Cathay Pacific Is Tweaking Its Champagne Service To Make Vintage Krug Taste Better [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • IHG One Rewards is offering cobrand cardmembers 15% off award redemptions booked by April 5 for stays through May 12, 2023. Platinum and Diamond members gain access to the sale starting Monday. . If you’ve got close-in travel to book that’s a nice offer.

  • Why Cathay Pacific redesigned its first class champagne glasses. They’re currently serving 2004 vintage Krug up front.

    [T]he flute’s narrow opening inhibits expression of Champagne’s distinct flavours and aromas, because there’s less surface area exposed to that oxygen and its interaction with Champagne.

    …Riedel created a line of elegant crystal hybrids combining the best attributes of a flute and a white wine glass to bring out the best of vintage Champagne.

    “So since Krug is our signature, and we also serve other very high quality vintage Champagnes as well, we actually changed our glasses when we relaunched first class,” says Lo, with Cathay now pouring Champagnes in first class into one of Riedel’s new designs.


    NV Krug in Cathay Pacific First Class With Pre-Pandemic Champagne Glass

  • Someone needs to make this happen.

  • Many airlines won’t short-check your bags, sending them just to your connecting city – except when you don’t want them to.

  • World’s first 3D printed hotel set to open in Texas

  • Lincoln, Nebraska airport sees around 300 passengers per day. It manages to maintain service to Chicago, Denver, and Houston. And now it’s getting its own airline, offering roughly 350 more seats per day to Orlando, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis, Austin and Nashville. Not daily, sure, and they’re subsidized. But… huh?

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Flutes have always been a terrible glass for Champagne. I’ve used white wine glasses for years when my Zalto isn’t available.

    Try it yourself: pour the same Champagne into a flute and a white wine glass and see which one tastes better. Note the newer lines of high end Champagne glasses from the usual suspects adopt this style.

  2. I’d love to try the new champagne glasses except Cathay isn’t opening up any first class award space.

  3. Kind of a moot point for most people reading these blogs. As if Cathay offer any Premium awards these days.

  4. Shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. The Hong Kong Government killed it’s national champion, just because it could.

    @Ryan, this is absolutely true that CX Premium awards are essentially unavailable to HKG or Asia, especially from eastern North America, through the end of schedule. This is almost as true. on JL. Yet American won’t let AAdvantage members redeem awards on partners to Asia heading east without redeeming two awards. This is now completely unacceptable and grossly unfair and has caused me to rethink my loyalty to American and AAdvantage – together with many other reasons.

Comments are closed.