years ago, too. First class is insanely expensive, but as Richard Branson says, they maek it possible for economy class passengers to fly at all.
Sorry, but First Class on Emirates Airlines new A340s are as good as it gets!
Once I was flying first class and you know how they let you board first? Well I’m glad I did board and didnt’ hang out in the first class lounge. The flight was overbooked and a guy showed up just before flight time with my exact same seat assignment. He had to wait or move to coach and get a refund. They didn’t bug me about it at all. (TWA btw)
First class? Feh, last time I had to fly for business we were on a corporate jet (actually, the “business trip” was a long weekend in the Bahamas). Now THAT’S travel. The company gave my brother a 2003 Jaguar convertible as a Xmas bonus - the cigarette business must be good.
I got bumped up to 1st class once. It was quite an experience. I worked for this company that would send me out to refineries and tank farms to measure those huge round steel tanks that hold gasoline. This company was notorious for giving us just a couple hours notice that we would be going so this engineer and I, a draftsman, barely had time to make the plane much less eat lunch so we snagged some McDonalds on the way and carried it on the plane with us. We were excited to be bumped up to 1st class as neither of us had flown that way before. The prissy little steward, however, was not amused at this man and girl (I was about 19 or 20 at the time) dressed in company tee-shirts, jeans and steel-toed boots carrying fast food onto HIS first class section. We also carried backpacks full of things that would never be allowed in carry on luggage now with hard hats dangling from them. The steward just looked at us a moment too long and sniffed, “McDonalds, where did you find one of those?” I know he was just trying to be condescending by pointing out our choice of food but he managed to look incredibly stupid as well as ticking us off at the same time. From then on we just had to act like country bumpkins to get under his skin. Bob, the engineer with me, just went on and on about how soft the leather seats were. He observed loudly that it must have taken a very large nougha that made his chair (You know, noughahide). We scarfed down our McWhatevers and then were surprised to be given a choice of menu for lunch (coach had no lunch at all) so we chose something and scarfed that down as well. Then the steward extended silver tongs our way to offer a hot, moist towelette. When I grabbed mine I said, “Wow this diaper wipe is warm and everything! Kewl!”
Needless to say, we really got under his skin and amused the people around us who were very nice and mostly businessmen from the oil industry like us. It was a fun trip.
Since in my opinion economy class on Emirates is getting close to first class on other airlines, I can’t imagine how good first class is. If you’ve flown as such, I envy you!
Oh yeah, I forgot about the amenity- a cute little zipper bag with all the good toiletries, some candy, etc, plust the socks and eye thingy.
1st class runs about 10 times the cost of coach, as a general rule (or at least, it used to when I followed it).
I have never paid for a first class ticket, but I upgrade usuing miles or fly business class.
This is gonna be so cool. It will make the intervening 5 days with my family bearable.
My dad was a salesman and later an exec at a large corporation before hanging out his own shingle. This was back when companies always flew you first class, and back when frequent flier miles really meant something. He flew all over the world, and often he would take the family with him. We went on frequent vacations as well. Let me tell you, nothing is funnier than the way businessmen look at you when you walk into the first class cabin of a BA flight to London with a couple of small kids in tow.
My dad actually loves to tell the horribly embarassing story of the time I (at maybe five) peeped through the curtain to coach and said loudly 'Daddy, why would anyone want to sit back there?"
Back when I was growing up, first class, even on an international flight, was not nearly as nice as it is now-a-days. They did let you haul just about anything on the plane, though. For example, I remember my mom carrying a plastic babygate on board and wedging it between the seat and the bulkhead to set my sister up with a ‘playpen’ in front of thier seats.
I know now that some international airlines have these pod things for first class seats. They’re almost like little rooms. This design is, I assume, based on the idea 99% of first class travelers are businessmen alone. This does, however, make booking international travel for my boss (our CEO) and his family problematic. On BA, for example, there’s only one set of double seats per cabin. It also is downright painful, by the way, to book your yearly salary worth of plane tickets in one blink.
But I miss first class. Flame me for being a hideous snob, but I didn’t fly coach until I was an adult and it was a RUDE awakening. Up until that point, I had no idea why people hated airplanes so much.