Review: United Business Class 757-200 JFK to San Francisco

This flight was the first part of our epic US Airway’s award redemption, 180k for two people roundtrip to SE Asia (well, North Asia according to the US Airways phone agent). Again, we flew JFK – SFO – HKG (destination) – SIN (stopover) – TPE – JFK, all in business class for 90k US Air miles each, flying 3 different products – United BusinessFirst, Singapore (old) business class, and EVA Royal Laurel.

 

We took an Amtrak from 30th St. Station in Philly (ZFV) to Penn Station in NYC, then Uber’ed to Comfort Inn JFK, a night at which I booked on Travelpony for $39 (after using signup credit). We awoke at 7am for a 9am takeoff. After a quick shuttle to the terminal, we whisked quickly through security and went right to the gate (it took us longer than I predicted to get ready that morning). I guess we could’ve checked out the United lounge quickly, but it only got 2/4 stars on Loungebuddy, although Modhop had a more favorable experience.

 

My wife and don’t usually fly business class, so we both still get somewhat of a giddy feeling when walking to the special boarding line and after boarding turning to the RIGHT and not the left. We were two of the first ones onboard, and were greeted by this:

 

I’ve read a couple negative reviews about this route, but we had a really solid crew. The seats were comfortable, although being 6’1” I couldn’t quite get comfortable when laying completely flat (my 5’3” wife was perfectly ensconced in her seat). The seat controls, and inflight media controls were both intuitive and easy to use, and it seemed to have a decent movie selection (although we both slept). Meal service came quickly after takeoff, and included a decent omelet, fresh warm croissant w/ good butter, really fresh fruit, yogurt and sausage. For airline food, we were both highly pleased.

I convinced my wife to try to get into HKG timezone quickly (especially since we were flying to the West), and as their time zone is 12 hours prior to ours, our flight left at 9pm HKG time. To achieve that end, we both took 5mg of melatonin, and both conked out shortly after breakfast service was done. We didn’t really experience the in-flight experience, as we slept for 4 hours in the middle of the flight; however, the first and last hour were very nice, and contrary to what I’ve read online about their transcon service and food. We had a delightful landing at SFO, and thankfully were right on time, because we had less than an hour before our next flight, SFO – HKG. To be continued…